Whale defenders in court to stop hunt

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134446443_webwhale01.html

Wednesday, May 01, 2002 - 05:38 p.m. Pacific

 

Anti-whaling activists ask judge to stop hunt

 

By Elizabeth Murtaugh

The Associated Press

 

 

SEATTLE - Anti-whaling activists filed an emergency request in federal court

today, asking a judge to bar the Makah tribe from again setting out on a

hunt for gray whales.

The motion for a temporary restraining order came a day after the tribe's

attorney told The Fund for Animals that a whaling permit could be granted as

early as Thursday, according to Michael Markarian, vice president of the New

York-based organization.

 

" We are hoping the court would move on this motion immediately and grant us

some sort of relief so irreparable harm does not take place, " Markarian

said.

 

The temporary restraining order that whaling opponents are requesting would

last 10 days - the same window of time a whaling permit from the Makah

Tribal Council would give a group of hunters to kill a gray whale, said Kim

Ockene, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney representing The Fund for Animals.

 

Several calls to the Tribal Council and the tribe's attorney, John Arum,

were not immediately returned today, but a spokeswoman for the Northwest

Indian Fisheries Commission defended the tribe's right to whale.

 

" The courts have continually held that the treaty rights stand, " said Debbie

Preston, a coastal information officer in the commission's Forks office.

 

The Fund for Animals, one of several environmental and animal-welfare groups

suing the federal government over the Makah whale hunt, sought a preliminary

injunction against the hunt two weeks ago.

 

A preliminary injunction would last longer than a temporary restraining

order. It seeks to prevent the Makah from hunting whales while a lawsuit

challenging the tribe's right to whale makes its way through the courts.

 

A hearing on the injunction request had been scheduled for Friday, but was

postponed after the case was transferred from a federal judge in Seattle to

U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess in Tacoma, who presided over previous

lawsuits challenging the whale hunt.

 

The Makah's right to whale is outlined in their 1855 treaty. The tribe moved

to resume the hunt when the whales were taken off the Endangered Species

List in 1994.

 

After making their case to the International Whaling Commission, Makah

whalers were allocated 20 whales through 2002 - no more than five per year.

They killed one, on May 17, 1999, their first in more than 70 years.

 

Preston, who works with the Makah and several other Western Washington

tribes, criticized opponents of the whale hunt, saying: " They've gone

through every possible hoop imaginable and people keep trying to create new

ones. ... It's such a small effort and it means so much to them as a tribe. "

 

In the spring of 2000, a federal judge suspended whaling and ordered the

National Marine Fisheries Service to conduct a new, more comprehensive

environmental assessment. That study, issued last July, cleared the hunts to

resume.

 

It also expanded whaling territory to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Under the

previous regulations, whaling was allowed only near the tip of the Olympic

Peninsula, off the Makah reservation.

 

That second study also declared the Makah could hunt both migrating gray

whales and those that spend much of their time along the Washington coast.

 

A lawsuit The Fund for Animals and other groups filed in January challenges

the expanded hunt, calling the studies that reopened the hunt inadequate.

 

Whaling opponents allege the fisheries service and the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Association violated the National Environmental Policy Act and

the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allows only Alaska tribes to hunt

whales.

 

Brian Gorman, spokesman for the fisheries service, has countered that the

government's studies clearly show that allowing the Makah to hunt no more

than five gray whales per year from a population of about 26,000 would not

threaten the species.

 

2002 The Seattle Times Company

 

 

 

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