NEAH BAY – Makah tribal leaders say they agree with the motives of the five men who killed a whale last weekend, but not with their actions.
Wayne Johnson, Theron Parker, Andy Noel, Bill Secor Sr. and Frank Gonzales Jr. are under federal investigation for the death of a gray whale in the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Sept. 8.
Tribal leaders said they support Wayne Johnson’s reasons for the hunt, which he lays out in a 523-word statement released to the Peninsula Daily News.
But they are also chiding him, and doing so publicly.
At stake is the tribe’s years-long attempt to acquire a waiver from the Marine Mammal Protection Act from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to permit the tribe to exercise its 1855 treaty right to hunt whales.
The day after the hunt, the Makah Tribal Council publicly promised prosecution in Makah Tribal Court for those who broke tribal hunting rules.
Tribal leaders flew to Washington, D.C., last week for three days of meetings with congressional leaders and federal officials to make the point that the hunt was not authorized by the Makah Tribal Council.
“It’s very scary,” Wayne Johnson said Friday, “because I don’t want to jeopardize what little we have left of our treaty.”
