3 Makah whale hunters plead guilty

Three of five men who participated in an illegal and poorly executed whale hunt last year pleaded guilty in federal court today to one count of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

In return, prosecutors said they would recommend probation, rather than a jail term.

Frankie Gonzales, Theron Parker and William Secor Sr. pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor and are scheduled to be sentenced June 6 in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.

The two remaining men, Wayne Johnson and Andrew Noel, refused to take the plea deal.

"I still don't think I did nothing wrong," Johnson said.

He and Noel are scheduled to begin a four-to-five day trial on April 8. Their attorney, Jack Fiander, said he intends to argue that the whale hunt began on tribal land of the Makah Reservation and is not subject to U.S. laws.

The Makah are the only tribe in the country with an explicit treaty right to whale.

The tribe obtained a permit and held a successful, but controversial, hunt in 1999.

A 2002 court decision mandated a waiver from the federal government before the tribe could legally hunt another whale, but the issuance of that waiver has been slow.

Fiander said tribal members have been deeply frustrated by the delays.

The five whalers did not have a permit for the hunt Sept. 8, 2007, when they harpooned and shot a whale in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Neah Bay, Clallam County.

A tribal report indicated that the gray whale took nearly 10 hours to die because the hunters didn't know what they were doing and shot the animal in the wrong part of its head.

Federal authorities intervened during the hunt, preventing whalers from euthanizing the whale or from harvesting it after death.

The tribal members were originally indicted on five misdemeanor charges of conspiracy, unlawful taking of a marine mammal and unauthorized whaling, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Kelley Arnold dismissed the charge stemming from the Whaling Convention Act.

Each man had faced — and Johnson and Noel still face — up to a year in jail and fines of $100,000 if convicted on the federal charges.

Defense attorney Fiander had sought to have the entire case against them dismissed, saying that it was unfair to prosecute Makah whalers for hunting the same gray whales Alaska natives are allowed to hunt by an exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Makah Tribe is in the process of seeking a similar exemption.

In the plea deal between the whalers, the U.S. attorney's office and the Makah Tribe, the tribe agreed to dismiss all charges against the whalers in exchange for their pleading guilty to one federal count of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Animal rights activists were outraged with the plea deal and vowed to continue their efforts to block whale hunting waivers.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com. Information from Seattle Times reporter Lynda Mapes is included in this report.