The Makah tribe in Washington state in northwestern USA has received federal approval to hunt a limited number of Eastern North Pacific gray whales off the state’s coast, according to reports on science news website phys.org and news portal dnyuz.com. The tribe, with only about 3,000 members, will be allowed to harvest up to 25 whales over the next decade, the reports said.
The decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to allow a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act marks a significant victory for the tribe, whose whaling rights are protected under the Treaty of Neah Bay of 1855. The treaty explicitly permits the Makah, who live on a reservation in the remote northwestern part of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, to hunt whales. Leaders of the tribe say the practice is central to their cultural and subsistence traditions.
The tribe was earlier allowed to hunt the animals in 1999, after a gap of over seven decades, and one whale was killed amid an uproar by conservationists and animal rights activists, with the reservation put under a security blanket after receiving bomb threats, but the following year a federal appeals court halted the hunts, saying the environmental impact of the decision had not been adequately considered.
The approval this time comes with stringent regulations and monitoring requirements to ensure that the whaling activities do not adversely affect the gray whale population. The measures include time and area restrictions, harvest limits, and protocols for using the whale parts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the tribe must agree on the specifics of each hunting expedition, and the tribe must secure a hunting permit for each season.
Conservation groups have opposed the approval and expressed concern about potential risks to whale populations, particularly in other gray whale pods. The gray whale population along the West Coast of the USA is currently estimated at between 17,400 and 21,300 individuals. Officials of the oceanic administration have stated that the permitted hunt represents a tiny fraction of this population and is unlikely to affect the species as a whole.
The gray, or grey, whale is a baleen whale, scientific name Eschrichtius robustus, that migrates annually between its feeding and breeding grounds. It can reach a length of 14.9m, weigh up to 41 tonnes, and live for up to 70 years, according to the Wikipedia entry for the animal.
The Makah tribe emphasizes that whaling is essential to its cultural heritage and community health, helping to reconnect younger generations with traditional practices and improve their diet by reintroducing traditional food sources. The tribe plans to use traditional cedar canoes with paddles and a harpoon to snare the target whale before using a high-powered rifle to end its life swiftly.
The USA outlawed whaling more than 50 years ago because many species had been hunted to the edge of extinction. Since then, the population of the Eastern North Pacific gray whales has made a comeback, and the species was removed from the endangered list in 1994. But it continues to be protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Interestingly, a little over three months ago, in an incredibly rare event, an aerial survey team of the New England Aquarium sighted a gray whale off the New England coast. The species had been hunted to extinction in the Atlantic Ocean over 200 years ago.
