Just after noon, Watson says the U.S. Coast Guard boarded two vessels belonging to the Sea Defence Alliance and confiscated the vessels. Makah Whaling Commission president Keith Johnson says the Sea Defence Alliance protesters were threatening the tribal whaling canoe and support boat. The issuing of the permit caught Watson and the Sea Shepherd flagship vessel in Friday Harbor, Washington, waiting for an engine part, but Watson expects to be en route shortly. His intention is to protect the gray whales now migrating north after calving off the coast of southern California. Aerial view of the Makah reservation at Neah Bay, on the northwesternmost tip of Washington state across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Canada' Vancouver Island.
Gray whales pass by twice each year on their migratory cycle.
Watson insists the Makah hunt is illegal and has not been sanctioned by the International Whaling Commission. He contends the Makah do not need the food, and have not caught a whale in seventy-five years. The Makah say whaling has been a tradition of the tribe for more than 2,000 years. We had to stop in the 1920s due to the scarcity of gray whales. They claim they need to revive the practice of whaling to remember who they are as a people.