It wasn’t so long ago that animal rights activists were touting a 9th District Court ruling in the Makah whaling controversy as a big victory. Over the weekend, however, this “victory” turned into an outright disaster for such groups.
Provisions in a 19th century treaty between the Makah and the United States guarantee them the right to hunt whales. The Makah voluntarily stopped hunting after whales started to become endangered, but after the gray whale was removed from the endangered species list, the Makah successfully persuaded the International Whaling Commission to allow them to resume limited whaling. They were allowed to hunt up to 20 whales through 2002 with numerous restrictions on how the whales could be hunted.
Animal rights activists protested and filed a lawsuit in the 9th District Court. The activists argued that the whaling agreement was improper because the National Marine Fisheries Service had never conducted a written assessment of the impact of Makah whaling on the gray whale population.
The Court agreed, and ordered the NMFS to conduct such an assessment. The results of that assessment were released over the weekend and it turned out to be a disaster for the activists. The assessment concluded that the gray whale population was stable and healthy such that some of the original restrictions placed on the Makah were not reasonable.
For example, in the original agreement the Makah were limited to hunting only during the Fall and Spring when the gray whale is in the process of migrating to and from Mexico. The new assessment concludes that “there is no biological reason” for such restrictions and the Makah should be allowed to hunt year round.
The assessment of the gray whale population also concluded that there are about 26,000 of the animals, which may be as high as the population ever has been since the beginning of commercial whaling in the mid-18th century. That will further undercut the activist claim that the Makah harvesting of a small number of whales would be harmful to whale populations.
Now the fight will almost certainly return back to protests and “direct action” by activists trying to stop the Makah from hunting whales. Previous protests were marked by the chanting of racist slogans and letters to the editor denouncing the Makah as “savages” for returning to their cultural heritage of whale hunting — not to mention firing flares at Makah hunters in canoes.
The tribe did manage to kill a whale on May 17, 1999, and the whale meat and blubber consumed eaten at a large ceremony involving thousands of Native Americans, who see the issue less in animal rights terms but rather in terms of treaty rights which have a long history of not being honored by the U.S. government.
Source:
‘Resident’ gray whales now fair game for Makah. Paul Shukovsky and Mike Barber, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 14, 2001.
Government reaffirms tribal whaling rights. Associated Press, July 13, 2001.