Makah tribal officials dismayed over whale kill; whaler captain has no regrets

It was about 6:30 on a beautiful summer morning, with gray whales all around, close to shore, when Wayne Johnson decided he had waited long enough: It was time to hunt whales again.

Within minutes, Johnson and four other Makah tribal members were on the downtown dock at Neah Bay, boarding two motorized boats to head out in search of a gray whale.

They spotted one less than a mile from Neah Bay. But Johnson, 54, and the rest of the crew decided they were too close to houses on shore to fire the .460-caliber high-powered rifle they'd brought. They decided to let the whale pass.

Around 9:30, the crew saw another whale, between Sail and Seal rocks in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This one, about 40 feet long, surfaced and came to the two boats. "It chose us," Johnson said.

Crew members plunged at least five stainless steel whaling harpoons into the animal. Then they shot it with the gun, which is powerful enough to fire a slug four miles. The whale was soon still. "It wasn't swimming, it was just being carried by the current," Johnson said.

The former captain of the whaling crew that in 1999 took the Makah tribe's first whale in 70 years, Johnson confirmed that the hunt that shocked his own tribe and anti-whaling activists Saturday was done without the permission of his tribal council or the whaling commission. And it was done without conforming to conditions of the federal permit that controlled the 1999 hunt.

That hunt was carried out legally, with a permit secured from the tribe first, and with prior notification to a federal observer, who had to be in place at the time of the kill. The permit also required the hunt take place only on the outer coast, to protect so-called resident whales known to frequent nearshore waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Under the 1999 permit, the whalers were to spear the animal with a harpoon thrown from a traditional canoe, then dispatch the whale with a. 50 caliber gun.

There was none of that on Saturday: no permit, no observer, no canoe. No restricting the hunt to the outer coast, either. Just five whalers, four of them from the 1999 hunt, casting loose from the downtown dock and heading out to meet the whale on their own terms.

"It's always a little exciting," Johnson said. "It's not like bird hunting. There is a little bit of a rush there."

The Coast Guard, alerted to the hunt by onlookers, was on the scene within hours. Johnson, 54, and the others, quickly found themselves in handcuffs. The Coast Guard confiscated the gun and the boats, and cut the whale, harpoons and all, loose to drift on the current. By evening, the whale was dead, and it sank out of sight.

After questioning, the Coast Guard turned the whalers over to tribal police. They spent most of Saturday night at the tribal jail on the reservation then were released on bond.

Death threats

Among members of the Makah tribe, Saturday's hunt is very controversial. The tribe is already receiving death threats over the kill. Tribal-council and whale-commission members were in a closed-door session most of this morning.

In the early afternoon, the council issued a one-page statement denouncing the actions of the whalers and promising prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. The tribe said it would cooperate with federal officials in the investigation of the hunt and that the whalers will stand trial in tribal court at a future date.

"We hope the public does not permit the action of five irresponsible persons to be used to harm the image of the entire Makah tribe," part of the statement said.

Meanwhile, Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle said the office will wait until it gets investigative reports about the whale kill from the Coast Guard, the tribal police and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before it determines whether any action should be taken.

"I should have done it years ago"

Sunday morning, Johnson, sporting his trademark. 50-caliber-shooting-club jacket and a big bump on his forehead from a fall on the boat during the hunt, said he had no regrets. Except maybe that he had already waited too long to exercise his tribal treaty right to hunt.

Tired of more than eight years of wrangling in the courts over permission to once again hunt whales, Johnson said: "The time just felt right. I got a hair up my ass and just said, 'Let's go.'

"I'm not ashamed. I'm feeling kind of proud. At least I attempted to do something. I have nothing to be ashamed about.

"There is only a few guys in Neah Bay that can get a whale and bring everyone home safely. You think one of the only whaling captains in 77 years could give it up? I should have done it years ago. I come from a whaling family, on my grandmother's side and my grandfather's side. It's in the blood.

"We have songs and dances around it. It kind of separates us from the rest. Not everyone in Neah Bay is a whaler."

The tribe needs to whale to keep its culture alive, Johnson said. "The time is now, when the people are still interested. And the whales are robust."

Grey whales were taken off the endangered species list in 1994, and populations are healthy. The animals make their way past Washington's coast migrating to their feeding grounds in Alaska's Bering Sea in the summer, and the calving lagoons of Baja in the winter.

This time of year, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, have always meant prime hunting to the Makah, whalers for millennia. The whales travel closer to shore in the summer migration, and the Strait offers protected waters.

Security measures

Early this afternoon, at the west edge of the Makah Reservation, tribal police and a Clallam County sheriff's deputy were stopping cars asking occupants their business on the reservation. A tribal police officer said he had not gotten instructions about whether to admit protesters to the reservation, but that so far, none had sought entry.

As of early afternoon the only demonstrator in Neah Bay was Hans Barr, a 24-year-old living in Sekiu, Clallam County, for the summer. He had a sign reading "I support Makah sovereignty" leaned up against a battered black pickup just off the reservation.

"It's not up to white people to say what native culture is or is not," he said. Asked what should happen to the five men, he said: "It's a tribal issue. I have no basis for any judgments on that."

Barr was critical of anti-whaling activists who have criticized the hunt. "I think a lot of environmentalists support a racist agenda. They are imposing their values on an already colonized people."

He said that causes of any declines of the whale population were environmental and not the result of whale hunts.

"We are a law-abiding people"

Tribal officials met with community members for more than two hours Saturday night, to talk about what had happened. They are concerned the rogue hunt will complicate and slow their efforts to obtain an exemption, years in the works, from the Marine Mammal Protection Act that would enable them to legally hunt whales again.

Ed Claplanhoo, a Makah tribal elder and member of the tribal whaling commission, said he and other tribal officials did not sanction the hunt or agree with the crew's actions.

"We are a law-abiding people," said Claplanhoo, 79.

His Indian name, Bahduktooah, was passed down from his great- great-grandfather, a whaler at Ozette, one of the tribe's original villages. And the women in his family have long made prized baskets decorated with the tribe's signature whale design.

But Claplanhoo disagreed strongly with the hunt, which he said will hurt, not help the tribe exercise its treaty right to hunt whales in the future.

"We need to salvage this situation so we can exercise our treaty right in future years," Claplanhoo said. "We have some fence mending to do now to bring that about. This wasn't even sanctioned by our own council, or commission, and that puts kind of a black eye on us.

"I thought it was wrong. We pride ourselves that we are a law-abiding tribe, and we go by the rules and regulations.

"Even though we support our treaty 100 percent, we have to be within the guidelines and the rules that we work with to protect the animals, and the people themselves.

"Our people are human, they do things that are wrong," Claplanhoo said. "That happens all over the world, and we are no different."

He said the tribe has work ahead.

"We will have to convince the powers that be that we are sincere in the rules we set up, and that we know what we are doing, and we are not going to sanction illegal activities by supporting this hunt. We are not that kind of tribe."

Left to be decided is whether the federal government, the tribe, or both will take action against the whalers. Should the matter come to tribal court, the tribe is equipped to handle the matter, Claplanhoo said.

"We are ready to accept that responsibility."

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.