Whale harpooned and shot

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Tribe did not OK whale shooting Sun Sep 9, 5:24 PM ET

 

 

 

NEAH BAY, Wash. - The Makah Indian Tribe's whaling commission did not

authorize the killing of a gray whale that died after being harpooned

and shot several times in northwest Washington's Strait of Juan de

Fuca, a member of the tribal panel said.

 

 

 

" The commission had not reviewed this, " Chad Bowechop told the

Peninsula Daily News in a story that appeared Sunday.

 

The U.S. Coast Guard detained five men believed to have killed the

whale on Saturday, then turned them over to tribal police for further

questioning.

 

Tribal officials did not return calls from The Associated Press. The

tribe's chairman, Ben Johnson, told The Seattle Times that tribal

whalers were out practicing hunting skills Saturday in keeping with

their treaty rights to hunt whales.

 

Witnesses said the gray whale had been harpooned a few miles east of

Neah Bay and that five men on two small boats fired shots from what

sounded like a high-caliber rifle.

 

Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service,

said investigators are looking into whether the whale was killed

because it had become entangled in a fishing net.

 

The whale was headed toward the Pacific Ocean after being wounded and

later disappeared beneath the surface, dragging down buoys that had

been attached to a harpoon. A biologist for the tribe declared the

animal dead, Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said.

 

Coast Guard Petty Officer David Marin said his agency had no

information indicating the whale had gotten trapped in netting before

it was shot.

 

The men who killed the whale could face federal civil penalties of up

to $20,000 each, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the fisheries

service.

 

The federal government removed the gray whale from the endangered

species list in 1994. Five years later, with a permit from the

National Marine Fisheries Service, Makah tribal members killed their

first whale in seven decades.

 

Animal welfare activists sued, leading to a court order that the

tribe must obtain a waiver under the federal Marine Mammal Protection

Act to continue hunting whales.

 

On Sunday, the Humane Society of the United States and its

international arm called the killing " extremely disturbing " and

called for the government to cease its consideration of the Makah's

waiver request until a full investigation of the killing is complete.

 

John McCarty, a former tribal whaling commission member who has been

an advocate of the Makah's right to resume whaling, said the tribe

had been close to obtaining the waiver.

 

" I don't know why they did this. It's terrible, " McCarty told The

Times. " I think the anti-whalers will be after us in full force, and

we look ridiculous. Like we can't manage our own people, we can't

manage our own whale. "

 

The Makah Tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay.