Native American tribe wins U.S. waiver to resume hunting Pacific gray whales

[June 14, 2024]  By Jonathan Allen
 
(Reuters) - After a decades-long struggle, a Native American tribe won the right to resume its hunting traditions off Washington state's coast when federal regulators granted a waiver on Thursday allowing the Makah people to hunt up to 25 gray whales over a decade.

As part of its 1855 treaty with the U.S. government, the Makah Tribe secured the right to continue hunting whales, a tradition it describes as at the heart of their spiritual beliefs and practices. But the practice was stymied by 20th-century conservation measures.

In 2002, a federal court ruled that the tribe must secure a waiver of a moratorium on whale hunting under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

On Thursday, after decades of litigation, environmental reviews, criminal prosecutions of tribal hunters, public meetings and discussions with federal authorities and the International Whaling Commission, the U.S. government granted the waiver.

"The measures adopted today honor the Makah tribe's treaty rights and their cultural whaling tradition that dates back well over 1,000 years, and is fundamental to their identity and heritage," Janet Coit, assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said in a statement.

The waiver allows the tribe "a limited subsistence and ceremonial hunt" of up to 25 Eastern North Pacific gray whales over a 10-year period, though the tribe must sign agreements and receive a permit from the Fisheries department prior to every hunt. They will be able to hunt no more than two to three whales in a single year under International Whaling Commission quotas.

Makah Tribal Council Chairman Timothy Greene, Sr. said securing the waiver took an unjustly long time, but the tribe was celebrating Thursday's decision.

"Whaling remains central to the identity, culture, subsistence, and spirituality of the Makah people, and we regard the Gray Whale as sacred," he said in a statement. "In the time since our last successful hunt in 1999, we have lost many elders who held the knowledge of our whaling customs, and another entire generation of Makahs has grown up without the ability to exercise our Treaty right."

The Eastern North Pacific gray whale was removed from the Endangered Species Act list in 1994. NOAA Fisheries estimates that the population has grown to 19,000 gray whales, based on 2023-2024 surveys.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by David Gregorio)

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