Makah Tribe

Read more about the article Makah Tribe continues pursuit of treaty whaling right
Makah tribal member Paul Hayte addresses NOAA Fisheries personnel during a public hearing on the tribe's whaling proposal.

Makah Tribe continues pursuit of treaty whaling right

Paul Hayte post“Our treaty is a living document just like the Constitution,” said Makah tribal member John Haupt during a public hearing about the tribe’s proposed whale hunt. “You are making something simple, complicated – we ceded thousands of acres of land in exchange for protection of our rights on the ocean.”

The hearing, held in Port Angeles at the end of April, was part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries public comment process for a draft environmental impact statement for the tribe’s whaling proposal. There are six options, including no whaling and the tribes’ proposal of the harvest of up to five Eastern north Pacific gray whales a year. (more…)

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Read more about the article Makah Tribe to celebrate completion of state-of-the-art dock
The Makah Tribe will celebrate the completion of their $13 million dock built to earthquake and tsunami standards that will serve the community and others for years to come.

Makah Tribe to celebrate completion of state-of-the-art dock

The Makah Tribe will celebrate the completion of their $13 million dock built to earthquake and tsunami standards that will serve the community and others for years to come.
The Makah Tribe will celebrate the completion of their $13 million dock built to earthquake and tsunami standards that will serve the community and others for years to come.
The Makah Tribe will celebrate the opening of their new $13.8 million dock at 11 a.m., Oct. 10 with a blessing and ribbon cutting even as they prepare for phase two of the facility.

The new 120-foot long, two-lane dock has a state-of-the-art ice machine capable of holding 110 tons of ice and has five offloading terminals, up from two on the old dock that became unsafe late last year. (more…)

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Historical fish hook draws community together

Alex Wise wrapping hook
Makah tribal member Alex Wise works to wrap one of the halibut hooks during a community volunteer session where the hooks were made. He later used them in a test fishing project.

A fish hook has tied history, culture and the Makah community together in unexpected ways.

The čibu·d (pronounced “cha bood”), or halibut hook, became the subject of a student project during an internship with Makah Fisheries Management.

“I had a student, Larry Buzzell, come to me wanting to do a project that related to historical fishing methods,” said Jonathan Scordino, marine mammal biologist for the Makah Tribe.

Historically the hooks were made of both wood and bone. As the tribe gained access to new materials, they also made hooks from metal.

“The goal of the project was to test if the čibu·d was more selective for catching halibut than contemporary circle hooks when fished on a longline,” Scordino said.

Setting up the experiment was challenging because the study required 200 čibu·d to be made by hand. (more…)

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Read more about the article Coastal Tribes Convene to Tackle Climate Change
This series of pictures from the University of Washington and Larry Workman shows the disappearance of Anderson Glacier which feeds the Quinault River.

Coastal Tribes Convene to Tackle Climate Change

This series of pictures from the University of Washington and Larry Workman shows the disappearance of Anderson Glacier which feeds the Quinault River.

On Washington’s rugged Pacific coast, the Quinault Indian Nation has depended on salmon for thousands of years. But the glaciers that feed the Quinault and Queets Rivers and sustain these salmon populations are in retreat because of climate change, threatening the very survival of the salmon.

In Alaska, native villages are pulling up stakes and moving to new ground as the permafrost beneath them melts and erodes due to warming global temperatures.

In the U.S. Pacific Islands rainfall and stream levels are decreasing while storm intensity, sea level, and atmospheric and oceanic temperatures are on the rise. Communities are threatened by the resulting decline in underwater aquifers and increases in land-based pollution, coral bleaching, fire risk, hillside and shoreline erosion, and altered fish abundance and distribution. (more…)

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Read more about the article Climate change: Washington coastal tribes hosting symposium blending indigenous knowledge with western science
Coastal tribes are already seeing changes to the natural resources they rely on due to climate change. It will be critical to bring their millennia of knowledge together with western science to help indigenous people to adapt.

Climate change: Washington coastal tribes hosting symposium blending indigenous knowledge with western science

Coastal tribes are already seeing changes to the natural resources they rely on due to climate change. It will be critical to bring their millennia of knowledge together with western science to help indigenous people adapt.
The inaugural First Stewards symposium, to be held July 17-20 in Washington, D.C. is a national event that examines the impact of climate change on indigenous coastal cultures and explores solutions based on millennia of traditional ecological knowledge.

Hundreds of native leaders, witnesses and climate scientists will join policy-makers and non-government organizations for groundbreaking dialogue in what is planned to be an annual meeting at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

The Hoh, Makah and Quileute tribes and the Quinault Indian Nation created the symposium because indigenous coastal people are among the most affected by climate change. (more…)

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Read more about the article Survival rates focus of Makah’s elk studies
Rob McCoy, wildlife division manger for the Makah Tribe, and Shannon Murphy, wildlife biologist for the tribe, weigh and elk calf as part of the tribe's elk studies.

Survival rates focus of Makah’s elk studies

Rob McCoy, wildlife division manger for the Makah Tribe, and Shannon Murphy, wildlife biologist for the tribe, weigh and elk calf as part of the tribe's elk studies.
Bull elk on the north Olympic Peninsula are surviving today at roughly the same rate as they did in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to early results of a two-year study by the Makah Tribe.

The tribe is halfway through the second year of a bull and calf elk survival study to update survival rate information gathered in the 1980s. “We want to be sure enough mature branch antlered bulls and spikes are making it through each year to maintain a healthy population,” said McCoy. The study is being conducted in an estimated 124,000-acre area that includes Makah reservation and commercial timberlands outside the reservation. (more…)

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