Guest guest Posted April 16, 2002 Report Share Posted April 16, 2002 ===== A message from the 'makahwhaling' discussion list ===== FROM WASHINGTON CITIZENS' COASTAL ALLIANCE --------------------------- There are hints, nudges and winks. And then there are complete and dramatic paradigm shifts. We believe we are witnessing one in the following article, this one from today's Seattle Times. If you want to see this article, as there are pictures and other features with the story, go to: www.seattletimes.com We'll see where this one takes us, folks, but it sure is interesting! ***** MAKAH LEADERS SAY MORE PRESSING NEEDS THAN WHALE HUNTS FACE THEIR PEOPLE --------------------------- By Lynda V. Mapes Seattle Times staff reporter April 15, 2002 NEAH BAY - Beyond the shore break, where Pacific currents run cold and deep, the gray whales are back, plowing northward to summer feeding grounds in the Bering Sea. For the Makah who chased the behemoths three years ago and killed one, the spring migration is stirring passions for another tribal hunt. But even as the grays meander in near-shore waters, no whaling permits have been issued this year. It's an open question whether a hunt will even take place this spring. Not only has a new slate of Makah council leaders slashed funding for whaling - arguing other needs are more pressing - the federal government says it has no plans to help pay for another hunt. The office of the Makah Whaling Commission is shuttered. Its budget: zero. In contrast, the first hunt was championed and bankrolled in part by the government and the tribal council. When a 30-foot gray finally was towed into the bay in May 1999, the tribe's first in more than 70 years, schools closed so that students could witness the historic event. An outpouring of tribal unity and cultural pride erupted. The whale meat was divided up and consumed. But the financial and operational support that sustained the first hunt has eroded, leaving some Makahs to wonder if their tribe's tradition is again imperiled. " We are fighting our own people, " said tribal elder Helma Ward, 83. " I don't want to lose our roots. I've seen that happen and I don't want it to happen again. " To be sure, the tribal council wants to ensure the Makahs' treaty right to hunt gray whales remains protected. But actually landing a whale on the beach is not on this council's to-do list. " It's not so much the whaling; we are securing the treaty right. That is the big difference, " said David Lawrence, the tribal-council member charged with handling the whaling issue. Whaling is now a private family matter, Lawrence said, like any other treaty-protected hunting or fishing activity. No longer will it be a government-financed program. Lawrence sees the change as a return to tradition, not a rebuff. " This is the way it was. Families put themselves in the position to do this. They paid for it, they equipped themselves, that was the tradition. " Council members don't even like to talk about whaling. " I just think this thing kind of got out of control, " said Tribal Chairman Gordon Smith. " It is not so much an everyday issue, " Smith said of whaling. " It is just another issue among others. It is really up to what these (whaling) families are doing and what their plans are. It is just really not something that we are paying too much attention to. " I just think right now the elected members of the tribal council want to go in a direction where we prioritize things where we create jobs and opportunities for people, " Smith said. " We are a small government with so much responsibility; we have a lot on our plate. " Indeed: The tribe's fresh-water supply is nearly depleted and a new source must be secured. Facing an unemployment rate of 50 percent, the Makahs sorely need economic development and jobs. Public safety, drug enforcement, programs for youth and even tourism all are on the council's agenda. Smith said plans are under discussion to add a boardwalk to the beach trail at Shi Shi, creating better public access through the reservation to the nearby Olympic National Park beaches. The council also has opened the tribe's first parks and recreation office, and dreams of visitor amenities such as campgrounds, a motel, bank and gas station. Filling the man-eating potholes and paving the rugged gravel roads to popular beaches and viewpoints are other goals. The shift in priorities is big. In 1998, as the tribe geared up for the hunt, the tribal council shelled out about $50,000 for a potlatch to celebrate the restored treaty right to whale. One tribal member was paid $18 an hour for four months to head up the hunt. And thousands of dollars were spent on high-caliber weapons and other whaling equipment, boat fuel, maintenance and repairs. Not anymore. The federal government also has withdrawn financial support for Makah whaling, totaling $360,000 since 1996, though none was spent to actually kill a whale, said Brian Gorman, spokesman of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The government plowed $200,000 into Makah whaling in 1996; $60,000 in 1997; and $75,000 in 1998. The money paid to send delegations to represent the tribe before the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Monaco, Dublin, and London; to determine a humane whale-killing method; to monitor the 1999 hunt; and to hire a tribal biologist. The federal government gave the tribe $25,000 more last month to pay for an upcoming trip to Japan to appear before the IWC, but no other aid is contemplated, Gorman said. It just turned down the tribe's request for additional staff and for a boat costing more than $1 million. The withdrawal of financial support, especially by their own tribal council, has stung whalers involved in the first hunt. They say it will be harder to pull off a hunt without the financial and organizational help of their government. " This is a treaty right, and it should be supported with tribal dollars. It's not just for the whalers, it's for the people. Why isn't this being carried forward with the full energy of the government? " said Keith Johnson president of the Makah Whaling Commission and a former council member. Johnson said he was voted off the council after the first hunt amid criticism that the council had spent too much time and money on whaling. " It was really clear that whaling was the dead horse, " he said. Wayne Johnson, captain of the first whale hunt, also sees a sea change in attitude. " It's like we are on the back burner. We are left behind, " Johnson said. " This council has done more damage to us than Sea Shepherd (protesters) ever did. Next month it will be three years since we got the whale. People have lost interest. We need to have a few more whales on the beach to keep it alive. " At least three families are interested in a hunt this spring, and two are actively training. Some whalers would dearly love to get a whale onto the beach before the tribe's six-person delegation to the IWC goes to Japan next month to try to secure a new hunting quota of 20 whales that could be taken from 2003 through 2008. In some ways, the tribe's path to another whale is clearer than before: Burdensome federal restrictions on when and where whalers can hunt have been largely lifted; a lawsuit seeking to block the hunts was won; and opposition from some animal-rights groups has faded. A second lawsuit is still pending, and opponents are expected today to file a restraining order in federal court in Seattle to block hunting. But other opponents have moved on. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society spent about $150,000 - more than 10 percent of its annual budget - staking out the first hunt. It stationed two vessels just outside the breakwater of the tribal marina for weeks on end, harassing hunters as they stalked the grays. But Sea Shepherd's sights have shifted. " Right now I look at the Makah hunt as a distraction, " said Paul Watson, leader of the conservation group. " It's a local issue. " The society donated a Zodiac boat and motor to a local opposition group but has committed itself to other causes. The Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), another loud and persistent voice of opposition during the first hunt, won't be back in Neah Bay with bullhorns this year, in part because the Neah Bay campaign was misinterpreted as a slur against treaty rights. " A lot of debate ended up never being about the whales; it ended up being about Native rights, " said Richard Huffman director of advocacy and outreach for PAWS. " When you get involved in an issue that gets painted in different terms that you can't control, it becomes an issue you want to move beyond. " Protesters from the local area are still wary of a hunt happening this year, which they face with particular dread because of the new open season on whales that hug the near-shore area. A small population - about 250 of the 26,000 gray whales that migrate from the Far North to Baja birthing lagoons - sometimes gather to feed in near-shore waters from Northern California to Southeast Alaska, using the same feeding area heavily for a year or two before moving on. Popularly known as " resident " whales, these grays are particularly beloved by some local animal-rights activists who have even paid $35 a whale to the Cascadia Research of Olympia to " adopt " them. Science so far shows no true separate population of " resident " whales exists. But that hasn't stopped activists like Margaret Owens of Joyce, Clallam County, from becoming attached to them. Some are named: Buddy II, Gracie, Hope, Freedom, Spot, Kelpy and Karin; and have been " adopted " by the Peninsula Citizens for the Protection of Whales through the Cascadia program, Owens said. " We feel very protective of our whales, " Owens said. " We always wonder where they are and what they are doing. " They are just right here at a pebble's toss. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. I mean, what other animal thrills you just to watch it breathe? " The federal government has been aware of the special charisma of whales from the beginning of the hunt controversy. In 1999 and in 2000, the tribe was prohibited under its management agreement from targeting whales in the Straits of Juan de Fuca or near shore. It was a political decision that science couldn't support, said Pat Gearin of the National Marine Fisheries Service. " It was some politician's interpretation, to avoid the so-called 'friendly whales.' But there really was very little science behind it, and we were in an untenable position with the tribe, saying 'You can't hunt in your traditional time and area' without any scientific basis for that. " The restrictions that forced the tribe into the open ocean in the winter and spring to hunt - making a hunt far more dangerous - were finally dropped this year. No conservation issues will be raised should the tribe take another whale this spring, Gearin said. The gray-whale population is robust, even above historic levels. And they may yet prove an irresistible target. Arnie Hunter, vice chairman of the whaling commission, said he hopes to captain a hunt this year with members of his family, including Wayne Johnson, and Donnie Swan, who helped get the tribe's first whale to the boat after it was shot in 1999. " We are not quitters, " Swan said. ***** NOT SO FAST, GEARIN... Liar, fib teller or prevaricator? You decide! ----------------- " There are about 29 marine mammal species in the (Olympic Marine) Sanctuary, (including) a group of summer-resident gray whales. " Pat Gearin NMFS biologist January, 1996 ***** MEANWHILE, INUIT ARE PREPARING FOR ANNUAL WHALE HUNT --------------------- Monday, April 15, 2002 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS VANCOUVER, B.C. -- As Makah whale hunters and their attendant protesters gear up for another gray whale season off Washington's northwest coast, Inuit are quietly getting ready for their own whale hunt in Canada's north. Inuit in the eastern and western Arctic hunt about a thousand small whales each year, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The Inuvialuit and Nunavut people hunt 300 to 400 narwhals and hundreds of belugas. Six endangered bowhead whales have been killed since 1996 with permits from the Canadian Fisheries Department. " It's one of the traditional things that after 70, 80 years of being banned from harvesting, it's nice to get back to the system where a harvest our great-grandparents used to do, " said Ben Kovic of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board. The subsistence hunt is culturally and spiritually important, Kovic said. And while there was some opposition when Inuit first applied to resume the bowhead hunt in 1996, these days it largely goes unnoticed. But when the Makah take to the water this summer in hopes of killing their second gray whale since the hunt resumed, opponents promise they will be there to try to stop it. Whaling critics from Canada and the United States have already begun to gather near the easily accessible Neah Bay. The first protest took place Saturday, with about 40 people holding signs beside a roadway several miles from the reservation on Washington's northwest tip. The Makah, whose right to whale is outlined in their 1855 treaty, started whaling again in 1998 after a 70-year hiatus. The Makah killed a gray whale in May 1999. Family bands of hunters tried unsuccessfully in April and May 2000, and there was no whaling last year, while a court-ordered environmental assessment was under way. The assessment cleared the way for hunting to resume this year. Gray whales were removed from the federal endangered species list in 1994 and now number about 26,000 migrating between Mexico and the Bering Sea. Land claims settled with the Inuit include the right to hunt belugas and narwhals, but a permit is needed to hunt the endangered bowhead. Brian Wong, a spokesman for the Fisheries Department, said the northern Canada whale hunts are basically for food. " It's well-accepted that the Inuit, or the Eskimo both in Alaska and Russia and Canada, do rely on marine mammals for food, " Wong said. " There's much less of a controversy that way. " The isolated location is also a factor, he said. There are some small whale stocks that have been overhunted. Wong said the department and the Inuit are working together on a management plan. Kovic said the Inuit have strict guidelines governing conservation. One bowhead can be harvested every 13 years from the Baffin Bay population, which stands between 200 and 300 whales. One can be hunted from the 300 to 400 bowheads in the Fox Basin in northern Hudson Bay every two to three years. There is no hunting in whale groups whose populations are unknown, he said. The Canadian whale hunt pales in comparison to Alaskan aboriginals, who hunt about 50 bowheads a year, according to the Fisheries Department. But it is in Washington state that whaling opponents have taken their stand. " The arctic hunt is quite a bit different, " Wong said. " The primary difference is that it is true subsistence, that the native tribes that are living off it have actually been doing that all along and it is part of their food source that they count upon. " Michael Lawrence, a member of the Makah Tribal Council, said criticism of their hunt has dissipated since the tribe first took to the water in 1999. But they won't know what will happen until they put a boat in the water this summer. Lawrence said he doesn't know why the Makah have attracted such criticism when hunting in Canada's north goes relatively unnoticed. " I don't know what the difference is, " he said. Critics fear the Makah hunt has the potential to become commercial, with the tribe selling its catch. Not so, Lawrence said. " I have been here on the council for, I'm going into my second year, and that's never been brought up as even an option, " he said. ***** NOT SO FAST, LAWRENCE.... ------------- If commercial whaling has " never been brought up, " and you continue to state the Tribe has no interest in it, why not just come out publicly and tell everyone the Makah Tribe will not resume commercial whaling? Put your money where your mouth it! ***** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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