Calif. gray whale shot with machine gun

[STV_Keith]

If they haven't recovered the weapon yet, how do they know it was a machine gun? Any excuse to use "machine gun" the media goes for it.

 

[C8X]

Older images.

http://www.seashepherd.org/whales/i...er_rifle_Sept_20_Times_Post_Intelligencer.jpg

Personally I just question the safety of having any kind of firearm in a freaking canoe.

 

[C8X]

"NEAH BAY, Wash. - In stories Sept. 8 and Sept. 9 about the shooting of a California gray whale, The Associated Press, relying on information from the National Marine Fisheries Service, reported erroneously that the weapons used was .50-caliber machine gun. Further investigation by the agency determined that it was a large-caliber rifle."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070911...orrective_1;_ylt=Aqh0Y6lelnUn3FZLJZvc1FdxieAA

 

[Laruuk]

From what I've read about the guys that got arrested, they did this for one reason. Sport.

They acted carelessly and illegally.

What kind of sport is it to kill a whale?

 

[Charlie99]

Further investigation by the agency determined that it was a large-caliber rifle.

But apparently not large enough caliber. The officially sanctioned tribal hunt used a .50 caliber rifle to finish off the whale after it had been harpooned. It only took a few shots and 8 minutes for the entire kill sequence.

It sounds like this latest incident was a bunch of guys from the tribe doing it on their own, and that they didn't have eiher the skills or the right rifle to finish off the whale.

 

[wardric]

If they want to take whales because it's always been their culture to do so, then they should take the whales the way their culture has always done.
Terri

From what part of their history should the method be chosen. I dont know this tribe precisely but their hunting methods must have evolved with time even before white dudes arrive. So should they do it the way they did it 200yrs before colonisation? 100yrs before, during conquest, 100 yrs after it, 200 yrs,... ?

Same thing happens in the East coast where native hunt lobsters with the same equipement as local fishermen but with different quotas ans seasons, etc.

IMO, it should be the same law for all. If they can hunt whales, why cant I. If it's wrong to do so, why can they.

 

[Tigerman]

OK....I'll probably get flamed to bits but who cares?

They have rights to kill whales.

Do any of you really think that the whale gives a **** if they use "culturally appropriate methods"? Does it prefer to die legally at the end of a harpoon (probably takes hours...), or illegally blown to bits by a 50 caliber bullet, or exploding harpoon (probably usually pretty quick)?

The problem here, as in any hunting, is that it wasn't a clean kill. The rest is knickers in a twist window dressing. I can appreciate that many don't want whales hunted at all....but they still are....and believe it or not...often legally. I can also wish it wasn't so, but at the end of the day I just think that if they're going to use a 50 cal machine gun, at least make sure that whoever is firing the bloody thing knows what they're doing and aims straight. The real tragedy is that the animal is still alive and in pain. It'll quite probably die later anyway....having suffered for God knows how long.

Harpoons? What are you people thinking????

You dont have any clue about whaling, do you?
Do you even know how a harpoon works?
If they had used a modern harpoon and shot the whale in or near the brains, the harpoon would have set off an explosive charge that would push out the hooks on the harpoon with huge force as well as of course sending the shock wave through the whale.
Are you trying to say that its better to be shot 20 times and die a slow painfull death than having you brain blown to bits and die instantly??

 

[archman]

You dont have any clue about whaling, do you?
Do you even know how a harpoon works?
If they had used a modern harpoon and shot the whale in or near the brains, the harpoon would have set off an explosive charge that would push out the hooks on the harpoon with huge force as well as of course sending the shock wave through the whale.
Are you trying to say that its better to be shot 20 times and die a slow painfull death than having you brain blown to bits and die instantly??

Kim probably knows more about whaling than most anyone on this board, as his numerous insightful posts on this topic over the years have demonstrated. You clearly did not read his post adequately. His remarks about harpoons were primarily in reference to the classical hand lance type. Nor do his comments regarding dispatching the animal condone unnecessary pain and suffering. Rather the reverse, in fact.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Tribal fishermen held after whale shot, killed

NEAH BAY, Washington (AP) -- The Makah Tribal Council on Sunday denounced the killing of a California gray whale that was harpooned and shot several times off Washington's coast, calling it "a blatant violation of our law" and promising to prosecute those responsible.

But one of the men suspected in the killing told a newspaper Sunday that he was "feeling kind of proud" and whaling is "in the blood."

"We are a law-abiding people, and we will not tolerate lawless conduct by any of our members," the council said in a statement released Sunday.

The U.S. Coast Guard detained five men believed to have killed the whale on Saturday, then turned them over to tribal police for further questioning.

In its statement, the council said the men, whose names it did not release, were booked into the tribe's detention facility and released after posting bail. The council said the men will stand trial in tribal court, but did not set a date.

The American Indian tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay at Washington's westernmost tip.

Wayne Johnson, captain of the whaling crew that in 1999 legally killed the tribe's first whale in decades, told The Seattle Times that he and four other tribal members plunged at least five steel whaling five harpoons into the animal then shot it with a .460-caliber rifle.

Johnson, 54, said he had no regrets -- other than waiting so many years to do it.

"I'm not ashamed," he told The Times in a story the paper posted on its Web site Sunday. "I'm feeling kind of proud. ... I should have done it years ago. I come from a whaling family, on my grandmother's side and my grandfather's side. It's in the blood."

The Makah tribe's treaty rights to hunt whales have been tangled in the courts for several years.

The federal government removed the gray whale from the endangered species list in 1994. Five years later, with a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service, Makah tribal members killed their first whale in more than 70 years.

Animal welfare activists sued, leading to a court order that the tribe must obtain a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to continue hunting whales.

John McCarty, a former tribal whaling commission member who has been an advocate of the Makah's right to resume whaling, said the tribe had been working to obtain the waiver and that the process was close to completion.

"I don't know why they did this. It's terrible," McCarty told The Times. "I think the anti-whalers will be after us in full force, and we look ridiculous. Like we can't manage our own people, we can't manage our own whale."

The Times reported that four of the five men detained Saturday took part in the 1999 hunt. All five could face civil penalties of up to $20,000 each and up to a year in jail, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The whale was headed toward the Pacific Ocean after being wounded and later disappeared beneath the surface, dragging down buoys that had been attached to a harpoon. A biologist for the tribe declared the animal dead, Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said.

 

[DavidPT40]

How did it go from a .50 caliber machine gun to a single shot .460 rifle? Next thing you know, they're going to be reporting that it was a tunafish harpooned and shot to death, not a grey whale.