The Gray Whale and the Makah People
Duel Pawns in a Continuing Power Play

In 1999 the Makah tribe successfully ventured onto the open ocean and took a mature gray whale for the first time in seventy years. They celebrated this accomplishment as a cultural triumph. They distributed the products of their whale among the Neah Bay community and preserved its skeleton for display in the tribal cultural center in the middle of town. Since that time, further hunts have been thwarted by legal maneuvers of the protectionist community, who regarded that hunt as a glaring loss in a string of victories against legal, traditional resource use.

At this time, the Makah tribe is under orders not to whale again until NOAA and they together submit to the Federal Court a plan to complete an environmental assessment of the impact of further hunts, and a request for a waiver of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. There is no scientifically justified reason why the Makah hunt would be a threat to gray whales. The species is more than fully recovered from historic overexploitation. The species is now perhaps even over extended in its habitat, as in past years some 300 animals have washed up onshore, exhibiting evidence of starvation. Their stomachs were empty and their blubber was woefully thin. Those deaths and strandings appear to have abated for the time being.

The Makah people were granted aboriginal subsistence whaling status by the IWC, on the basis of their demonstrated cultural and nutritional need. They complied with the ASW requirement that the products of their whale be consumed entirely in the local community. There was no commercial use of the animal or trade with anyone outside the community, although some other aboriginal subsistence whaling communities sometimes send their excess product to markets inside the country. No laws were broken by the Makah, but an animal rights network has sued to prevent further hunts on the basis of the restrictions of the MMPA.

IWC scientists predict that the environmental assessment of the effects of the hunt of five animals a year under the IWC program shall demonstrate no adverse impact on the stock. The so-called resident grays that hang near the coast in the Strait of Juan de Fuca are being avoided by the Makah, simply because these animals were the hang-up that the protectionists wanted to use to stop further hunts. They claimed those animals constituted a separate, endangered stock. When the 1999 hunt took place, the canoe swung out into the open Pacific, and took a migrating animal, thus avoiding the allegedly separate stock entirely. By heading into the open sea, the Makah people also avoided the legions of press and the bullies on the Sea Shepherd vessel, so that their sacred hunt was not tainted by the cameras and the bullhorns and the hoopla of "civilized" outsiders.

The Treaty of Neah Bay gave the Makah people the right to take whales and seals forever. The precedents in case law up to now have always given primacy to treaties over conflicting domestic law. We at IWMC wish the Makah people the very best as they cooperate with the US government in their quest to continue their cultural traditions in the manner intended. They will do no harm to the whales or to the environment in this traditional hunt and they have the IWC aboriginal subsistence whaling regime's agreement of their need. Good Luck to the Makah Nation and to their Neah Bay community as they go forward in a respectful, patient manner to secure the rights that are theirs.