U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

49-786 PDF 2009

*** ERRATA *** 

61ST MEETING OF THE 

INTERNATIONAL WHALING 

COMMISSION (IWC) TO BE HELD 

IN MADEIRA, PORTUGAL 

JUNE 22-26, 2009 

OVERSIGHT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS, 

OCEANS AND WILDLIFE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 

Serial No. 111-20 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

or 

Committee address: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov 

(II) 

*** ERRATA *** 

This errata corrects the inadvertent omission of a letter submitted 

for the record by the Makah Indian Tribe for the hearing held by 

the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife on May 20, 

2009. The letter has been added to the Table of Contents and can 

be found on new pages 34 and 35. 

(III) 

CONTENTS 

Page 

Hearing held on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 .......................................................... 1 

Statement of Members: 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate in Congress from Guam ............... 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2 

Brown, Hon. Henry E., Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of South Carolina .......................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4 

Young, Hon. Don, the Representative in Congress for the State of Alaska 25 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 26 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Baker, C. Scott, Associate Director, Marine Mammal Institute, and 

Professor, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State 

University ...................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 15 

Block, Kitty, Vice President, Humane Society International ....................... 9 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 11 

Hogarth, William T., Ph.D., U.S. Commissioner, International Whaling 

Commission ................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 6 

Additional materials supplied: 

Makah Indian Tribe, Statement submitted for the record ............................ 34 

Sutley, Nancy, Chair, Council on Environmental Quality, and Dr. Jane 

Lubchenco, Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Statement submitted for the record ............................................... 35 

34 

The hearing record will be held open for 10 days for these responses. Again, I want to thank the members of the panel for being 

here. I think we have learned a great deal, and we will continue 

to investigate, and hopefully something will come of all of this as 

we proceed forward. So if there is no further business before the 

Subcommittee, the Chairwoman again thanks the Members of the 

Subcommittee and our witnesses. The Subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Additional material submitted for the record follows:] 

Statement submitted for the record by the Makah Indian Tribe 

The Makah Indian Tribe has a documented 1500-year history of whaling in the 

waters adjacent to its home on the most northwestern part of the contiguous United 

States in Washington State. The Tribe’s subsistence culture—both past and 

present—relies heavily on whales and the other abundant resources of the marine 

environment. Whaling is also fundamental to Makahs’ identity and social framework and is reflected in song, dance, art and ceremonies. 

The vital importance of whaling led the Tribe to insist that it be guaranteed the 

right to continue harvesting these animals in its usual and accustomed waters when 

it negotiated a land cession treaty with the United States in 1855. As a result, the 

Treaty of Neah Bay, 12 Stat. 939 (1855), is the only treaty between the United 

States and an Indian tribe that expressly secures the right to hunt whales. That 

right continues, undiminished, to the present. 

Despite the treaty guarantee, the Tribe voluntarily ceased whaling in the 1920s 

because of the overexploitation of gray whales by non-Indian commercial whaling 

operations. This decision was a direct consequence of both the mis-management of 

the resource by non-Indians and the Tribe’s conservation values. Being dependant 

on its natural resources, the Tribe has always sought to live in harmony with the 

marine environment and utilize these resources sustainably. 

When the gray whale was successfully removed from Endangered Species Act protection in the mid-1990s, the Tribe engaged in the complex international and domestic legal framework that had developed since it last harvested whales seven decades 

earlier. The Tribe worked closely with the United States delegation to the IWC to 

obtain an aboriginal subsistence whaling quota for the Eastern North Pacific (ENP) 

stock of gray whales. In 1997, the IWC approved a joint quota for ENP gray whales 

for the United States and the Russian Federation, which had long obtained quotas 

for use by the Chukotkan Natives of far northeastern Russia. Through a bilateral 

agreement with the Russian Federation, the United States was allocated 20 gray 

whales over a five-year period for use by the Makah. 

In 1999, following authorization under domestic law, the Tribe successfully hunted a gray whale. The hunt was immensely significant for the Tribe as the culmination of years of effort to renew the Makahs’ ceremonial and subsistence whaling tradition. The tribal community widely supported the hunt and participated in the 

community celebration and sharing of whale meat and blubber that followed. The 

rigorous training and spiritual preparation of the whaling crew also provided a focal 

point and positive connection to tribal history and cultural for these individuals and 

their families. 

Since 2000, two lawsuits under domestic law have prevented further Makah whaling. These lawsuits involved challenges to the Government’s compliance with the 

National Environmental Policy Act and the requirement of the Tribe and the Government to comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Although the 

Tribe strongly disagrees with the ruling that it must obtain a waiver of the MMPA’s 

take moratorium prior to undertaking a ceremonial and subsistence hunt, in February 2005 the Tribe initiated the waiver process by submitting a waiver request 

to NOAA. In the past four years, the Tribe has provided NOAA with information 

necessary for the agency to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) and 

to determine whether to waive the take moratorium. A draft EIS was published and 

made available for public comment in 2008. 

Although the domestic and international processes necessary to resume treaty 

whaling are complex and time consuming, the Tribe remains committed to following 

these processes through to their completion and has devoted substantial resources 

toward this end. Subsequent to the initial five-year quota approved by the IWC in 

1997, the Tribe has coordinated with the United States IWC delegation and NOAA 

35 

to successfully secure renewals of the joint quota with the Russian Federation in 

2002 and 2007. The Tribe is also actively supporting the preparation of the EIS and 

the ongoing MMPA waiver process. 

The Tribe is actively engaged in the IWC process and the current effort to evaluate the future of this organization and develop a consensus on ‘‘the way forward.’’ 

The Tribe is concerned that the increasing polarization of the IWC in recent years 

will adversely impact future efforts of the United States to secure aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas and the corresponding ability of the Tribe to exercise its treatyprotected whaling rights. Unfortunately, it was only a few years ago when issues 

at the center of the current dispute over the future of the IWC resulted in the unjust (albeit temporary) denial of an aboriginal whaling quota. 

The Makah Indian Tribe urges the Subcommittee and Committee, Congress and 

the United States to continue support for the joint gray whale quota with the Russian Federation and for Makah treaty-reserved whaling rights. The Tribe also urges 

the United States to strive to preserve an international forum where all nations 

may come to resolve whale conservation and scientific issues, including the limited, 

scientifically based subsistence harvest of whales by aboriginal peoples. 

Statement submitted for the record by Nancy Sutley, Chair, Council on 

Environmental Quality, and Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator, National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

We have submitted this written statement to the Subcommittee in order to respond to the request that the Obama Administration provide its views on the upcoming 61st annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission. 

The Obama Administration began while the Future of the IWC process was well 

underway. The Administration fully understands the complexities of, and concerns 

regarding, this process and the key issues facing the IWC. The Administration has 

asked the current United States Commissioner, Dr. William Hogarth to hold over 

in his post through the June annual meeting so that he can remain Chairman of 

the Commission, a position that he holds as an individual. We appreciate Dr. 

Hogarth’s leadership as both U.S. Commissioner and IWC Chair and his success at 

bringing a respectful level of discourse among the IWC members as they discuss the 

difficult issues facing the IWC. We expect the President to appoint a new U.S. Commissioner to replace Dr. Hogarth following the end of this year’s IWC meeting. 

As we have stated earlier, the Administration would like to see the International 

Whaling Commission (IWC) serve as the premier international forum to resolve current and emerging whale conservation issues and coordinate critical research. In 

this context, conservation of whales is of the utmost priority to the Obama Administration. Most importantly, the United States continues to view the commercial whaling moratorium as a necessary conservation measure because the abundance of 

most whale stocks are either too unknown, too low, or still recovering, and there 

is not yet an effective, comprehensive conservation scheme for whales that will 

guarantee their survival. 

The Administration also strongly opposes lethal scientific whaling and considers 

it unnecessary in modern whale conservation management, and believes that the 

use of objections, reservations and an expansive interpretation of Article VIII (special permit scientific whaling) undermine the moratorium and the institution. The 

Administration moreover has significant concerns over the recent resumption of 

international trade of whale meat with imports by Japan, and exports by Iceland 

and Norway. 

Nevertheless, the Administration is committed to furthering discussions of critical 

issues within the IWC because it is important for the IWC to function effectively. 

The IWC should be a model for international cooperation on the conservation and 

use of a shared global resource. It is important for us now to try to find common 

ground among IWC members, which are many of the same nations with whom we 

need to cooperate on even more urgent international environmental matters. However, we reserve judgment on various proposals regarding a way forward on the 

IWC until discussions are completed, which, in our view must occur before the annual meeting in 2010. The time to resolve these issues is now. It is our view that 

any resolution of outstanding issues, to be acceptable, must result in a significant 

improvement in the conservation status of whales and be based on sound science. 

In closing, the failure to resolve these issues is not an acceptable outcome to the 

United States. We intend to use the Administration’s influence to achieve a resolution by 2010 that will ensure the long-term functioning of the IWC, and greater protections for the world’s great whales. Æ