Posted on 09/09/2007 6:30:36 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Today: September 09, 2007 at 5:5:7 PDT
Calif. Gray Whale Shot With Machine Gun
NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -
An injured California gray whale was swimming out to sea Saturday after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state, officials said.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. The extent of the whale's injuries were not immediately known.
Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A preliminary report said the whale was shot with a .50-caliber machine gun, Oswell said.
Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The whale had begun heading to sea Saturday afternoon, Oswell said.
Although the tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, Oswell said preliminary information indicates the whale may have been shot illegally.
"We allow native hunts for cultural purposes. However, this does not appear to be of that nature so far," he said.
The Makah Tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay.
A call to tribal officials was not immediately returned on Saturday. Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson told The Seattle Times that the tribe has been seeking an exemption from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act so that it could take up to five gray whales per year. However, Johnson said the tribe had not yet secured that exemption for a new hunt.
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There is a big different in hunting a whale and fighting dogs.
I recently saw a show on the Travel Channel by Andrew Zimmern. He went to Alaska to show the native cuisine. I have to say that it was the most disgusting food I have ever seen.... And I’ve eaten chicken and pigeon heads, chicken feet, duck tongue and jaw, and beef tendons. When I saw the Alaskan food I actually gagged.
One of the things was whale fat placed in a jar. The jar was shaken until the oils separated. They then let the remaining fat and oil sit in the jar for weeks until it was ripe. They put it on everything. They also ate deserts that looks like about 95% lard mixed with berries and sugar.
If they want to adhere to tradition, then they should hunt with spears.
I suspect that Native Americans in the lower 48 would have eventually decimated the buffalo with just horses and rifles. Sorta like fishing with dynamite — or whaling with artillery (not that a 50 cal is artillery, I’m referring to the gun-fired harpoons with explosive heads).
Im not one of these Peta geeks or wack jobs- but this does not make sense. A 50 cal although formidable is not a whale gun. It would be like becuase my culture has involved deer hunting since I was young to go out with a bb gun or 22 cal hunting. Sure if real real lucky the animal might go down. Most likely its just gonna get pussed up because of wounds and die from complications. They should have just went to the trading post and bought a can of salmon and sat around smoking the friggin peace pipe. Stupid attempt with stupid results. The indians lost in this and the whale. Mostly the whale.
You are correct, sir. I don’t like their “culture”. Some “cultures” engage in pedophilia, but we have laws against it. A “culture” is not necessarily equal to others. This is the truth, but you might not like it.
Article in post #3 above says the initial report of a machine gun was bogus as most of us suspected.
You're right about that. This reminds me of a documentary which included the fate of an Orca or Killer Whale which had been shot with a common caliber hunting rifle. Eventually (weeks?) it died from complications.
There's nothing in their tradition that respects the luddites, or their philosphy.
"I suspect that Native Americans in the lower 48 would have eventually decimated the buffalo with just horses and rifles. "
You be wrong. They hunted the buffalo for food, lodging, clothes, tools and furnature. Their spiritual culture considered the animals sacred and they didn't kill them for the sake of killing.
They line speared it first. The traditional way is repeated spearing afterwords. The 50 was used instead of the repeated spearing, because it's much quicker. They didn't finish and retrieve the whale, because the coast guard interfered. Notice the whale died shortly after the coast guard came.
Indians are humans -- their individual and tribal selfishness would have overwhelmed their considerations of the animals being sacred and they would have exploited their commons. Even without white Americans involved beyond being a source of rifles and ammo, the Indians would have hunted the buffalo (for food, lodging, clothes, tools and furniture) until there were too few buffalo to support them. That is the all too common population boom during followed by a crash after they decimate their prey.
Maybe it was a Dillon Aero M134 minigun...
Watch the video here:
http://dillonaero.com/videos.html
(click on M134 Highlight Reel)
We live along the Upper Yukon and Indians here ignore everything the feds & state attempts to tell them concerning fish & game. They hunt like they always have, that means no closed season. They use to move seasonally to harvest fish & game but feds took their kids all off them until they started living in permanent villages. Had something to do with land ownership & taxes.
They figure it was the whites that came into their country and screwed it all up. You won’t find 50 bucks of white mans food in any of their cabins, except maybe booze. They really still live off what the land & river provides. Why they are so sensitive to enviro changes as they starve when it occurs. Most us Whites are pretty ignorant about Indians until you have spent a year as only white boy in a village; they you kinda figure them out, see all the good rather than just the bad.
Bottomline is I kinda like how they refuse to adhere to govt law. Without voluntary compliance, govt can’t control anybody. Maybe we could learn a little from them Indians.
Hunting is not comparable to pedophilia.
Are you speaking ill of our Native American brothers?!? Don’t you know they can do no wrong.
That's not true in general. They were more, or less aware of the problems with the commons and took care to farm and use their resources wisely. The fact that they noted the problems caused by the widespread slaughter of the buffalo proves that.
I think you are correct. This is the usual bs from the media. They probably harpooned it and then tried to use a single shot 50 BMG for the final “put it out of it’s misery” shot.
The media heard or asked what BMG stood for and then had their headline.
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