US suppressed opposition to Makah hunt at IWC

[Guest guest]

SEA SHEPHERD INTERNATIONAL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 21, 2000

 

U.S. SUPPRESSING OPPOSITION TO MAKAH WHALE HUNT

- NMFS Chief pressured, misled whaling commission delegates

 

In the wake of the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in

Australia earlier this month, it has come to light that the United States,

seeking to avoid embarrassing and legally troubling questions about the

manner in which the U.S. approved the gray whale hunt by the Makah Indian

tribe of Washington State, has exerted pressure on IWC member nations to

keep silent on the issue.

 

Concerns over the hunt have been increasing both as a point of law and as a

troubling precedent for " cultural subsistence " whaling.

 

" At a meeting of 'like-minded' IWC member nations in Vienna, Austria, last

May, Michael Tillman, Deputy Commissioner of the National Marine Fisheries

Service and head of the US delegation to the IWC, explicitly told

anti-whaling IWC nations that the U.S. would appreciate it if the matter of

the Makah hunt was not brought up again until 2002 when the gray whale quota

is up for renewal, " said Katy Penland, president of the American Cetacean

Society. " The like-minded delegates told Tillman they would agree to this in

view of past US support on various issues. "

 

" The U.S. bullying the rest of the delegations into inaction is

indefensible. The Administration has made it clear it does not want to put

an American Indian treaty up against international conservation law and

simply caved in to the threat of litigation from the Makah by giving them a

permit to hunt rather than comply with IWC regulations and our own national

environmental policies. "

 

At the Australia meeting subsequently, the Makah hunt was brought up only

once: Prior to the IWC plenary session, the Swedish delegation ventured to

ask the U.S. how the Makah could know they were targeting migratory whales

and not whales resident to a local area of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, a

violation of their hunt management agreement. The US delegation replied that

the hunt and kill took place several miles off shore and was not in areas

where resident whales are found. Neither statement is true.

 

President Clinton replaced Tillman as U.S. Commissioner to the IWC four days

after the close of the IWC meeting.

 

" We have been saying the Makah whale hunt is illegal since the day the U.S.

secured it by violating international law in October 1997, " said Captain

Paul Watson, president of Sea Shepherd International. " The behavior of the

U.S. Administration before and during the last IWC meeting was unmistakable:

They were the actions of somebody with something to hide. "

 

 

 

Sea Shepherd International

P.O. Box 2616

Friday Harbor, WA 98250

(360) 370-5500

http://www.seashepherd.org

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