Whaling by Native American Tribe Disallowed

A United States appeals court ruled on Friday that the Makah Tribe could not conduct gray whale hunts even though it was authorized to do so by the International Whaling Commission in May.
http://www.anc.org/wildlife/wildlife_article.cfm? identifier=2002_1221... g

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Yep. I'm sure that the Makah killing a non endangered gray whale every now and then would have a noticable impact, and it should be checked that this is not the case before allowing the whaling to continue.

Sound ridiculous?

Which the Makh lobbied heavily to have removed from the endangered list.

every

Not if you are trying to stop whales from being killed. Sounds like progress. Richard Hayduke Lives! 'In all our councils, in all our decisions, both individual and collective, we must not forget the others who are not represented. We must represent them ourselves. Who speaks for Wolf? Orca? Gila Monster? Red-cockaded Woodpecker? Bog Lemming? Big Bluestem? Oak? Mycorrhizal fungi?' Dave Foreman

Sounds more like imperialism if you ask me...

The list means nothing, they aren't endangered, that's why they are 'non endangered'.

There is no such thing as 'progress' if that's what you want. You either get it or you don't. Unfortunately for you, this is just a filibuster, it's not going to stop them whaling long term.

Not if you're a whale.

Richard Hayduke Lives! 'In all our councils, in all our decisions, both individual and collective, we must not forget the others who are not represented. We must represent them ourselves. Who speaks for Wolf? Orca? Gila Monster? Red-cockaded Woodpecker? Bog Lemming? Big Bluestem? Oak? Mycorrhizal fungi?' Dave Foreman

Well thats because whales are too stupid to understand human conceptions like imperialism in the first place.

Once again you arrogantly elevate humans above all other life.

Richard Hayduke Lives! 'In all our councils, in all our decisions, both individual and collective, we must not forget the others who are not represented. We must represent them ourselves. Who speaks for Wolf? Orca? Gila Monster? Red-cockaded Woodpecker? Bog Lemming? Big Bluestem? Oak? Mycorrhizal fungi?' Dave Foreman

It is not uncommon...for Indian tribes to resurrect old customs and find a host of complications they had not foreseen. Like any group of humans, tribes often disagree about the virtue of their customs. And the starry-eyed encouragement of other Americans, wowed by the spiritualism of Indians, can soon turn to taunts once endangered species are involved. One writer to a Seattle newspaper once said the Makah hunting crew once idolized for plunging into cold mountain streams in the pre-dawn hours were a bunch of testosterone loaded young men who mainly wanted to shoot something. The fact is that whale-hunts were once a male rite of passage, and neither hunts nor male rites are now particularly acceptable to most. It's sad to say, but this poor and tiny tribe may now wish it had just forgotten the whole whale hunting thing. The Makah's hunt will symbolize: nature as our very context for being. The gray whale is one of several edible creatures at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula that together make possible a way of life. The Makah can take one for food, knowing their action does not threaten the whales and the web of marine life to which they belong. They might agree with the deep ecologists' credo that all living things are connected, but they don't exclude themselves. Black Hawk

Rights implies an ability to understand consequences of actions and the fact that the enitity to which the rights apply, knows consequences apply.

Rights implies the ability to discern, learn and make judgement calls.

Rights means being held accountable for actions.

If a human murders another, we hold that human accountable. If the human is mentally insufficient to understand his actions, that human is removed from the general populace. This is rights.

When a lion murders another, who holds the lion accountable? When a chimp kills another, who holds the chimp accountable? Malice killing and even killing out of sheer joy of bloodlust is not limited to the human species as evidenced by miles of documentary footage.

Welfare is an entirely different matter.

Thats 'human rights' at least.

Lion society works differently to human society though. In human society we consider it wrong to kill one of our own in pretty much all circumstances. How Lions treat each other is up to them though.

Damn straight.

As individual groups of species, we have our own rules of behaviour, and how each group decides to behave is entirely up to that species.

When it comes to interspecies interactions, every animal understands the notion that it can kill (and often consume) other animal species as it sees fit. Every animal also has the right to attempt to defend itself. As animals, humans are perfectly entitled to behave in accordance with these rules, as they are the same rules that are applied to us by other animals.