"The Makah tribe could soon be hunting gray whales again, under a proposal from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that would grant a waiver to federal marine-mammal protections.
The tribe on the northwest tip of the continental United States last legally hunted gray whales in 1999, in its first known gray whale hunt in more than 70 years. The hunt revived a cultural tradition lost after nontribal commercial exploitation of the whales drove them nearly to extinction.
Protection under the Endangered Species Act beginning in 1970 allowed gray whale populations to thunder back, and they were removed from the list of endangered species in 1994. In 2017, an estimated 27,000 gray whales in the northeastern Pacific migrated between calving grounds in Baja and feeding grounds in the Arctic. The grays are migrating north off the Washington state coast now, in one of nature’s longest treks.
The hunt on May 17, 1999, was a triumph for the Makah tribe, the only tribe in the United States with an explicit treaty right to whale. Meat from the whale was shared in feasts and celebrations on the reservation. But subsequent hunts were mired in lawsuits and administrative procedures."
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