A Council representative attended last year's IWC meeting in Ireland and announced the intention to begin whaling in 1996. It was only last September that the Tribal Council brought the issue up on the Makah Reservation. The vote of 76 in favor and 28 against comprised only 5 percent of the tribal population. The vote was not a representative sample. Isabel Ides, at 96 the oldest Makah, is the only tribal member who remembers the last whale hunt around 1910.
Nobody knows how to hunt it anymore.
There is no need for this. Her grandson, Frank, speaking for the younger generation, attacked the Tribal Council. They say the request to hunt whales is for food and culture. They just want to hunt to make money. We don't like it.