Date: Thu, 27 Jun, 1996
House committee protests U.S. gray whale hunt plan

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The House Resources Committee Wednesday unanimously adopted a resolution opposing a U.S. plan to allow the Makah Indians to hunt five gray whales a year. The plan would allow the north Washington state Makah to hunt under an international whaling ban waiver that permits hunts by aboriginal groups who have traditionally killed whales.

The Clinton administration is seeking approval of its proposal this week in Scotland at an International Whaling Commission meeting, which is sharply divided on the issue. Environmentalists say the proposal should be rejected because the Makahs have not hunted whales for 70 years and do not need the meat for food, but instead to revive an old cultural practice.
"The Makah assertion of purely cultural needs is not adequate to justify acceptance of the proposal and raises questions that merit considerable review," World Wildlife Fund said in a statement Wednesday.

While Congress would be hard-pressed to overturn the Makah plan if the IWC approved it, the Resources Committee wanted to "send a message to the commission and to our own delegation," said Democratic staff director, John Lawrence.
"We felt it was highly inappropriate for the administration to go off to an internationl conference to propose this kind of policy without consulting us," he said.
"This was an endangered species just two years ago," said Rep. George Miller, the top Democrat on the committee, warning that the proposal could undermine international efforts to protect whales, especially in Japan.



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