Court Rules Against Makah Whaling
A federal appeals court Friday overturned the ruling that allowed Washington state's Makah Indians to resume whaling for the first time in more than 70 years.
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the environmental impact had not been adequately considered.
The case now goes back to federal court in Tacoma, Wash., for additional proceedings, including a new environmental assessment to be done by the government.
Tribal officials in Neah Bay, Wash., could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Makah had hunted whales for generations until the 1920s, when commercial whaling decimated the whale population. But the tribe moved to resume the hunt after gray whales were removed from the Endangered Species List in 1994.
"Whaling has been a tradition of the Makah for more than 2000 years," reads a statement on the tribal website. "We would like to restore the meat of the whale to our diet. Many of us also believe that problems besetting our young people stem from lack of discipline and pride. We believe that the restoration of whaling will help to restore that discipline and pride."
The Makah, claiming whaling rights under an 1855 treaty, hunted and killed a gray whale in 1999, after a federal judge rejected a challenge from environmentalists.
This year the hunts were being conducted by individual Makah families, as tradition dictates, who pursued the animals in canoes equipped with harpoons and a large-caliber hunting rifle. The rifle would be used to quickly dispatch the animal after it was speared.
In April, a jet-skiing protester was stuck and injured by a Coast Guard boat as she tried to prevent Makah tribesmen from conducting a hunt.
Anti-whaling activists have complained that the Makah hunt could open the door to a worldwide renewal of commercial whaling.
Tony Meyer of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission said the Makah (pronounced maw-KAW) have not killed a whale this year, and that the season for whaling is winding down because the whales' annual northward migration is coming to an end.
The International Whaling Commission had allocated the Makah 20 whales through 2004 and a maximum of five per year.
Biologists estimate 26,000 gray whales migrate each year between the waters off Alaska and Mexico.
The decision reinstates a lawsuit filed by Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Wash., sending it back before U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess.
Metcalf has called the hunt the "first ste toward returning to the terrible commercial exploitation" of whales.
Burgess had dismissed arguments from the congressman and animal rights groups that the environmental assessment for the hunt was inadequate.