The ruling by a three-member panel of the court in San Francisco is a victory for opponents of the Makah hunt who said federal officials flouted environmental laws by agreeing to the hunt before the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had done its environmental review. The court found fault with the timing of the process rather than the content of the report.
The order will take effect later this summer, and it's unclear what impact - if any - the ruling will have on the Makahs' gray-whale hunt. The tribe in Neah Bay, Wash., last year killed its first gray in more than 70 years.
Opponents hope the whaling will be shut down for at least a few years while federal officials perform a lengthy, detailed review. In the meantime, they hope they can rally more public opposition to the hunts.
"We believe, when the government looks with an unbiased eye, they will not approve the hunt," said Mike Markarian, executive vice president for the Fund for Animals, one of several national and international animal-rights groups that joined U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Langley, in the lawsuit.
But Keith Johnson, president of the Makah Tribal Whaling Commission, called the ruling a "temporary setback" that will have little effect on the hunts.
By the time the ruling takes effect this August, the spring whaling season will be closed. During this season, the tribe has embarked on nine hunts, throwing seven harpoons but not striking any whales, Johnson said. The hunt is scheduled to resume in the fall. By then, the Makah whalers hope the new study will be finished and approved by the courts.
The study will be conducted by the Northwest regional office of the NMFS. Agency officials said they're unsure how long it will take.
"It normally takes a couple of months. But this will certainly be subject to court scrutiny, so I know we will want to be careful," said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the NMFS.
The Makahs secured the right to whale under an 1855 treaty that ceded their claims to Olympic Peninsula lands. The lawsuit did not challenge those treaty rights. Instead, it focused on the federal review process for the hunt under the National Environmental Policy Act. In 1996, the federal agency promised to help the Makahs gain approval for the hunt from the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The judges said that commitment to the tribe biased the agency as it launched the environmental review, which wasn't completed until Oct. 17, 1997. The Makahs have international approval to take up to 20 whales over five years ending in 2002. The study concluded the hunt would not pose any risks to a gray-whale population estimated at more than 26,000.
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