WILDLIFE : Makah Tribe Seeks to Take to the Seas on the Trail of the Whale : Northwest Indians plan to gain international approval to resume hunt, the last one occurring in 1926. Some environmental groups protest move.

For 2,000 years the Makah tribe hunters pointed their long, ocean-going canoes into the sullen mists that hang over these waters, probing the dark waves with their harpoons for a whale’s big heart.

They called the gray whale “the devil fish” because, once wounded with the sharpened mussel shell point of a harpoon, it would rise up under the boat and bash its tail onto the sea--shattering and drowning all but the hardiest and hardest-praying of the hunters.

Back at the village, the whaler’s wife would lie wordless on the ground from the moment the canoe left shore until it returned, dragging the still-trembling body of a leviathan to be clubbed to a bloody finish on the smooth sand beach.

The last documented Makah whale hunt was in 1926, when armies of white whalers from the east joined the harpoon-wielding Indians and slaughtered the once plentiful herds into lumbering ghosts of history. The old canoes, except for a replica or two at the Makah museum, disappeared. The whale oil that lighted the coast from Oregon to Canada gave way to electricity. The Makah forgot even the taste of whale blubber on a spoon.

Then two weeks ago, Dan Greene checked his salmon net near the outer buoy at Neah Bay and found, tangled in the thick cork line and already quite dead, a gray whale. For decades, custom and practice have been to untangle and discard these incidentally caught whales, protected under a bevy of federal and international laws.

But instead, Greene called up the tribal elders and got them to praying. The fresh whale carcass was hauled onto shore on the Makah reservation, butchered and distributed to the 1,800 tribe members who call this windy tip of land at the northwest corner of the country home. People ate whale that day, 10 tons of it on the plate and in the freezer. Makah housewives have been scouring the town for old whale recipes.

“There are some elders who said this was our answer for whaling, that it’s time to go whaling again,” Greene said. “That this one gave itself up to let us see how much everybody wanted to do it.”

The Makah, the only Native American tribe that ever expressly reserved whaling rights in its treaty with the U.S. government, has announced its plan to seek international approval to begin a limited annual hunt of five gray whales as early as next year.

Some environmental groups fear U.S. backing of the Makah’s application could undermine opposition to outlaw whaling by such countries as Norway, Iceland and Japan--and further threaten a population of whales along the Pacific Coast that only recently was removed from endangered species status.

Even the Makah say it is likely that their proposal, if successful, will inspire Native American tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest to again take to the seas on the trail of the whale. Already, 13 Nuu-chah-nulth tribes of Vancouver Island, cousins to the Makah from across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, have launched treaty talks in Canada aimed at resuming whale hunting.

“We’re hearing rumblings that some of the tribes up in Alaska will want to start whaling, too. We know there are three in Washington that would like to. The 13 in Canada. We kind of figure there will be the domino effect,” said Denise Dailey, marine biologist for the Makah tribe. “Everybody’s kind of looking at us and saying, ‘See what you’ve caused?’ But as Makahs we always feel like we’re in the front of a lot of issues, especially when it comes to treaty rights.”

Whaling is the subject of an international ban except for a variety of exceptions around the world that have been granted to indigenous peoples for ceremonial and subsistence purposes. The Makah are seeking such an exemption from the International Whaling Commission, although in their application they have asserted that their treaty gives them automatic whaling rights, including commercial whaling activities, without seeking federal or international permission.

The National Marine Fisheries Service hasn’t yet taken a position on the application, which will be formally submitted at the IWC’s meeting next year. Greenpeace has elected not to oppose a limited hunt of five whales a year, which the environmental group believes does not pose as great a danger to the gray whale as do continuing threats to its habitat from offshore oil drilling, oil spills and proposed development near breeding lagoons in Mexico.

National Marine Fisheries Service marine mammal biologist Pat Gearin said the gray whale, which has reached a population of about 21,000 since it was dropped from the endangered species list in 1994, could survive a potential harvest of up to 230 whales a year.

The Marina del Rey-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has said it will attempt to physically block the hunt by stationing a 95-foot patrol boat off Neah Bay if it goes forward.

“The treaty between the Makah and the United States is simply that. A U.S. treaty. Whales come under international treaty, and they’re not the property of the United States to give to the Makahs,” said society founder Paul Watson.

“The most serious problem is the United States having been one of the strongest voices at the IWC for years, and this will effectively undermine the credibility of the U.S. position and will give Japan, Norway, Iceland and Russia what they want, to be able to continue to get away with their illegal whaling activities,” Watson said.

A variety of animal rights organizations also have opposed the hunt, raising particular fears that the hopes voiced by some Makah to launch the hunt by traditional methods will doom many more whales than five to a slow, painful death. Many groups are urging at least the use of modern, explosive harpoons.

Greene and other Makah said they’ve received vitriolic communiques from across the United States by whale advocates, some of whom say they worship the whale.

Yet at this windy beachhead more than 80 miles of lonely, winding highway from the nearest city, there are worse potentialities. Makah tribal leaders figure they need to do something: Unemployment, 50% all year, on average, streaks toward 75% in the winter months when savage Pacific storms hold the fishing fleet in harbor. Fewer Makah youths see the need to finish high school. Drug, alcohol abuse is up.

“We’re known for our spiritual and physical training for whaling, and what we were hearing at our community dinner [of the butchered whale last week] was, they want that again,” Dailey said. “Maybe we could say anybody who wants to be a whale hunter couldn’t drink or use drugs. Or they’d have to have a high school diploma, or a GED. It could change a community, think about it.”

“Our relationship with the ocean hasn’t changed. Our people know the currents, they don’t need electronics to navigate, we know where the whales are,” Greene said. “And now,” he said, with last week’s whale ceremonies, “there are now over 10 Makah men that know how to butcher a whale.”

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On the Rise

The gray whale was removed from the endangered species list in 1994, when its numbers topped 23,000. Year: Number 1968: 12,921 1970: 12,567 1972: 9,760 1974: 14,696 1976: 11,620 1978: 16,879 1980: 16,364 1982: --- 1984: --- 1986: 20,113 1988: 20,869 1990: --- 1992: --- 1994: 23,109 No surveys taken in 1982, 1984, 1990 and 1992

Source: National Marine Fisheries Service