Ocean Sentry
(from The Seattle Times) Seattle – The federal Fisheries Service is holding a public hearing in Seattle on the Makah Indian tribe”s request for a permit to hunt gray whales.
The 6:30 p.m. Monday hearing at the Lake Union Park Armory is one of three the National Marine Fisheries Service is holding on a draft of a whaling impact statement. Others are in Port Angeles and Silver Springs, Md.
The draft discusses a harvest of up to 20 whales in a five-year period with restrictions on the timing and locations in the Strait of Juan de Fuca (FEW”-kuh) near the reservation at Neah Bay.
The tribe has a treaty right to whaling and killed its first whale in 70 years in 1999. But the Makah did not have permission for the whale killed in September by five tribal members.
