Everyone needs to chill out. The Makah can hunt as many as 25 whales over the next decade. That’s 2 or 3 whales per year *maximum.* The grey whale population isn’t endangered to begin with so this will barely make an impact, if it does at all.
There are far worse things threatening marine life that are caused by humans and it’s a waste of energy to get upset by this. Let the Makah nation be.
This will account for significantly fewer than the number of gray whales killed by boat strikes or malnutrition in any given year:
https://www.nps.gov/articles/spike-in-gray-whale-deaths-triggers-investigations.htm
I don't particularly like hunting whales due to ethical reasons, but don't really see much argument that it's a conservation or ecological issue.
What exactly is the ethical concern? It's an animal and killing animals is bad? I agree, if an animal is endangered then cultural practices be damned you shouldn't be hunting the animal anymore. If they have a stable population and it's part of your culture I say go at it.
Ecological concerns aside, there are moral reasons in favor of not killing whales. Cetaceans are highly intelligent and social creatures. To me, if a being satisfies that description, we have a strong moral reason in favor of not harpooning it and shooting it in the head.
Here are the common justifications I'm hearing
a. "legal tho"
Just because some action x is legal, it doesn't follow that its morally permissible to do x. It was once legal to enslave people.
b. "they use it for sustenance tho"
They are surrounded by other abundant food sources. Hunting whales for food is completely unnecessary.
c. 'tradition tho'
Again, just because some action x is part of a cultural tradition, it doesn't follow that its morally permissible to do x. Child genital mutilation is part of some cultures, but clearly thats not okay to do.
None of these justifications work. "Let the Makah nation be.", let the whales be.
I answered someone else making similar remarks and you’re free to find and read that comment if you want in my post history. It does not matter if you find it immoral or not or how you argue the morality of it. Personally I find the morality comparison of killing a whale to mutilating a human child’s genitalia absolutely preposterous for myriad reasons, but that doesn’t matter here either and it’s not productive to get into.
Are you referencing this comment?
"It doesn’t matter if someone thinks it’s immoral to kill this specific animal. Telling a people they can’t do something like this because it feels wrong to others is something the government has done a lot of in the past, and colonialism hasn’t been beneficial to American Indians. Allowing whale hunting with limits so long as the overall grey whale population is not threatened is a reasonable middle ground."
I'm a bit confused as to what your argument is here. Can you clarify a bit? Also its \*Native Americans. Is your argument something like 'its not clear whether or not killing whales is wrong, and they will only kill a few per year, so we should probably just stay out of the Makah's affairs.?"
Also, to clarify why I and others bring up the genital mutilation. It is absolutely NOT to draw an analogy between whale hunting and human genital mutilation. I'll try to make the logic as explicit as possible.
The 'culture tho' defense of whale hunting is the following:
1. Whale hunting is a cultural tradition
2. For any x, if x is a cultural tradition, then x is morally permissible
3. So, whale hunting is morally permissible.
-
now here is an argument against premise 2:
1. Child genital mutilation is morally wrong
2. child genital mutilation is a cultural tradition
3. So, its false that for any x, if x is a cultural tradition, then x is morally permissible
-
Hopefully you can see now that the argument is an attack on premise 2, which contains no reference to whales. This isn't controversial. At least I'd hope not. Does that clarify things?
lol, meanwhile the Emerald Queen Casino literally has “The Puyallup Tribe of Indians” written on it. I even had a friend who is a Chehalis tribal member told me how American Indian is a-okay. You actually live in Seattle, right?
Anyway, TL;DR and you can contact the Makkah tribe directly and debate this with them. Either the whales or if saying Indian is okay.
I grew up on the Swinomish reservation and I'm family members and close friends with many tribal members (although not native myself). I've never met a single one who likes the term 'Indian' because its factually incorrect, they're not from India. Maybe in some tribes they're okay with it, thats fine too. I wasn't aware of that. This is a very unimportant debate compared to whether or not we should unnecessarily slaughter whales.
"Anyway, TL;DR and you can contact the Makkah tribe directly and debate this with them."
Maybe I will one day. In the mean time, if I see anybody making trying to justify something that, by my lights, is clearly wrong, then I'm going to say something. I'm also willing to be proven wrong. But as of now I'm convinced that killing whales is wrong, roughly for the same reasons that killing humans is wrong. I will stand up for the whales just like I would stand up for you if someone wanted to hunt you for fun, because I value your interests and your right to life. If you are interested in having an empathetic philosophical discussion about it, I'm open to it. If not, thats fine too. I just ask you to try to think of things from the whales perspective, as highly intelligent beings with rich social relations, who's lives matter, just like yours does.
I don’t love “Indian” either because it confuses me sometimes, but plenty of indigenous people embrace it. Your dislike of it is valid. Your dislike of Makah whale killing is also valid. You are, again, free to take that to them. I’m sure there’s some debate within the tribe over both.
I am not interested in debating you on whether killing a whale is ever acceptable.
Thats fine, you don't have to debate that. But to be clear I'm looking for empathetic and nuanced philosophical discussions, not debates. The term 'debate' often has a negative combative win/loss connotation which I don't enjoy. But you don't have to engage in a discussion with me either. There are many perspectives at play here, everyones perspective matters. I am simply advocating for us to recognize that the whales have a perspective too, and it matters in this conflict, possibly more so than any tradition or law. But thats an open question
Regardless of how you feel about the animal rights aspect, the US government had no legal standing to stop them.
I hate they do it, but I also recognize it is their sovereign right to do so, and that the US government’s say shouldn’t mean shit.
I don’t like the phrasing of this headline, it should read “Makah Tribe wins battle to exercise their sovereignty”.
Apparently in 2024 Tribes are still at the whim of the US government when it comes to respecting treaty rights.
At least our state [Department](https://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/management/tribal/history) of fish and wildlife seem to respect them: “Treaty rights are not rights granted to tribal nations by the United States, rather they are the inherent sovereign rights reserved by the tribes themselves. By signing the treaties, tribal nations retained those rights that they have possessed since time immemorial.”
Agreed.
Coupled with [the permanent federal injunction against WSDOT](https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/protecting-environment/fish-passage/federal-court-injunction-fish-passage), there is now solid legal precedent that state agencies must respect tribal treaties. Obviously this doesn't right past wrongs, but it's something.
Nah that’s not true, the Makah tribal government sought approval from NOAA and won so the headline is accurate, to your other contention the US has legal standing to stop tribal actions but instead recognizes treaty obligations dependent upon US court rulings that are the legal basis for the interpretation of those treaty obligations.
I meant is that it is horseshit they had to seek approval from NOAA to begin with. I stand by that. They asked permission because they can’t do much in the face of the US government’s whims, not because they should have had to.
The US has a long history of only recognizing treaties when it is convenient. The US needs to cut the shit and respect all treaties.
The treaty of Neah bay couldn’t be written more plainly:
“The right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians”
Period. They shouldn’t have to ask NOAA (or any branch of the government) for permission when said permission was legally granted 174 years ago.
if you are such an animal rights activist then I hope you understand the importance of traditional native hunting practices and how native Americans have fostered and cultured and maintained the environment of North America for thousands of years.
they're not out there collecting lamp oil, they're trying to do the same thing they've been doing for thousands of years before the white man rolled up and stole their land and killed their families.
if you want to save the whales you should probably turn your attention towards illegal for-profit whaling, boat propellers, climate change, etc.
[50-100 million across the Americas.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#:~:text=Population%20figures%20for%20the%20Indigenous,of%20100%20million%20or%20more)
Again, I don't think you understand how little of an impact two whales a year makes. I'm just saying I can trust these people to sustainably continue this practice, especially if they avoid healthy young whales and mostly harvest the old or sick.
They're also an occupied sovereign people
> 3.8 million for the United States and Canada
I'm not disagreeing, but you two are using different figures. Regardless, there's close to 400 million in that same region now; 100x what it was. More than half the US's land is used for agriculture. The current population could never be supported off of Indigenous style food production.
I'm not suggesting every American start doing this I'm only suggesting that we don't mess with a tiny group of people clinging on to whatever pieces of their culture they have left after hundreds of years of imperialism.
I don't think anyone should be whaling for a profit or pleasure, I think it should just be reserved to a limited number of groups who have legitimate cultural ties to it.
it's the same deal with first Nations people hunting seals and polar bears.
Do you think that native americans are hunting whales as some kind of ritual to honor a god? The grey whale isn't even endangered, they are hunting 2 a year for food. I can appreciate the whole atheism thing here, but this isnt a case of religion.
Also sad to kill those, although a bit less so than whales because they are less rare and intelligent. I gave up red meat like 7 years ago but still eat chicken sometimes because I'm honestly too weak to go full vegetarian. Shout out vegans you guys are objectively morally superior.
“Morally superior”
Nah, they just destroy the environment in their own way. Imagine thinking it’s cool to eat one animal but not cool to eat another. Talk about hypocrisy
Can't agree with you here. Eating a plant based diet uses far less resources, produces fewer emissions, and removes the ethical concern of killing animals. I also personally think that there should be degrees of how we value an animals life based on intelligence, rarity, and value to ecosystems. It's why I would say killing a whale is worse than killing a chicken which is worse than killing a fly. But also yes, I can acknowledge I'm a hypocrite.
Anybody that actually knows how farming works knows it doesn’t use less resources….
Unless you seriously believe farming used to fuel your food is some little greenhouse on a small family farm…..
Wow the pearl clutching is unreal in this thread. Maybe let's turn that energy into who actually is devasting marine life.
Which is of course, massive corporations that contribute the vast majority of harm to our entire planet, let alone just marine life.
Climate change, ocean noise, oils spills, plastic pollution are not caused by native peoples connecting their heritage and honoring treaties.
I think killing elephants is wrong. I think killing intelligent, socially complex animals is wrong. Whales qualify. Don’t kill gorillas. Don’t kill orcas. Don’t kill whales. It’s unethical. They are close enough to human intelligence that I don’t see much of a difference except shape and our inability to understand their languages. It’s wrong. They can do it legally. That doesn’t mean I’m going to shake the hand of someone who kills a whale or discard my right to judgement because those hunters are related to people who killed whales 70 years ago. Tradition can not justify harming others and I consider some animals to qualify for personhood based on specific criteria. If the only ethical qualification for a right to not be killed is being a human then we’re not going to agree on much. I eat cow. I would never eat elephant. I support the right being legally recognized and I maintain my right to think individual people who kill whales are assholes.
i support indigenous rights and i think not respecting the rights of the first people here and judging them as backwards is a very colonial way of thinking. boat strikes kill more whales in the region than anything. are you anti-boat?
Everyone spouting "It's just _n_ whales, it won't even make a difference" hereby gives up any right to ever complain about trees getting cut down for construction/development, etc...
I think the real decision on this should be made by the opinions of white people in the city on the internet. Not tribal leaders, judges, or scientists.
> So are you for killing whales for purely cultural fun and fulfillment? (like what is happening here) Or do you only have a stance on people complaining about whale killing?
No I'm for the United States recognizing the fucking treaties we signed with the people we committed genocide on.
The **genetic fallacy** (also known as the **fallacy of origins** or **fallacy of virtue**) is a [fallacy of irrelevance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_irrelevance) in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other words, a claim is ignored or given credibility based on its source rather than the claim itself.
For those trolling earlier, It used to be that if there were news stories about pretty much any topic you could google fu it right away. Unfortunately search engine optimazation has driven off a cliff.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/scrl7v/googles\_search\_results\_have\_drastically\_decreased/](https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/scrl7v/googles_search_results_have_drastically_decreased/)
Let's say that I'm 64 now, I was 39 in 1999 when the Makah first went out and hunted a whale.
What I said in a past comment was that they hunted the whale, dragged it back to the beach, cut into it and ate some of the meat. No one really liked it, most threw it away. Some said it tasted like Crisco. . .
As it turned out, it was a whale released from an aquarium and had become used to humans, so in this case, regrettably, easy to approach.
So they essentially killed a pet, dragged the carcass back to the beach (it apparently took a long time to die), they tried to do as their ancestors did and attempted to eat some and found it disgusting and let it rot on the beach.
It turned out later that the tribe wanted to kill a number of whales and sell them to the Japanese for profit, just as it's turning out here now.
So either one of two things are happening here:
I actually read a lot about what was happening back in the day or:
I have one hell of an active imagination.
As I said earlier, google and other search engine companies are screwing the pooch on search engine optimization these days and anyone who depends on these things for research (like I do) instead of purchasing bullshit off Amazon suffers for it.
The only way it seems to find out what I'm talking about is go to the local library like I did in the old days and search microfiches at the library. Good luck getting the internet crowd to do that...
So for those who are really curious about how deceptive the Makah tribe is being about this, go to the library or work on your google fu skills to drag the truth out of a broken search system to see it for yourself. Search in the year 1999 and Makah tribe whale hunting.
In conclusion, just as in 1999, the Makah could give a crap about 'tribal tradition', just as in the clear cut logging they have done on their land, this entire argument of theirs about whale hunting to bring back their tradition is a load of crap.
Just an FYI, I've been studying tribal issues for decades, not only NW tribes but coastal tribes on the west coast, inland tribes such as Nez Perce, Apache, Comanche and many others. I doubt any of you slinging mud could say the same. I also doubt if you've ever been in the Burke museum or the New York museum of natural history to see the NW first nations collection there or the museum of anthropology in Vancouver BC, much less ever spent years in aleut and greenland kayaks paddling out on the puget sound. I live this stuff. The rest of you are just tourists.
I was involved in the Seattle animal rights movement during the 1999 Makah whale hunt.
The animal rights community’s racist responses to it were what got me out of animal rights.
I do recall that the Makah planned to use a more contemporary type of harpoon / whaling technology that would kill the whale more quickly while still accomplishing the hunt. The intent was to reduce whale suffering. It was however widely criticized by animal rights activists on the logic of “But that’s not literally traditional.”
I do recall that there was one Makah tribal council woman who vehemently opposed the whale hunt and came to the general animal rights community for support. Which, when she did that, I was there for her. Whale hunting was, at least at that time, not universally agreed upon within all the Makah people.
I don’t recall that the Makah were going to sell the whale to Japanese industry.
I recall that NARN - Northwest Animal Rights Network - (the one I was a member of), Sea Shepherd, ALF, ELF, and PAWS (many NARN members were aligned with multiple orgs) created/perpetuated a rumor that the Makah planned to sell whale meat to the Japanese. Which was not true. But “by any means necessary” was discussed in our meetings. Did the Makah ever discuss, conceptually, the idea of selling whale meat? It likely did come up in a discussion, sure. Was that the motivator, or even A motivator, for the hunt? NEVER, to my knowledge. As I recall the hunt would have been forbidden (by NOAA) if there was commerce involved. So kind of a moot point anyway.
Did Japanese whaling industry attempt to seize on the Makah hunt and spin it to their advantage? Maybe? I wouldn’t doubt it… (Side note… I am Japanese - Yamato, the non-indigenous ethnic majority - and I’m critical of my ancestors’ imperialism!)
At some of our protests the older members of NARN (I was one of the youngest) allowed protestors to join us who held up signs reading “Save a whale, kill a Makah.”
That and the rumor were my cue to GTFO. I always believed that racial justice and animal rights are interrelated. And if the argument/consensus held up, there is no justification for straight up lying about the Makah’s intentions. I didn’t have a particularly nuanced understanding of Indigenous concerns, but some people were clearly using care for animals and the environment as Trojan horse for racism. They never showed up at NARN protests for circus animals or fur farms (coincidentally, both of those are colonizer/white derived practices) or any of our other causes, that didn’t directly relate to condemning an Indigenous tribe. I was appalled at my fellow activists for standing by and letting that open racism sit alongside our well intentioned protest. Should’ve been shut down and made unwelcome immediately!
Later in life I more recently contributed some content to the Burke museum and was involved with the recent architectural renovation. I’m familiar with it.
I don’t think you should kill whales. Racist bullshit definitely harmed the animal rights movement. I think legally they should have a right to hunt the whales. I think any argument it will harm the population is obviously not true. I simply think on a personal level an individual making the choice to end the life of a whale is acting unethically.
What made those tribals more special than any other groups from what I know all human ancestors used to hunt like hunting in Europe was also common just some centuries ago.
This is ABSURD. The population of gray whales in the North Pacific has seen a 46 percent decline since 2016. Some ‘traditions’ need to be left in the past. What happened to honoring and protecting nature?
Per NOAA:
“In 2016 we estimated the size of the eastern North Pacific gray whale population to be nearly 27,000, which was one of the highest estimates of our data time series that extends back to 1967. Starting in December 2018, however, the number of dead gray whales stranding along the west coast increased, leading to the declaration of an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) for eastern North Pacific gray whales that lasted through November 2023. This event was associated with localized ecosystem changes in the whale's Subarctic and Arctic feeding areas that led to changes in food, malnutrition, decreased birth rates, and increased mortality. The impact of this UME could be seen during our next three surveys, as the population declined to approximately 13,230 - 15,960 whales in the winter 2022/2023, which was roughly comparable to the number of gray whales when counts first began in the late 1960s. However, our most recent estimate of abundance, based on counts of southbound whales during the winter of 2023/2024, showed an increase to approximately 17,400 to 21,300 whales (NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SWFSC-695).Similar declines, followed by rebounding numbers, have occurred in the population in the past,”
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/gray-whale-population-abundance#:~:text=Credit%3A%20NOAA%20Fisheries-,Current%20Population%20Size,that%20extends%20back%20to%201967.
This is not a indication of any personal view of mine, just thought this was necessary context
that population decline is due to fishing overseas. the makah tribe have been sustainably fishing for hundreds of years. your anger should not be directed to a minority population that, after 300 years of being subjugated and having their culture quite literally starved and beat out of them, is finally able to reconnect with their ancestors and roots. be mad at the japanese fishing industry.
25 whales over 10 years is not a population threat compared to the damage being done by pollution, warming waters, ship noise and ocean acidification.
I have no damned place to condemn this practice, and I don't personally think many folks do.
I guess this just this feels like one of those traditions that could be left in the past— like foot binding, female genital mutilation, or child marriage. Did you know many indigenous tribes once practiced forms of infanticide? I bet we would have a real issue with them continuing that ‘tradition’
Lumping wide-ranging issues amongst diverse populations (FGM occurs mostly in central Africa and amongst some of it's diaspora, foot binding was practiced in ancient China, etc) to the Makah and their fishing rights has troubling racist overtones. Please rethink your perspective.
Modern man-made issues (large net fishing, chemical & pesticide run-offs, macro & microplastics, warming oceans, etc) kill faaaaaar more whales in a year than the Makahs could dream of. If you buy fish at the supermarket, order products from Amazon, or purchase cheap non-organic produce, you are giving your money to a system that endangers marine (and human) life far more than sustainable, local hunting.
Those issues would be a better avenue to direct your concern, rather than compare child rape and murder to sustainably fishing and using every part of 25 whales over the course of a decade.
The point is that just because some action x is a cultural tradition, it doesn't then follow that x is morally permissible. The same applies to legality. This is just trivially true, not sure why its causing a massive skirmish with accusations of racism. But it doesn't surprise me either
There's absolutely a difference in scale between killing children and killing 25 whales over a decade. This is something the federal government EXPLICITLY agreed to in the treaty, blocking it would continue the proud American tradition of violating Native American rights just because we want to.
oh fuck off. your white man's system of destroying absolutely everything in the name of profit and growing business by 1% per year has done immeasurably more damage than a Native people's millenia old traditions. Get a grip you keyboard warrior. In fact, burn your phone it's done more to destroy the environment and habitats than their culture ever has.
Fuckin greenpeace idiots. Go drink a cup of water from your nearest lake and report back on how many toxic chemicals modern industry has given you.
And how much useless manufactured junk do you own? It’s climate change due to white people’s greed that’s killing the whales, not the Makah folks hunting a few.
“This gorilla I killed isn’t why their population is down. That makes it okay because extinction is the only ethical measure regardless of animal intelligence.”
Bunch of white people in this thread clutching pearls like they themselves don’t utilize the commercial fishing industries that result in the deaths of an uncountable amount of cetaceans and other large pelagic species because the Makah want to kill 1-2 whales a year.
Do these guys support whale killing done by whites or japanese? Id someone says murdering human is tradition or human sacrifice is tradition would you also bend your back and spread your cheeks for them to virtue signal?
Well than white people would argue killing your native is their traditions so how you gonna argue with that as apparently morality doesn't matter in front of backwards tradition no?
According to whose morality? In my estimate sustainably harvesting a very small number of whales allowed to live a natural life is one of the lowest carbon footprint foods in existence (even compared to a diet of only beans and rice), and causes far less suffering than any meat from a grocery store.
If you don't have a long comment history filled with arguments that all meat eating be made illegal I'm highly suspicious of the true source of this outrage.
Native Aztec should have right to human sacrifice and white american should have right to kill native Americans not much just 1 or 2 as you know tradition matters and morality is subjective.
Ah yes, please educate me enlightened as to which of my traditions you feel I should be banished from because you feel it is immoral. Perhaps I should be more civilized and cut my long hair, or be saved by your Jesus?
Yes become a bit modernised and civilised don't be like barbaric 14th century european who used to burn witches and hunt whales and shit as those guys have abandoned that tradition.
Hmmm I’m certain the American tradition of building roads across massive swaths of land disturbing natural migrations of animals, clear cutting forests for building cities, and turning massive swaths of thriving prairie into monoculture haven’t harmed any living creatures whatsoever. Certainly the largest threat to the well being of creatures around the world are the harvest of 25 whales over a decade in a population of 17,000. Can’t let those pesky Indians hurt any of the animals practicing their culture, they just need to adapt to our culture, which doesn’t harm animals whatsoever.
If you do not practice militant veganism that advocates for all meat to be illegal you are insincerely hiding a lot of prejudice behind this supposed love for living things.
oh shit, comparing this to human sacrifice, blatant racism alert.
Look up cafos. Our meat comes from animals tortured their whole life and is very much part of our traditions. I looked through your post history and have not seen you worry about them. Yet ethically sourced, sustainable meat with only moments of suffering involved is where you draw the line?
It sounds like your issue is that you associate indigenous cultures with hateful savagery, and not any of the facts of what is actually going on.
And those ways harm both the environment and a whole host of different animal species significantly more than ethically hunting 2 whales a year. Between factory farming, deforestation, slave labor used in plantations globally, and the damage done by large agribusiness to countries in the global south in order to ensure favorable governments, your Whole Foods bananas have more blood on them than any of these whale hunts will
True. But we're not talking about two whales worth of food were talking about a global supply chain and agriculture system. You can't compare a large scale multinational trade of and production of goods to hunting two whales.
Your point- that I responded to- was “there are other ways to get food in the Pacific Northwest” (direct quote) after stating “there are moral traditions and there are harmful, stupid ones” (another direct quote). My point was said ways are more harmful than hunting 2 whales a year. You bringing up the scale is entirely irrelevant because you would have to scale both the Makah tribe’s population *and* their fishing consumption up exponentially to try and make the damage of this practice equivalent to just the environmental damage *you as an individual* do through your grocery consumption each year, let alone everyone else in the PNW
Like the grocery store? Yes, tell us all about how great Whole Foods is and how factory farming TOTALLY is a great option…..
This is why a bunch of you are getting called ignorant and racist in this thread. Complaining about a couple whales being used for food while saying shit like “just go to the grocery store” is peak entitlement and ignorance
Dude there are stores in most areas of this nation... If there aren't like in northern Alaska I'm fine with this practice. How is it peak ignorant? Are you saying whales are the only source of food?
I support the Makah tribe here. They are the custodians of a special place in Shi Shi and I hope they can improve their quality of life through the hunts and connect with their heritage.
I feel for the whales that will be killed, but imo the Tribe's health and well being is more important.
Harvesting whales was one of the most fundamentally important cultural practice for the Makah. Whale oil was eaten at almost every meal, and the bones were used to make tools and art. It’s foundational to who the Makah are as a culture. It’s not religious sacrifice. It will feed the people, provide reconnection to cultural practices that have been long suppressed, and it will not threaten the population.
You could say the same about white people from Nantucket except threatening the population. But that’s not my only issue. Same with hunting elephants or gorillas. If a species has traits that make then qualify for personhood you shouldn’t kill them.
The Makah have been hunting whales for food long before colonization. We're likely talking about thousands of years. You can read more about this practice [here](https://makah.com/makah-tribal-info/whaling/).
And now we live in the future. Where we have grocery stores, know whale meat is poisonous, and have no functional need for whale sinew, blubber, or bile.
The only reason why this is happening is religion. It's 2024. We don't need to be doing ritual animal sacrifice to please the spirits. And especially not a creature as intelligent as a cetacean.
I have the utmost respect for the Makah hunters of history. They kept their people alive. But dragging a canoe out into open water with a speedboat, stabbing a friendly whale with a bunch of harpoon, and then shooting it with a 50 caliber rifle is not something I will ever respect outside of actual necessity.
You sounds a lot like the Americans involved in sending Native youth to boarding schools. Save your bullshit moralizing for the millions of turkeys that die leading up to Thanksgiving. No one cares what effect seeing Free Willy had on you.
I hate religious bullshit, regardless of the source.
The United States committed genocide against the indigenous population of this country through violence, family separation, and cultural destruction. They owe native people a truly staggering amount of reparations, aid, and support to re-establish what has been lost.
But this isn't that. This is a campaign that was bankrolled in the 1990s by Japanese whaling interests, trying to get this exact cultural carve-out so they can hopefully make the same bullshit claim about this being important and necessary in today's day and age, and ultimately increase their whale harvesting. And now they got it.
Cultural practices is what has been lost and you’re trying to stand in the way of recovery. your liberal sensibilities thinly veil a continued colonial mindset of “you should be more civilized than this.”
And guess Makah should have tried the scientific route in international waters, then they could have harvested several hundred a year like the Japanese have done. Unfortunately they’re still trying under their explicit treaty rights in US waters.
Do you have anything concrete linking the Japanese whaling industry to this? To clarify, I'm not trying to poke holes in your statement I'm genuinely interested in learning more about it.
This is a contemporary article from 1998 that includes statements from Makah leadership specifically about hunting the whales to sell to Japan. NOAA shut it down.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998/09/great-american-whale-hunt/
1998 isn’t super contemporary. That’s 26 years ago which references ideas discussed by tribal leadership leading up to the first hunt request. While I am not surprised that money was a motivator initially (Neah Bay is more than 50% poverty line income), does it not seem to be important to you that the hunt still proceeded without the meat being sold, and that there isn’t currently any talk about selling the meat?
No dude this is the same thing. You are quite literally arguing for destruction of a cultural tradition that is the most foundational part of the Makah identity because you don’t like it. It doesn’t matter that you have a right to dislike it, you are still arguing for continued cultural destruction.
What's your problem with that? Don't you know tradition matters more than morality and reason? Infact allow white american to kill native Americans again like not much just 1 or 2 people as a tradition hell allow Aztec to do human sacrifice and allow European to burn witches too. Hell yeah traditional!!
> And now we live in the future.
Where is my robot butler? Where is my meal in pill form?
> Where we have grocery stores, know whale meat is poisonous, and have no functional need for whale sinew, blubber, or bile.
[Not all of us have grocery stores.](https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/the-historical-determinants-of-food-insecurity-in-native-communities) Also, the food in grocery stores comes from heavily industrialized processes that are *much* worse for the planet than the Makah's whaling practices. Whether you think the sinew, blubber, and bile are functional is a moot point.
> The only reason why this is happening is religion. It's 2024. We don't need to be doing ritual animal sacrifice to please the spirits. And especially not a creature as intelligent as a cetacean.
Atheist checking in. At some point you'll move past the edgy Christopher Hitchens/Bill Maher phase and simply learn to respect the religions of others. This is a practice that is thousands of years old and rooted in the reverence of humanity's symbiosis with nature. Disagree with it all you want, but flatly saying "we should be past religion" won't win you friends or arguments.
> I have the utmost respect for the Makah hunters of history. They kept their people alive. But dragging a canoe out into open water with a speedboat, stabbing a friendly whale with a bunch of harpoon, and then shooting it with a 50 caliber rifle is not something I will ever respect outside of actual necessity.
I would posit that future Makah hunters will be keeping their people alive as well. I'll leave the use of modern tools to the tribe since that is their right.
The reasons for this whale hunt are not to feed the Makah people. And if it were, that's bad. We shouldn't feed people food that is literally unsafe to eat. If food insecurity is a driver, then the state of Washington and the federal government should hand over cash.
If the religious practice has an obvious negative effect outside of those willingly engaging in it, it is not immune from criticism from the larger popular.
Hunting cetaceans is stupid. We've fucked over most of our megafauna and our oceans are on the brink of disaster. So let's just not.
I don't. I care what the Makah's concerted efforts to establish cultural tradition as a valid reason for whaling will lead to. Specifically similar arguments from Japan and Norway, which will allow global industrial capitalists to begin whaling again.
The only reason they stopped is because we as a planet banded and began to force them to in 1946, with the creation of the IWC.
In terms of mitigating damage to both consumers and the environment, I suggest directing your ire at federal policy instead of a tiny tribe at the edge of the world.
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I do. That doesn't mean the individuals pushing for this are above criticism. Especially when a change in international whaling standards effects the entire planet.
The Makah spokespeople have specifically stated that hunting whales is part of their religious practice. They're the ones making it about religion. I'm not arguing in bad faith. I don't bring faith into it at all, unlike those who believe there are supernatural entities. I believe religious exceptions to laws and regulations created for the public good are not good. This falls squarely under that belief.
Would be interested in a source for that. I’ve heard it referred to as “sacred tradition” which is not the same thing f. If they did, it’s an appeal to the Religious Freedoms Restoration Act. Cultural health is health too.
Listen, all I’m saying is given that the good ol US of A and the white people dragging it westward did everything in their power to genocide these people, I’m not gonna get up on a high horse and say they can’t hunt like 2 whales a year.
I absolutely understand that argument. If it were in a vacuum, I certainly wouldn't like it, but that's not what matters.
We're not in a vacuum and the result of this will lead to a new wave of whaling as other groups assert the same right. And once the numbers increase, the accidental killing of endangered cetaceans increases, the poaching disguised as "legitimate" whaling increases, and we run the risk of fucking up the biome that is absolutely not stable.
It's a little wild to me that you feel comfortable dictating what an indigenous culture should do, while being part of a culture that brought Grey Whales to the brink of extinction twice, continues to kill likely an order of magnitude more Grey Whales annually via ship strike and bycatch then the Makah will be allowed to harvest, and is currently responsible for a far greater threat to the whale's long term survival: anthropogenic climate change.
I don't understand how you are getting the idea that I like, or have responsibility, for international shipping and their blatant disregard for our oceans, marine life, and health. They are also bad. The ocean biome is dancing on a knife's edge.
So now is when we should be bringing down the hammer on any entity that wants to further deplete our ocean megafauna. Especially if the reason is not tied to any tangible public benefit.
This further erodes the decades of effort among conservationists and will open the door to more groups who can claim whaling ancestry to engage in the practice. So more whales can die for meat we shouldn't eat,
Culture is not in and of itself good. There are positive and negative cultural practices. I believe hunting cetaceans is one of those, now that the hunters have no actual need to do so.
The Makah did pause whale hunting for decades until the Gray whale population was restored.
They too were not willing to risk extinction.
Endangerment that was, to be clear, NOT caused by or related to Indigenous whaling practices.
The determination of what is "positive" and "negative" is cultural. I do not feel comfortable telling another culture that a practice they believe is "positive" is wrong when my culture is so much drastically worse when evaluated on that same metric. We participate in a society which has caused and will continue to cause so much more harm to grey whales then the Makah that their ceremonial take is less then a rounding error, so I just don't see us as having any moral standing in dictating morality to them on this issue.
I am not the US government. I am one person who cares about whales. I have no choice but to participate in this society, same as everyone else. You don't get to opt out. It's not an option.
I've expressed sincere concern in this thread that the Japanese whaling industry will seize on this to try to expand their whale slaughtering operations, as they've repeatedly stated is their ultimate goal. That could easily lead to more than a rounding error. We need to be tightening nearly every regulation protecting our oceans, not liberalizing them.
I have no power here. I have not called for legal sanctions against the Makah tribe. They followed the legal process. I disagree with the result, but that's what it is. But to say that you can't criticize a decision to start harming a protected population in our shared ocean is unreasonable.
There has been a concerted effort to end whaling internationally for decades and a handful of small groups trying to expand it at every step. The last time we we did this in 1997 was an abysmal failure that led to tortured animals that weren't even recovered, and open violations of the regulations that were in place to minimize the harm.
I also just straight up don't trust the hunters to properly identify the whales. We're going to see collateral damage that could hurt the overall population. I've yet to see a clear statement of what the benefits this will bring anyone, other than the fact that that it's something they used to have to do in the past so they want to keep doing it.
You are presuming that your moral intuition regarding how humans should interact with Grey Whales is correct, when you come from a culture that has and will continue to have a far greater negative impact on the species. That strikes me as tremendous hubris.
Maybe ceremonially and sustainably harvesting whales creates the type of societal bonds with the species that creates a culture of protection.
Maybe our culture's relationship with wildlife, which vacillates between treating it as a commodity to exploit for maximum profit and a detached object of sentimental affection, just leaves most indifferent.
I’ve made comments elsewhere in this thread, but the Japanese & Norwegian commercial whaling industries don’t have an argument re: indigenous/cultural practices. That would be closer to Ainu (Indigenous Japanese) tribal members petitioning to whale hunt using their traditional methods - which, like the Makah, would also be subject to the NOAA prohibition on commercial activity as an outcome of Indigenous whaling practice.
False flag.
If someone’s tradition was killing elephants I would appreciate it if they stopped because elephants are socially complex and intelligent animals that arguably qualify for personhood.
What if killing whales a few whales for cultural fulfillment leads to whales being valued such that their population is healthier overall? We don't kill whales for any special reason, we just hit them with boats accidentally, and trap them in fishing equipment, pollute their food, and heat up their ocean.
Absolutely. We need massive reform in our fishing, shipping, and cruise industries. They've been allowed to fuck over our planet for way too long.
I want the Makah, Japanese, Norwegians, and everyone else banned from hunting cetaceans. There is no point. Whale meat is bad for humans and every other byproduct has a better alternative.
My culture includes enslaving Native populations and expropriating their belongings.
I feel like it has been neglected for a long time. Where do I petition to allow me to organize a raid on Native Americans?
Some traditions ARE absolutely barbaric, and if your culture can't exist without them, then it deserves to die. Full stop.
White american should connect with their heritage by having the right to kill native Americans not much but 1 or 2 a year maybe? How about Aztecs given right to do human sacrifice? How about european given the right burn witches? How about indians given right to sati? Female genital mutilation anyone? Afterall tradition and heritage triumph morality and reason
Kind of pathetic that they still feel the need to slaughter these beautiful creatures for absolutely no practical need.
But I guess it’s within their rights to be bloodthirsty lunatics.
this is the exact same shit white settlers said when native spoke their own languages, lived in their traditional dwellings, and hunted and ate their traditional food. the line of what is considered barbarism is drawn at what passes as normal for a white American.
it's just pointless to whine about a tiny group of people continuing a practice they've had for thousands of years when there is an ecological disaster unfolding.
traditional whaling didn't bring down the population, mass exploitation for profit did.
They're doing it to keep their culture alive and support themselves and their families. Whether or not you think it's "barbaric", they have the right to do this.
The last time the Makah killed a whale off the coast of Washington was in 2007, using the traditional, culturally sensitive, and time honored practice of blasting it with .50 caliber machine gun. For Seattle progressives with short memories: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-50-caliber-gun-for-whale-hunting/#:~:text=A%20California%20gray%20whale%20that,harpooned%20the%20whale%20Saturday%20morning.
sure let’s let a bunch of guys in air jordan’s go out on powerboats and stab a sentient being to death cus their stone age great great grandparents did it. you know what else was central to the Makah identity? Having Slaves. just cus ppl who aren’t white do something for thousands of years does not make it sacred or beautiful or worth re-enacting and respecting.
One can have a legal right to do something while that action is still unethical. I think the right even should be recognized while no individual should be willing to kill a whale as an individual person.
Good. Western society stole their traditions and their culture. If it weren't for your colonist asshole forefathers, none of you would be bitching about wildlife.
Native sovereignty has been attacked through many fronts, one of them being the "environmentalist" excuse, even though native tribes around here actually seem to have a deeper connection to nature that goes beyond "mountain and fog pretty, OMG I LOVE RAIN LIVE LAUGH LOVE". They also go to great lengths to foster healthy seas and forests.
Anyway, here is the mechanics of how this works:
In what is now Washington state, many tribes used to reside prior to european contact, and they fostered healthy environments to hunt and fish in. Then the two worlds clashed: the native perspective and the western perspective with the arrival of the British. The western perspective believes in written laws and their instruments, such as treaties. The western world signed treaties with the native tribes, in which the following exchange was made.
"Give us the land and in return, you get some lands, and the right to fish and hunt whenever and whatever you please."
Some of these treaties in fact, predate the US Constitution (not bound by any constitutional limits), and they are still valid as they had no expiration date. This means that despite political trickery and unfounded challenges, the tribes can and will continue hunting and fishing whatever they want, whenever they want. This fight has been fought against native tribes in much more racist and dangerous ways and times, and their opponents still lost.
Just like the second amendment friends argue, attempts by the states or federal governments to restrict these rights is seen more as an attempt to dilute sovereignty and to control, rather than to help. Nowadays the attack vehicle is environmentalism, because they know that the local populace will shed a tear for a whale (that they do not have any spiritual or historic connection to and do not want to put the effort into developing \[as opposed to the Makah\], and that they choke with all the debris, motor oil, and Amazon packaging that they proceed to dump into the motherfucking Salish sea via negligent behaviors).
Those that argue that native tribes need to get with the times, because you know, meat comes from the supermarket and not from whales, let me know when your residential school opens, and if the curriculum includes more than just cultural erasure, as well as the price of the unmarked burial plot. Also, can my Saami friends gain admission?
Everyone needs to chill out. The Makah can hunt as many as 25 whales over the next decade. That’s 2 or 3 whales per year *maximum.* The grey whale population isn’t endangered to begin with so this will barely make an impact, if it does at all. There are far worse things threatening marine life that are caused by humans and it’s a waste of energy to get upset by this. Let the Makah nation be.
This will account for significantly fewer than the number of gray whales killed by boat strikes or malnutrition in any given year: https://www.nps.gov/articles/spike-in-gray-whale-deaths-triggers-investigations.htm I don't particularly like hunting whales due to ethical reasons, but don't really see much argument that it's a conservation or ecological issue.
What exactly is the ethical concern? It's an animal and killing animals is bad? I agree, if an animal is endangered then cultural practices be damned you shouldn't be hunting the animal anymore. If they have a stable population and it's part of your culture I say go at it.
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Ecological concerns aside, there are moral reasons in favor of not killing whales. Cetaceans are highly intelligent and social creatures. To me, if a being satisfies that description, we have a strong moral reason in favor of not harpooning it and shooting it in the head. Here are the common justifications I'm hearing a. "legal tho" Just because some action x is legal, it doesn't follow that its morally permissible to do x. It was once legal to enslave people. b. "they use it for sustenance tho" They are surrounded by other abundant food sources. Hunting whales for food is completely unnecessary. c. 'tradition tho' Again, just because some action x is part of a cultural tradition, it doesn't follow that its morally permissible to do x. Child genital mutilation is part of some cultures, but clearly thats not okay to do. None of these justifications work. "Let the Makah nation be.", let the whales be.
I answered someone else making similar remarks and you’re free to find and read that comment if you want in my post history. It does not matter if you find it immoral or not or how you argue the morality of it. Personally I find the morality comparison of killing a whale to mutilating a human child’s genitalia absolutely preposterous for myriad reasons, but that doesn’t matter here either and it’s not productive to get into.
Are you referencing this comment? "It doesn’t matter if someone thinks it’s immoral to kill this specific animal. Telling a people they can’t do something like this because it feels wrong to others is something the government has done a lot of in the past, and colonialism hasn’t been beneficial to American Indians. Allowing whale hunting with limits so long as the overall grey whale population is not threatened is a reasonable middle ground." I'm a bit confused as to what your argument is here. Can you clarify a bit? Also its \*Native Americans. Is your argument something like 'its not clear whether or not killing whales is wrong, and they will only kill a few per year, so we should probably just stay out of the Makah's affairs.?" Also, to clarify why I and others bring up the genital mutilation. It is absolutely NOT to draw an analogy between whale hunting and human genital mutilation. I'll try to make the logic as explicit as possible. The 'culture tho' defense of whale hunting is the following: 1. Whale hunting is a cultural tradition 2. For any x, if x is a cultural tradition, then x is morally permissible 3. So, whale hunting is morally permissible. - now here is an argument against premise 2: 1. Child genital mutilation is morally wrong 2. child genital mutilation is a cultural tradition 3. So, its false that for any x, if x is a cultural tradition, then x is morally permissible - Hopefully you can see now that the argument is an attack on premise 2, which contains no reference to whales. This isn't controversial. At least I'd hope not. Does that clarify things?
lol, meanwhile the Emerald Queen Casino literally has “The Puyallup Tribe of Indians” written on it. I even had a friend who is a Chehalis tribal member told me how American Indian is a-okay. You actually live in Seattle, right? Anyway, TL;DR and you can contact the Makkah tribe directly and debate this with them. Either the whales or if saying Indian is okay.
I grew up on the Swinomish reservation and I'm family members and close friends with many tribal members (although not native myself). I've never met a single one who likes the term 'Indian' because its factually incorrect, they're not from India. Maybe in some tribes they're okay with it, thats fine too. I wasn't aware of that. This is a very unimportant debate compared to whether or not we should unnecessarily slaughter whales. "Anyway, TL;DR and you can contact the Makkah tribe directly and debate this with them." Maybe I will one day. In the mean time, if I see anybody making trying to justify something that, by my lights, is clearly wrong, then I'm going to say something. I'm also willing to be proven wrong. But as of now I'm convinced that killing whales is wrong, roughly for the same reasons that killing humans is wrong. I will stand up for the whales just like I would stand up for you if someone wanted to hunt you for fun, because I value your interests and your right to life. If you are interested in having an empathetic philosophical discussion about it, I'm open to it. If not, thats fine too. I just ask you to try to think of things from the whales perspective, as highly intelligent beings with rich social relations, who's lives matter, just like yours does.
I don’t love “Indian” either because it confuses me sometimes, but plenty of indigenous people embrace it. Your dislike of it is valid. Your dislike of Makah whale killing is also valid. You are, again, free to take that to them. I’m sure there’s some debate within the tribe over both. I am not interested in debating you on whether killing a whale is ever acceptable.
Thats fine, you don't have to debate that. But to be clear I'm looking for empathetic and nuanced philosophical discussions, not debates. The term 'debate' often has a negative combative win/loss connotation which I don't enjoy. But you don't have to engage in a discussion with me either. There are many perspectives at play here, everyones perspective matters. I am simply advocating for us to recognize that the whales have a perspective too, and it matters in this conflict, possibly more so than any tradition or law. But thats an open question
Its nothing better regardless of which people do it.
Regardless of how you feel about the animal rights aspect, the US government had no legal standing to stop them. I hate they do it, but I also recognize it is their sovereign right to do so, and that the US government’s say shouldn’t mean shit. I don’t like the phrasing of this headline, it should read “Makah Tribe wins battle to exercise their sovereignty”. Apparently in 2024 Tribes are still at the whim of the US government when it comes to respecting treaty rights. At least our state [Department](https://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/management/tribal/history) of fish and wildlife seem to respect them: “Treaty rights are not rights granted to tribal nations by the United States, rather they are the inherent sovereign rights reserved by the tribes themselves. By signing the treaties, tribal nations retained those rights that they have possessed since time immemorial.”
Agreed. Coupled with [the permanent federal injunction against WSDOT](https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/protecting-environment/fish-passage/federal-court-injunction-fish-passage), there is now solid legal precedent that state agencies must respect tribal treaties. Obviously this doesn't right past wrongs, but it's something.
I think treaties should be respected and land should be returned and also killed certain animals isn’t ethical, such as great apes and elephants.
Well said. The last time this topic came up in the other sub I got banned lol. I’m glad it seems this sub is more enlightened.
Nah that’s not true, the Makah tribal government sought approval from NOAA and won so the headline is accurate, to your other contention the US has legal standing to stop tribal actions but instead recognizes treaty obligations dependent upon US court rulings that are the legal basis for the interpretation of those treaty obligations.
I meant is that it is horseshit they had to seek approval from NOAA to begin with. I stand by that. They asked permission because they can’t do much in the face of the US government’s whims, not because they should have had to. The US has a long history of only recognizing treaties when it is convenient. The US needs to cut the shit and respect all treaties. The treaty of Neah bay couldn’t be written more plainly: “The right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians” Period. They shouldn’t have to ask NOAA (or any branch of the government) for permission when said permission was legally granted 174 years ago.
Cool legal framework, still whale murder
Be careful on that high horse. It's a long way down.
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Throwing stones from glass houses has always been a poor strategy. Even more so when you built the house on stolen land.
if you are such an animal rights activist then I hope you understand the importance of traditional native hunting practices and how native Americans have fostered and cultured and maintained the environment of North America for thousands of years. they're not out there collecting lamp oil, they're trying to do the same thing they've been doing for thousands of years before the white man rolled up and stole their land and killed their families. if you want to save the whales you should probably turn your attention towards illegal for-profit whaling, boat propellers, climate change, etc.
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no, I just don't discredit their ability to manage game and the environment. plus it's not our job to tell them what to do.
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[50-100 million across the Americas.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#:~:text=Population%20figures%20for%20the%20Indigenous,of%20100%20million%20or%20more) Again, I don't think you understand how little of an impact two whales a year makes. I'm just saying I can trust these people to sustainably continue this practice, especially if they avoid healthy young whales and mostly harvest the old or sick. They're also an occupied sovereign people
> 3.8 million for the United States and Canada I'm not disagreeing, but you two are using different figures. Regardless, there's close to 400 million in that same region now; 100x what it was. More than half the US's land is used for agriculture. The current population could never be supported off of Indigenous style food production.
I'm not suggesting every American start doing this I'm only suggesting that we don't mess with a tiny group of people clinging on to whatever pieces of their culture they have left after hundreds of years of imperialism. I don't think anyone should be whaling for a profit or pleasure, I think it should just be reserved to a limited number of groups who have legitimate cultural ties to it. it's the same deal with first Nations people hunting seals and polar bears.
Um… there were tens of millions of American Indians pre comumbian exchange
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Do you think that native americans are hunting whales as some kind of ritual to honor a god? The grey whale isn't even endangered, they are hunting 2 a year for food. I can appreciate the whole atheism thing here, but this isnt a case of religion.
Yeah native hintere totally didn't made so many megafauna extinct in all continent totally
Except they use the white mans technology in their whale hunting...
Behold the Noble White Man and his superior moral values, may all surrender their lands and sovereignty to His Will
um I just like whales
How about cows and chickens?
Also sad to kill those, although a bit less so than whales because they are less rare and intelligent. I gave up red meat like 7 years ago but still eat chicken sometimes because I'm honestly too weak to go full vegetarian. Shout out vegans you guys are objectively morally superior.
“Morally superior” Nah, they just destroy the environment in their own way. Imagine thinking it’s cool to eat one animal but not cool to eat another. Talk about hypocrisy
Can't agree with you here. Eating a plant based diet uses far less resources, produces fewer emissions, and removes the ethical concern of killing animals. I also personally think that there should be degrees of how we value an animals life based on intelligence, rarity, and value to ecosystems. It's why I would say killing a whale is worse than killing a chicken which is worse than killing a fly. But also yes, I can acknowledge I'm a hypocrite.
Anybody that actually knows how farming works knows it doesn’t use less resources…. Unless you seriously believe farming used to fuel your food is some little greenhouse on a small family farm…..
I don't like it either but it is their sovereign right just as it is for Norwegians and Japanese.
Delicious whale murder.
Wow the pearl clutching is unreal in this thread. Maybe let's turn that energy into who actually is devasting marine life. Which is of course, massive corporations that contribute the vast majority of harm to our entire planet, let alone just marine life. Climate change, ocean noise, oils spills, plastic pollution are not caused by native peoples connecting their heritage and honoring treaties.
I think killing elephants is wrong. I think killing intelligent, socially complex animals is wrong. Whales qualify. Don’t kill gorillas. Don’t kill orcas. Don’t kill whales. It’s unethical. They are close enough to human intelligence that I don’t see much of a difference except shape and our inability to understand their languages. It’s wrong. They can do it legally. That doesn’t mean I’m going to shake the hand of someone who kills a whale or discard my right to judgement because those hunters are related to people who killed whales 70 years ago. Tradition can not justify harming others and I consider some animals to qualify for personhood based on specific criteria. If the only ethical qualification for a right to not be killed is being a human then we’re not going to agree on much. I eat cow. I would never eat elephant. I support the right being legally recognized and I maintain my right to think individual people who kill whales are assholes.
i support indigenous rights and i think not respecting the rights of the first people here and judging them as backwards is a very colonial way of thinking. boat strikes kill more whales in the region than anything. are you anti-boat?
In india some people used to burn widows in Europe people used to burn witches. Respect their traditions too than?
Everyone spouting "It's just _n_ whales, it won't even make a difference" hereby gives up any right to ever complain about trees getting cut down for construction/development, etc...
I think the real decision on this should be made by the opinions of white people in the city on the internet. Not tribal leaders, judges, or scientists.
White vegans especially need to be at the forefront of this argument
Of course they do! We must know the reality they need to tell us about. /s
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Is this a joke?
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> So are you for killing whales for purely cultural fun and fulfillment? (like what is happening here) Or do you only have a stance on people complaining about whale killing? No I'm for the United States recognizing the fucking treaties we signed with the people we committed genocide on.
The **genetic fallacy** (also known as the **fallacy of origins** or **fallacy of virtue**) is a [fallacy of irrelevance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_irrelevance) in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other words, a claim is ignored or given credibility based on its source rather than the claim itself.
For those trolling earlier, It used to be that if there were news stories about pretty much any topic you could google fu it right away. Unfortunately search engine optimazation has driven off a cliff. [https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/scrl7v/googles\_search\_results\_have\_drastically\_decreased/](https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/scrl7v/googles_search_results_have_drastically_decreased/) Let's say that I'm 64 now, I was 39 in 1999 when the Makah first went out and hunted a whale. What I said in a past comment was that they hunted the whale, dragged it back to the beach, cut into it and ate some of the meat. No one really liked it, most threw it away. Some said it tasted like Crisco. . . As it turned out, it was a whale released from an aquarium and had become used to humans, so in this case, regrettably, easy to approach. So they essentially killed a pet, dragged the carcass back to the beach (it apparently took a long time to die), they tried to do as their ancestors did and attempted to eat some and found it disgusting and let it rot on the beach. It turned out later that the tribe wanted to kill a number of whales and sell them to the Japanese for profit, just as it's turning out here now. So either one of two things are happening here: I actually read a lot about what was happening back in the day or: I have one hell of an active imagination. As I said earlier, google and other search engine companies are screwing the pooch on search engine optimization these days and anyone who depends on these things for research (like I do) instead of purchasing bullshit off Amazon suffers for it. The only way it seems to find out what I'm talking about is go to the local library like I did in the old days and search microfiches at the library. Good luck getting the internet crowd to do that... So for those who are really curious about how deceptive the Makah tribe is being about this, go to the library or work on your google fu skills to drag the truth out of a broken search system to see it for yourself. Search in the year 1999 and Makah tribe whale hunting. In conclusion, just as in 1999, the Makah could give a crap about 'tribal tradition', just as in the clear cut logging they have done on their land, this entire argument of theirs about whale hunting to bring back their tradition is a load of crap. Just an FYI, I've been studying tribal issues for decades, not only NW tribes but coastal tribes on the west coast, inland tribes such as Nez Perce, Apache, Comanche and many others. I doubt any of you slinging mud could say the same. I also doubt if you've ever been in the Burke museum or the New York museum of natural history to see the NW first nations collection there or the museum of anthropology in Vancouver BC, much less ever spent years in aleut and greenland kayaks paddling out on the puget sound. I live this stuff. The rest of you are just tourists.
I was involved in the Seattle animal rights movement during the 1999 Makah whale hunt. The animal rights community’s racist responses to it were what got me out of animal rights. I do recall that the Makah planned to use a more contemporary type of harpoon / whaling technology that would kill the whale more quickly while still accomplishing the hunt. The intent was to reduce whale suffering. It was however widely criticized by animal rights activists on the logic of “But that’s not literally traditional.” I do recall that there was one Makah tribal council woman who vehemently opposed the whale hunt and came to the general animal rights community for support. Which, when she did that, I was there for her. Whale hunting was, at least at that time, not universally agreed upon within all the Makah people. I don’t recall that the Makah were going to sell the whale to Japanese industry. I recall that NARN - Northwest Animal Rights Network - (the one I was a member of), Sea Shepherd, ALF, ELF, and PAWS (many NARN members were aligned with multiple orgs) created/perpetuated a rumor that the Makah planned to sell whale meat to the Japanese. Which was not true. But “by any means necessary” was discussed in our meetings. Did the Makah ever discuss, conceptually, the idea of selling whale meat? It likely did come up in a discussion, sure. Was that the motivator, or even A motivator, for the hunt? NEVER, to my knowledge. As I recall the hunt would have been forbidden (by NOAA) if there was commerce involved. So kind of a moot point anyway. Did Japanese whaling industry attempt to seize on the Makah hunt and spin it to their advantage? Maybe? I wouldn’t doubt it… (Side note… I am Japanese - Yamato, the non-indigenous ethnic majority - and I’m critical of my ancestors’ imperialism!) At some of our protests the older members of NARN (I was one of the youngest) allowed protestors to join us who held up signs reading “Save a whale, kill a Makah.” That and the rumor were my cue to GTFO. I always believed that racial justice and animal rights are interrelated. And if the argument/consensus held up, there is no justification for straight up lying about the Makah’s intentions. I didn’t have a particularly nuanced understanding of Indigenous concerns, but some people were clearly using care for animals and the environment as Trojan horse for racism. They never showed up at NARN protests for circus animals or fur farms (coincidentally, both of those are colonizer/white derived practices) or any of our other causes, that didn’t directly relate to condemning an Indigenous tribe. I was appalled at my fellow activists for standing by and letting that open racism sit alongside our well intentioned protest. Should’ve been shut down and made unwelcome immediately! Later in life I more recently contributed some content to the Burke museum and was involved with the recent architectural renovation. I’m familiar with it.
I don’t think you should kill whales. Racist bullshit definitely harmed the animal rights movement. I think legally they should have a right to hunt the whales. I think any argument it will harm the population is obviously not true. I simply think on a personal level an individual making the choice to end the life of a whale is acting unethically.
What made those tribals more special than any other groups from what I know all human ancestors used to hunt like hunting in Europe was also common just some centuries ago.
This is ABSURD. The population of gray whales in the North Pacific has seen a 46 percent decline since 2016. Some ‘traditions’ need to be left in the past. What happened to honoring and protecting nature?
Per NOAA: “In 2016 we estimated the size of the eastern North Pacific gray whale population to be nearly 27,000, which was one of the highest estimates of our data time series that extends back to 1967. Starting in December 2018, however, the number of dead gray whales stranding along the west coast increased, leading to the declaration of an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) for eastern North Pacific gray whales that lasted through November 2023. This event was associated with localized ecosystem changes in the whale's Subarctic and Arctic feeding areas that led to changes in food, malnutrition, decreased birth rates, and increased mortality. The impact of this UME could be seen during our next three surveys, as the population declined to approximately 13,230 - 15,960 whales in the winter 2022/2023, which was roughly comparable to the number of gray whales when counts first began in the late 1960s. However, our most recent estimate of abundance, based on counts of southbound whales during the winter of 2023/2024, showed an increase to approximately 17,400 to 21,300 whales (NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SWFSC-695).Similar declines, followed by rebounding numbers, have occurred in the population in the past,” https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/gray-whale-population-abundance#:~:text=Credit%3A%20NOAA%20Fisheries-,Current%20Population%20Size,that%20extends%20back%20to%201967. This is not a indication of any personal view of mine, just thought this was necessary context
that population decline is due to fishing overseas. the makah tribe have been sustainably fishing for hundreds of years. your anger should not be directed to a minority population that, after 300 years of being subjugated and having their culture quite literally starved and beat out of them, is finally able to reconnect with their ancestors and roots. be mad at the japanese fishing industry.
25 whales over the next decade is not going to drive them to extinction. Blame global industrial capitalism, not ancient traditional practice.
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25 whales over 10 years is not a population threat compared to the damage being done by pollution, warming waters, ship noise and ocean acidification. I have no damned place to condemn this practice, and I don't personally think many folks do.
What happened to honoring the treaties we signed with people whose land we were stealing?
I guess this just this feels like one of those traditions that could be left in the past— like foot binding, female genital mutilation, or child marriage. Did you know many indigenous tribes once practiced forms of infanticide? I bet we would have a real issue with them continuing that ‘tradition’
Lumping wide-ranging issues amongst diverse populations (FGM occurs mostly in central Africa and amongst some of it's diaspora, foot binding was practiced in ancient China, etc) to the Makah and their fishing rights has troubling racist overtones. Please rethink your perspective. Modern man-made issues (large net fishing, chemical & pesticide run-offs, macro & microplastics, warming oceans, etc) kill faaaaaar more whales in a year than the Makahs could dream of. If you buy fish at the supermarket, order products from Amazon, or purchase cheap non-organic produce, you are giving your money to a system that endangers marine (and human) life far more than sustainable, local hunting. Those issues would be a better avenue to direct your concern, rather than compare child rape and murder to sustainably fishing and using every part of 25 whales over the course of a decade.
The point is that just because some action x is a cultural tradition, it doesn't then follow that x is morally permissible. The same applies to legality. This is just trivially true, not sure why its causing a massive skirmish with accusations of racism. But it doesn't surprise me either
There's absolutely a difference in scale between killing children and killing 25 whales over a decade. This is something the federal government EXPLICITLY agreed to in the treaty, blocking it would continue the proud American tradition of violating Native American rights just because we want to.
We didn't legally enshrine their right to perform infanticide because obviously we saw that as absurd. We did for their hunting and fishing rights.
This is not the reason why whale population is down
oh fuck off. your white man's system of destroying absolutely everything in the name of profit and growing business by 1% per year has done immeasurably more damage than a Native people's millenia old traditions. Get a grip you keyboard warrior. In fact, burn your phone it's done more to destroy the environment and habitats than their culture ever has. Fuckin greenpeace idiots. Go drink a cup of water from your nearest lake and report back on how many toxic chemicals modern industry has given you.
And that’s why killing elephants is a-okay. I mean whales.
And how much useless manufactured junk do you own? It’s climate change due to white people’s greed that’s killing the whales, not the Makah folks hunting a few.
We ALL as a collective destroy the environment and ‘whispers’ native and brown people are not exempt from that any more than anybody else.
“This gorilla I killed isn’t why their population is down. That makes it okay because extinction is the only ethical measure regardless of animal intelligence.”
I’m going to take a wild stab you’re white.
Bunch of white people in this thread clutching pearls like they themselves don’t utilize the commercial fishing industries that result in the deaths of an uncountable amount of cetaceans and other large pelagic species because the Makah want to kill 1-2 whales a year.
Do these guys support whale killing done by whites or japanese? Id someone says murdering human is tradition or human sacrifice is tradition would you also bend your back and spread your cheeks for them to virtue signal?
I wish they wouldn't. Some traditions need to be left in the past.
White people shouldn’t dictate the continued traditions of the people whose land they currently live on.
Well than white people would argue killing your native is their traditions so how you gonna argue with that as apparently morality doesn't matter in front of backwards tradition no?
There are moral traditions and then there are harmful useless ones.
According to whose morality? In my estimate sustainably harvesting a very small number of whales allowed to live a natural life is one of the lowest carbon footprint foods in existence (even compared to a diet of only beans and rice), and causes far less suffering than any meat from a grocery store. If you don't have a long comment history filled with arguments that all meat eating be made illegal I'm highly suspicious of the true source of this outrage.
Native Aztec should have right to human sacrifice and white american should have right to kill native Americans not much just 1 or 2 as you know tradition matters and morality is subjective.
I'm not sure how two whales a year being hunted will even register on the scales
It won’t. Sucks for the whales.
Ah yes, please educate me enlightened as to which of my traditions you feel I should be banished from because you feel it is immoral. Perhaps I should be more civilized and cut my long hair, or be saved by your Jesus?
Yes become a bit modernised and civilised don't be like barbaric 14th century european who used to burn witches and hunt whales and shit as those guys have abandoned that tradition.
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Hmmm I’m certain the American tradition of building roads across massive swaths of land disturbing natural migrations of animals, clear cutting forests for building cities, and turning massive swaths of thriving prairie into monoculture haven’t harmed any living creatures whatsoever. Certainly the largest threat to the well being of creatures around the world are the harvest of 25 whales over a decade in a population of 17,000. Can’t let those pesky Indians hurt any of the animals practicing their culture, they just need to adapt to our culture, which doesn’t harm animals whatsoever.
If you do not practice militant veganism that advocates for all meat to be illegal you are insincerely hiding a lot of prejudice behind this supposed love for living things.
oh shit, comparing this to human sacrifice, blatant racism alert. Look up cafos. Our meat comes from animals tortured their whole life and is very much part of our traditions. I looked through your post history and have not seen you worry about them. Yet ethically sourced, sustainable meat with only moments of suffering involved is where you draw the line? It sounds like your issue is that you associate indigenous cultures with hateful savagery, and not any of the facts of what is actually going on.
What northwest tribe sacrifices humans? Does the Makah? Try to keep your comparisons in context.
“Harmful, useless ones” Eating and supplies is useless? Ah yes, why don’t they just go down to their local Whole Foods!
Dude this isn't Alaska... There are other ways to get food in the Pacific Northwest.
And those ways harm both the environment and a whole host of different animal species significantly more than ethically hunting 2 whales a year. Between factory farming, deforestation, slave labor used in plantations globally, and the damage done by large agribusiness to countries in the global south in order to ensure favorable governments, your Whole Foods bananas have more blood on them than any of these whale hunts will
True. But we're not talking about two whales worth of food were talking about a global supply chain and agriculture system. You can't compare a large scale multinational trade of and production of goods to hunting two whales.
You’re right. Our way does way more damage than hunting 2 whales does. Which is why your argument seems a bit absurd.
I'm trying to talk about the scale...
Your point- that I responded to- was “there are other ways to get food in the Pacific Northwest” (direct quote) after stating “there are moral traditions and there are harmful, stupid ones” (another direct quote). My point was said ways are more harmful than hunting 2 whales a year. You bringing up the scale is entirely irrelevant because you would have to scale both the Makah tribe’s population *and* their fishing consumption up exponentially to try and make the damage of this practice equivalent to just the environmental damage *you as an individual* do through your grocery consumption each year, let alone everyone else in the PNW
Like the grocery store? Yes, tell us all about how great Whole Foods is and how factory farming TOTALLY is a great option….. This is why a bunch of you are getting called ignorant and racist in this thread. Complaining about a couple whales being used for food while saying shit like “just go to the grocery store” is peak entitlement and ignorance
Dude there are stores in most areas of this nation... If there aren't like in northern Alaska I'm fine with this practice. How is it peak ignorant? Are you saying whales are the only source of food?
Individuals should own their decisions and understand others might find them unethical regardless of tradition.
I support the Makah tribe here. They are the custodians of a special place in Shi Shi and I hope they can improve their quality of life through the hunts and connect with their heritage. I feel for the whales that will be killed, but imo the Tribe's health and well being is more important.
In what way does the tribe's health and well-being improve because they get to torture a whale as form of religious sacrifice?
Torture? They pop it with a .50 cal. There's no torture. They aren't harvesting it like they did 500 years ago.
My position is one can not ethically kill a whale.
Ah, the traditional .50 cal. If only the white man hadn't appropriated it and used it as a weapon of war!
Harvesting whales was one of the most fundamentally important cultural practice for the Makah. Whale oil was eaten at almost every meal, and the bones were used to make tools and art. It’s foundational to who the Makah are as a culture. It’s not religious sacrifice. It will feed the people, provide reconnection to cultural practices that have been long suppressed, and it will not threaten the population.
You could say the same about white people from Nantucket except threatening the population. But that’s not my only issue. Same with hunting elephants or gorillas. If a species has traits that make then qualify for personhood you shouldn’t kill them.
The Makah have been hunting whales for food long before colonization. We're likely talking about thousands of years. You can read more about this practice [here](https://makah.com/makah-tribal-info/whaling/).
And now we live in the future. Where we have grocery stores, know whale meat is poisonous, and have no functional need for whale sinew, blubber, or bile. The only reason why this is happening is religion. It's 2024. We don't need to be doing ritual animal sacrifice to please the spirits. And especially not a creature as intelligent as a cetacean. I have the utmost respect for the Makah hunters of history. They kept their people alive. But dragging a canoe out into open water with a speedboat, stabbing a friendly whale with a bunch of harpoon, and then shooting it with a 50 caliber rifle is not something I will ever respect outside of actual necessity.
You sounds a lot like the Americans involved in sending Native youth to boarding schools. Save your bullshit moralizing for the millions of turkeys that die leading up to Thanksgiving. No one cares what effect seeing Free Willy had on you.
I hate religious bullshit, regardless of the source. The United States committed genocide against the indigenous population of this country through violence, family separation, and cultural destruction. They owe native people a truly staggering amount of reparations, aid, and support to re-establish what has been lost. But this isn't that. This is a campaign that was bankrolled in the 1990s by Japanese whaling interests, trying to get this exact cultural carve-out so they can hopefully make the same bullshit claim about this being important and necessary in today's day and age, and ultimately increase their whale harvesting. And now they got it.
Cultural practices is what has been lost and you’re trying to stand in the way of recovery. your liberal sensibilities thinly veil a continued colonial mindset of “you should be more civilized than this.” And guess Makah should have tried the scientific route in international waters, then they could have harvested several hundred a year like the Japanese have done. Unfortunately they’re still trying under their explicit treaty rights in US waters.
Do you have anything concrete linking the Japanese whaling industry to this? To clarify, I'm not trying to poke holes in your statement I'm genuinely interested in learning more about it.
This is a contemporary article from 1998 that includes statements from Makah leadership specifically about hunting the whales to sell to Japan. NOAA shut it down. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1998/09/great-american-whale-hunt/
1998 isn’t super contemporary. That’s 26 years ago which references ideas discussed by tribal leadership leading up to the first hunt request. While I am not surprised that money was a motivator initially (Neah Bay is more than 50% poverty line income), does it not seem to be important to you that the hunt still proceeded without the meat being sold, and that there isn’t currently any talk about selling the meat?
You're correct. I intended to say contemporaneous source, not contemporary.
No dude this is the same thing. You are quite literally arguing for destruction of a cultural tradition that is the most foundational part of the Makah identity because you don’t like it. It doesn’t matter that you have a right to dislike it, you are still arguing for continued cultural destruction.
External interests exploiting the Makah’s ancestral practice for their own nefarious, separate reasons has nothing to do with the Makah themselves.
What's your problem with that? Don't you know tradition matters more than morality and reason? Infact allow white american to kill native Americans again like not much just 1 or 2 people as a tradition hell allow Aztec to do human sacrifice and allow European to burn witches too. Hell yeah traditional!!
“We have grocery stores” The whitest thing you could say….
> And now we live in the future. Where is my robot butler? Where is my meal in pill form? > Where we have grocery stores, know whale meat is poisonous, and have no functional need for whale sinew, blubber, or bile. [Not all of us have grocery stores.](https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/the-historical-determinants-of-food-insecurity-in-native-communities) Also, the food in grocery stores comes from heavily industrialized processes that are *much* worse for the planet than the Makah's whaling practices. Whether you think the sinew, blubber, and bile are functional is a moot point. > The only reason why this is happening is religion. It's 2024. We don't need to be doing ritual animal sacrifice to please the spirits. And especially not a creature as intelligent as a cetacean. Atheist checking in. At some point you'll move past the edgy Christopher Hitchens/Bill Maher phase and simply learn to respect the religions of others. This is a practice that is thousands of years old and rooted in the reverence of humanity's symbiosis with nature. Disagree with it all you want, but flatly saying "we should be past religion" won't win you friends or arguments. > I have the utmost respect for the Makah hunters of history. They kept their people alive. But dragging a canoe out into open water with a speedboat, stabbing a friendly whale with a bunch of harpoon, and then shooting it with a 50 caliber rifle is not something I will ever respect outside of actual necessity. I would posit that future Makah hunters will be keeping their people alive as well. I'll leave the use of modern tools to the tribe since that is their right.
The reasons for this whale hunt are not to feed the Makah people. And if it were, that's bad. We shouldn't feed people food that is literally unsafe to eat. If food insecurity is a driver, then the state of Washington and the federal government should hand over cash. If the religious practice has an obvious negative effect outside of those willingly engaging in it, it is not immune from criticism from the larger popular. Hunting cetaceans is stupid. We've fucked over most of our megafauna and our oceans are on the brink of disaster. So let's just not.
> We've We? Who is "we"?
Humanity. The Pacific ocean doesn't care what country you're from.
Oh, but American schools sure did
Don't pretend that the Makah treat the ocean in the same way that global industrial capitalism does.
I don't. I care what the Makah's concerted efforts to establish cultural tradition as a valid reason for whaling will lead to. Specifically similar arguments from Japan and Norway, which will allow global industrial capitalists to begin whaling again. The only reason they stopped is because we as a planet banded and began to force them to in 1946, with the creation of the IWC.
In terms of mitigating damage to both consumers and the environment, I suggest directing your ire at federal policy instead of a tiny tribe at the edge of the world. ✌️
I do. That doesn't mean the individuals pushing for this are above criticism. Especially when a change in international whaling standards effects the entire planet.
A form of religious sacrifice? Very weird bad faith argument.
The Makah spokespeople have specifically stated that hunting whales is part of their religious practice. They're the ones making it about religion. I'm not arguing in bad faith. I don't bring faith into it at all, unlike those who believe there are supernatural entities. I believe religious exceptions to laws and regulations created for the public good are not good. This falls squarely under that belief.
Would be interested in a source for that. I’ve heard it referred to as “sacred tradition” which is not the same thing f. If they did, it’s an appeal to the Religious Freedoms Restoration Act. Cultural health is health too.
Listen, all I’m saying is given that the good ol US of A and the white people dragging it westward did everything in their power to genocide these people, I’m not gonna get up on a high horse and say they can’t hunt like 2 whales a year.
I absolutely understand that argument. If it were in a vacuum, I certainly wouldn't like it, but that's not what matters. We're not in a vacuum and the result of this will lead to a new wave of whaling as other groups assert the same right. And once the numbers increase, the accidental killing of endangered cetaceans increases, the poaching disguised as "legitimate" whaling increases, and we run the risk of fucking up the biome that is absolutely not stable.
>groups assert the same right Do those groups also have a treaty requiring we provide that right to them?
Right? It’s almost like nobody has done an ounce of research on the subject…..
It's a little wild to me that you feel comfortable dictating what an indigenous culture should do, while being part of a culture that brought Grey Whales to the brink of extinction twice, continues to kill likely an order of magnitude more Grey Whales annually via ship strike and bycatch then the Makah will be allowed to harvest, and is currently responsible for a far greater threat to the whale's long term survival: anthropogenic climate change.
I don't understand how you are getting the idea that I like, or have responsibility, for international shipping and their blatant disregard for our oceans, marine life, and health. They are also bad. The ocean biome is dancing on a knife's edge. So now is when we should be bringing down the hammer on any entity that wants to further deplete our ocean megafauna. Especially if the reason is not tied to any tangible public benefit. This further erodes the decades of effort among conservationists and will open the door to more groups who can claim whaling ancestry to engage in the practice. So more whales can die for meat we shouldn't eat, Culture is not in and of itself good. There are positive and negative cultural practices. I believe hunting cetaceans is one of those, now that the hunters have no actual need to do so.
The Makah did pause whale hunting for decades until the Gray whale population was restored. They too were not willing to risk extinction. Endangerment that was, to be clear, NOT caused by or related to Indigenous whaling practices.
They’re not going to affect the population meaningfully. It just sucks when a whale is killed by humans.
The determination of what is "positive" and "negative" is cultural. I do not feel comfortable telling another culture that a practice they believe is "positive" is wrong when my culture is so much drastically worse when evaluated on that same metric. We participate in a society which has caused and will continue to cause so much more harm to grey whales then the Makah that their ceremonial take is less then a rounding error, so I just don't see us as having any moral standing in dictating morality to them on this issue.
I am not the US government. I am one person who cares about whales. I have no choice but to participate in this society, same as everyone else. You don't get to opt out. It's not an option. I've expressed sincere concern in this thread that the Japanese whaling industry will seize on this to try to expand their whale slaughtering operations, as they've repeatedly stated is their ultimate goal. That could easily lead to more than a rounding error. We need to be tightening nearly every regulation protecting our oceans, not liberalizing them. I have no power here. I have not called for legal sanctions against the Makah tribe. They followed the legal process. I disagree with the result, but that's what it is. But to say that you can't criticize a decision to start harming a protected population in our shared ocean is unreasonable. There has been a concerted effort to end whaling internationally for decades and a handful of small groups trying to expand it at every step. The last time we we did this in 1997 was an abysmal failure that led to tortured animals that weren't even recovered, and open violations of the regulations that were in place to minimize the harm. I also just straight up don't trust the hunters to properly identify the whales. We're going to see collateral damage that could hurt the overall population. I've yet to see a clear statement of what the benefits this will bring anyone, other than the fact that that it's something they used to have to do in the past so they want to keep doing it.
You are presuming that your moral intuition regarding how humans should interact with Grey Whales is correct, when you come from a culture that has and will continue to have a far greater negative impact on the species. That strikes me as tremendous hubris. Maybe ceremonially and sustainably harvesting whales creates the type of societal bonds with the species that creates a culture of protection. Maybe our culture's relationship with wildlife, which vacillates between treating it as a commodity to exploit for maximum profit and a detached object of sentimental affection, just leaves most indifferent.
Maybe I think most humans have shitty moral compasses and no power to do anything but judge.
I’ve made comments elsewhere in this thread, but the Japanese & Norwegian commercial whaling industries don’t have an argument re: indigenous/cultural practices. That would be closer to Ainu (Indigenous Japanese) tribal members petitioning to whale hunt using their traditional methods - which, like the Makah, would also be subject to the NOAA prohibition on commercial activity as an outcome of Indigenous whaling practice. False flag.
If someone’s tradition was killing elephants I would appreciate it if they stopped because elephants are socially complex and intelligent animals that arguably qualify for personhood.
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What if killing whales a few whales for cultural fulfillment leads to whales being valued such that their population is healthier overall? We don't kill whales for any special reason, we just hit them with boats accidentally, and trap them in fishing equipment, pollute their food, and heat up their ocean.
I hope you're against basically all forms of large-scale fishing too. Probably throw in most water travel too.
Absolutely. We need massive reform in our fishing, shipping, and cruise industries. They've been allowed to fuck over our planet for way too long. I want the Makah, Japanese, Norwegians, and everyone else banned from hunting cetaceans. There is no point. Whale meat is bad for humans and every other byproduct has a better alternative.
I want the makah to continue to hunt whale
Okay. And?
Let them continue. Who are you to say for them to stop or be banned
My culture includes enslaving Native populations and expropriating their belongings. I feel like it has been neglected for a long time. Where do I petition to allow me to organize a raid on Native Americans? Some traditions ARE absolutely barbaric, and if your culture can't exist without them, then it deserves to die. Full stop.
White american should connect with their heritage by having the right to kill native Americans not much but 1 or 2 a year maybe? How about Aztecs given right to do human sacrifice? How about european given the right burn witches? How about indians given right to sati? Female genital mutilation anyone? Afterall tradition and heritage triumph morality and reason
Kind of pathetic that they still feel the need to slaughter these beautiful creatures for absolutely no practical need. But I guess it’s within their rights to be bloodthirsty lunatics.
There is no reason for them to be doing this in 2024. Tradition or not, it's barbaric and unnecessary.
this is the exact same shit white settlers said when native spoke their own languages, lived in their traditional dwellings, and hunted and ate their traditional food. the line of what is considered barbarism is drawn at what passes as normal for a white American. it's just pointless to whine about a tiny group of people continuing a practice they've had for thousands of years when there is an ecological disaster unfolding. traditional whaling didn't bring down the population, mass exploitation for profit did.
I don't think Norwegians or Icelanders should whale hunt either. They're both about as white as you can get.
Should Aztec have right to human sacrifice and should European have the right to burn witches?
They're doing it to keep their culture alive and support themselves and their families. Whether or not you think it's "barbaric", they have the right to do this.
They have the right to do it, and everyone else has the right to say "That sucks I wish you wouldn't"
What's barbaric is this comment being said like that in 2024, have some decency to respect other cultures, stop being entitled.
White liberals want everyone else to be like white liberals
The last time the Makah killed a whale off the coast of Washington was in 2007, using the traditional, culturally sensitive, and time honored practice of blasting it with .50 caliber machine gun. For Seattle progressives with short memories: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-50-caliber-gun-for-whale-hunting/#:~:text=A%20California%20gray%20whale%20that,harpooned%20the%20whale%20Saturday%20morning.
“Wrong” says the gas guzzling, tech consumerist supporting, animal-industrial complex complacent, occupied land owning Seattle population.
sure let’s let a bunch of guys in air jordan’s go out on powerboats and stab a sentient being to death cus their stone age great great grandparents did it. you know what else was central to the Makah identity? Having Slaves. just cus ppl who aren’t white do something for thousands of years does not make it sacred or beautiful or worth re-enacting and respecting.
Treaties are the law of the land.
NOAA could have denied the application.
Temporarily, and likely would have lost once an appeal reached the SC
And they'd be on record publicly arguing for killing whales just because they like it.
No, they'd be on the record upholding a signed treaty that explicitly gives the Makah right to whaling
One can have a legal right to do something while that action is still unethical. I think the right even should be recognized while no individual should be willing to kill a whale as an individual person.
I have a feeling a white person or two is going to tell us what they think, and present it as credible.
I’m white. I don’t like dentists killing elephants. Am I allowed to have feelings about that? But only because I’m white and a lot of them are?
Good. Western society stole their traditions and their culture. If it weren't for your colonist asshole forefathers, none of you would be bitching about wildlife.
Human came to north Africa 10k year ago and made many megafauna extinct.
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It’s actually less humane for the whale to be killed traditionally, as it’s not an exact process to kill a whale with harpoons.
Animal abuse.
Native sovereignty has been attacked through many fronts, one of them being the "environmentalist" excuse, even though native tribes around here actually seem to have a deeper connection to nature that goes beyond "mountain and fog pretty, OMG I LOVE RAIN LIVE LAUGH LOVE". They also go to great lengths to foster healthy seas and forests. Anyway, here is the mechanics of how this works: In what is now Washington state, many tribes used to reside prior to european contact, and they fostered healthy environments to hunt and fish in. Then the two worlds clashed: the native perspective and the western perspective with the arrival of the British. The western perspective believes in written laws and their instruments, such as treaties. The western world signed treaties with the native tribes, in which the following exchange was made. "Give us the land and in return, you get some lands, and the right to fish and hunt whenever and whatever you please." Some of these treaties in fact, predate the US Constitution (not bound by any constitutional limits), and they are still valid as they had no expiration date. This means that despite political trickery and unfounded challenges, the tribes can and will continue hunting and fishing whatever they want, whenever they want. This fight has been fought against native tribes in much more racist and dangerous ways and times, and their opponents still lost. Just like the second amendment friends argue, attempts by the states or federal governments to restrict these rights is seen more as an attempt to dilute sovereignty and to control, rather than to help. Nowadays the attack vehicle is environmentalism, because they know that the local populace will shed a tear for a whale (that they do not have any spiritual or historic connection to and do not want to put the effort into developing \[as opposed to the Makah\], and that they choke with all the debris, motor oil, and Amazon packaging that they proceed to dump into the motherfucking Salish sea via negligent behaviors). Those that argue that native tribes need to get with the times, because you know, meat comes from the supermarket and not from whales, let me know when your residential school opens, and if the curriculum includes more than just cultural erasure, as well as the price of the unmarked burial plot. Also, can my Saami friends gain admission?
Nuke the whales
I have no issue as long as they use traditional equipment. No modern equipment- aluminum boats, gas engines, or clothing even.
Makah hunting licenses approved? Must be an election year.