Makah may hunt for whales in calmer waters

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134317928_whale14m.html

Saturday, July 14, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

 

Makah hunt for whales may enter new waters

 

By Ross Anderson

Seattle Times staff reporter

 

Makah whalers could resume and even expand their hunt for gray whales later

this summer under an environmental assessment released yesterday by federal

authorities.

 

The court-ordered assessment increases the Makah's whaling territory.

Previously limited to the open ocean, the government will now allow the

tribe to take gray whales any time of the year and in the Strait of Juan de

Fuca - far more convenient to their home port of Neah Bay, Clallam County.

 

" We could not make an argument against restricting the hunt, " said Brian

Gorman, spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal

agency that oversees the hunt.

 

Critics, who had sued in federal court to require the environmental

assessment, promptly criticized the fisheries service's conclusion.

 

" The U.S. government has rolled over to every Makah request over five

years, " said Will Anderson, spokesman for Earth Island Institute, an

environmental group opposed to the hunt.

 

" It's sad to see they are going after the resident whales. "

 

Three years ago, the Makahs resumed their traditional whale hunt after a

70-year hiatus. They received a green light from the fisheries service,

which concluded that the tribe had a treaty-protected right to hunt whales

and that the gray whale population, estimated at about 23,000, is no longer

endangered.

 

At every chance demonstrators harassed the tribe, mostly from the fringes of

its reservation in the northwest corner of Washington state. In early 1999,

the tribe shot and killed a gray whale, then butchered it and distributed

the meat within the reservation.

 

Animal-rights groups had sued the government, and the federal courts ruled

that the fisheries service had erred by allowing the hunt to proceed without

a formal environmental assessment. Meanwhile, the hunt had been suspended.

 

Central to the debate is the issue of " resident whales. " Most gray whales

spend the summer months feeding in the Bering Sea, then migrate down the

coast to calving lagoons off Mexico's Baja Peninsula for the winter. Each

spring they make the return trip.

 

But some scientists contend there is a distinct population of gray whales

that stay in Northwest waters, and that these must be protected from Makah

harpoons.

 

The new assessment says there is no biological reason to restrict the hunt

to the whales' migration period or to the open ocean.

 

Expanding the hunt into the strait is based on " new scientific evidence that

relatively small feeding groups of gray whales in the strait regularly mix

and breed with the much larger ocean-based population, " the fisheries

service said yesterday.

 

That change allows the whaling crews to hunt in the somewhat calmer waters

of the strait, said Makah attorney John Arum. " If there is a separate

resident stock, (the fisheries service) has concluded that it would not be

affected by this kind of harvest. "

 

The Makahs and fisheries service now must negotiate a new agreement, which

should take a few weeks, Arum said. Once that agreement is signed, the tribe

could resume whaling as soon as late next month or September, he said.

 

Anderson, however, warned that another lawsuit is likely. The International

Whaling Commission will meet soon in London, he said, and critics will be

there to argue against the Makah hunt.

 

" We'll be looking for opportunities to hold the U.S. government responsible

for upholding international law, " he said.

 

 

Ross Anderson can be reached at 206-464-2061 or randerson.

 

 

 

2001 The Seattle Times Company