Commission approves renewed gray whale hunting by Makahs

Commission approves renewed gray whale hunting by Makahs

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Story Published: May 30, 2007 at 7:06 PM PDT

Story Updated: May 30, 2007 at 7:06 PM PDT

By Associated Press

PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) - The Makah Tribe of Washington state has won approval by the International Whaling Commission for renewed subsistence hunting of gray whales, although the issue remains tied up in the courts.

The panel, meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, voted Tuesday to allow the Makahs to kill up to 20 whales in the next five years.

Subsistence hunts also were approved for aboriginal groups in Alaska and Russia.

The tribe still needs a waiver from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act before conducting another gray whale hunt, so commission approval was largely a symbolic victory, Tribal Council member Micah McCarty told radio station KONP of Port Angeles.

In the commission-sanctioned resumption of a centuries-old tribal tradition in 1999, the Makahs killed their first gray whale in 70 years. After two unsuccessful family hunts in 2000, the issue became ensnarled in legal wrangling.

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