Dori: Makah Tribe claims it needs to kill gray whales for ‘subsistence’

Back in 1999, I extensively covered the effort by the Makah Tribe to hunt a gray whale. It was horrifying. The more I researched it, the more horrifying I found it to be.

They are relying on an 1855 treaty that says to stay in touch with cultural heritage, they should be allowed to go out and kill gray whales. Through that process, back in 1999 when I was covering this, I found out just how horrific the process of hunting a whale is.

I goof around all the time about the governor’s billion dollars for whales, but all jokes aside, they are beautiful, sentient creatures. And they’re so huge that any taking of a whale is brutal, slow, and agonizing.

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Back in 1999, the Makah Tribe did that while I was on the air. I watched the terrible play-by-play while on the air as they towed the creature to the beach.

They told us it was to stay in touch with the mystical heritage of their ancestry.

I saw teenagers standing on the back of the poor whale doing backflips onto the beach. It didn’t look that sacred to me.

The Makah Tribe now wants to hunt gray whales again. They requested to NOAA that they be allowed to kill two gray whales a year for “ceremonial and subsistence purposes.”

Really? In 2019, you still have to kill whales for subsistence? I had no idea that there were no grocery stores on the peninsula.

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