November 15, 2019 — More than two decades ago, Makah tribal members killed a 30-foot gray whale in the waters off the Olympic Peninsula amid bitter protests from animal-welfare activists.
The tribal hunt in May 1999 touched off a protracted legal battle that on Thursday took center stage inside a Seattle federal building.
The proceedings over the tribe’s treaty right to hunt gray whales are expected to last more than a week in the courtroomlike setting.
Opponents have raised concerns about the impacts of climate change on the eastern North Pacific gray population, while the tribe hopes Administrative Law Judge George Jordan will recommend a waiver to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The Makah, whose lands are on the northwest tip of Washington, have the right to hunt whales through their 1855 treaty with the U.S. government. Tribal whaling advocates hailed the 1999 hunt as an important renewal of a tradition that helps define the Makah. But opponents have so far blocked, through court and regulatory challenges, the tribe from conducting more federally approved hunts.