Gray Whale Hunt, Legal and Sustainable
from Tom happynook
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To Graham Clarke,
I would respectfully suggest that you have a look at our webpage. You can access it at https://www.nativevillage.org.
You are right about one thing, my relatives from Makah will resume their hunting in the very near future.
As will the hereditary whaling chiefs from Nuu-chah-nulth on the west coast of Vancouver Island. I am sure you are aware that the IWC only has competence over 4.9% of all the whaling that is undertaken in the world today. And any of the whaling that is going on has been sanctioned by the IWC and is of course all done within the limit of the law. It is all legal and very sustainable, even according to the IWC's own legal experts and scientific committee. The other 95.1% have continued to hunt because they need the food to survive. Most of them are not as privilaged as I would suspect you are living in a developed country.
As for the gray whale stock that migrates past our part of the world, they have always been hunted and they will always be hunted by the peoples from Alaska and the Chukokan Inuit from Russian. Yet the stock has increased to excess of 30,000 animals. Again, I respectfully request that you have an open mind and hear our side of the issue. Greenpeace and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in our part of the world are begining to take the time to listen and they are begining to realize that we are not the people that we have been portrayed as.
I would suspect that you believe in, and can not argue the concept of sustainable utilizing our precious natural resources in a respectful manner. So I leave you with this thought. " When a non-endangered species is utilized in a sustainable manner there is no distinction between subsistance or commercial utilization because there is no conservation significance". The north pacific gray whale stock is a living example of that.
Tom Mexsis Happynook
Chairman World Council of Whalers
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Nuu-chah-nulth treaty negotiator. Vancouver island
Whales in Danger Information Service
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