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June 9, 2000

Federal Court stops Makah whale hunt pending review!!!

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the environmental assessment on which the government based permission for the hunt.

The 2-1 decision will force the National Marine Fisheries Service to consider effects on resident gray whales and other environmental effects before the hunt can be resumed during the fall migration.  The Makah consider this a temporary set back which does not affect their treaty right to kill whales.

May 22, 2000

Clinton/Gore Administration appeals "Dolphin Safe" label provisions
According to a press release from Earth Island Institute, the appeal, if successful would weaken federal standards by allowing tuna labeled "dolphin safe" to be captured by chasing and encircling dolphins with purse seine nets in order to trap the tuna swimming below.

Earth Island along with other groups charged that the Commerce Department ignored the findings of its own scientists--that net encirclement is harmful to dolphins--and was proposing to weaken US requirements for the "dolphin safe" label in order to accommodate foreign "tuna millionaires" and free trade.  Forbidding encirclement has probably saved hundreds of thousands of dolphins from dying in tuna nets.

The lawsuit to retain "dolphin safe" standards was filed in August 1999 bu 87-year-old environmentalist David Brower, biologist and dolphin activist Samuel LaBudde, Humane Society of the United States, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Defenders of Wildlife, International Wildlife Coalition, Animal Welfare Institute, Society for Animal Wildlife Coalition, Animal Welfare Institute, Society for Animal Protective Legislation, Animal Fund, Oceanic Society, and Environmental Solutions International.

Over seven million dolphins have died in tuna nets over the past 40 years, but the number killed annually after 1990 was reduced by 97% when the original "dolphin safe" standards, which forbade setting nets on dolphin went into effect.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                      Saturday / May 13, 2000

WHALE POLICE GROUP CALLS FOR

'IMMEDIATE HALT' TO MAKAH WHALE HUNT

NEAH BAY, WA - A whale monitoring organization is calling for an
"immediate halt" to the hunt for gray whales here after a longtime whale
researcher confirmed this week that the "majority" of migrant gray whales have passed, leaving only a few calves and cows and resident whales.

As a result, Bill Moss and Julie Woodyer of the anti-whaling group World Whale Police are now questioning why National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has not called a halt to the Makah Gray Whale Hunt.

"The odds are increasing that once this wave of calves and cows are past,
the rest of the whales left in the Makah hunting area are residents,"
confirmed Dr. Jim Darling of West Coast Whale Research in Vancouver, B.C.  Dr. Darling has been studying gray whales of Vancouver Island for the past 20 years.

The agreement between the Makah whalers and National Marine Fisheries Service prohibits the hunting of suckling calves, cows traveling with
calves and resident gray whales.

"We are calling for an immediate halt to this hunt, until researchers are
able to determine the status of the migration and a detailed analysis of
remaining whales is complete," said Woodyer.

Contact Information: World Whale Police
Tel: (360) 963-0717
Cell: (416) 451-5976 (360) 561-7492

Dr. Jim Darling Tel: (250) 725-4426

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