SEATTLE (AP) — Federal officials are supporting a decades-long request by the Makah Tribe on the Olympic Peninsula to resume what would be the only authorized whale hunts in the mainland U.S., a long-held custom that animal rights activists oppose.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today announced its proposal to allow the Makah tribe to hunt one to three gray whales annually over a 10-year period off the Washington coast.
NOAA Fisheries spokesman Michael Millstein explained to KONP what happens next.
We asked Makah Tribal Councilman Patrick DePoe if he was feeling optimistic about today’s announcement.
Though the Makah are guaranteed whaling rights under their 1855 treaty with the U.S., they stopped hunting voluntarily in the 1920s after commercial whaling decimated gray whales. The tribe sought to resume hunts after the species was removed from the federal endangered species list in 1994.