Nov. 17 (UPI) — The Makah Tribe may soon resume its cultural tradition of whaling off the Washington coast after a nearly two-decade exchange with the federal government to hammer out the logistics.
On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report identifying seven proposed actions that would allow the tribe to continue its treaty right to hunt gray whales.
The preferred action, as proposed by NOAA, waives the Marine Mammal Protection Act for tribe to harvest whales with an alternating winter-spring and summer-fall hunt season that would expire after decade and allow no more than 25 whales to be taken. The tribe would have to get permission before each hunt. The review period for NOAA’s proposals ends Dec. 18.
The tribe considers whales and whaling central to its culture dating back 2,000 years. In 1855, the tribe ceded thousands of acres to the U.S. government with explicit rights to continue whale hunting under the Treaty of Neah Bay. By the 1920s, with commercial whaling severely reducing the whale population, NOAA put a stop to all whale hunts. The whales were removed from the Endangered Species list in 1994. The tribe hasn’t had a legally authorized hunt since 1999, which was the first in 70 years.
In 2007, five members of the Makah Tribe were arrested in connection to an illegal hunt that left a gray whale dead. A year later, the tribe asked for federal permission to resume its whale hunts.