Chapter II — Species of Special Concern 



along the west coast of Baja California, Mexico. A 

 variety of development activities being proposed at the 

 lagoons may adversely affect the whales and their 

 wintering habitat. For several years, the Marine 

 Mammal Commission has continued to track these 

 activities and has endeavored to identify ways to 

 prevent adverse effects. 



One of the greatest potential threats is construction 

 of a new solar salt-processing facility proposed for 

 San Ignacio Lagoon. The plan calls for the construc- 

 tion of a 1.25-mile-long (2 km) deepwater pier with 

 conveyor belts for loading salt onto freighters, and the 

 development of approximately 8 square miles (20 km^) 

 of evaporation ponds along the northern shore of the 

 lagoon. This construction would substantially alter 

 the character of the lagoon shoreline. The facility 

 would be situated within the buffer zone of the El 

 Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, part of the United 

 Nations Environment Programme's international 

 biosphere reserve network, and could compromise 

 efforts to maintain the reserve. 



A permit for the project was denied by the Mexican 

 government in February 1995 on the grounds that an 

 environmental impact assessment of the project did 

 not identify or adequately address possible environ- 

 mental consequences. Although the salt production 

 company appealed the decision, it later withdrew the 

 appeal, indicating that it intended to submit a new 

 study that more appropriately considered the environ- 

 mental issues and identified steps to conserve the 

 natural resources of the biosphere reserve. 



It is the Marine Mammal Commission's under- 

 standing that, although work continued on drafting the 

 revised environmental impact assessment during 1998, 

 the assessment had not been completed by the end of 

 the year. When a revised assessment is submitted to 

 Mexico's Ministry for the Environment, Natural 

 Resources, and Fisheries, it will be forwarded to a 

 seven-member international scientific advisory com- 

 mittee, established by the ministry, for review. 



Subsistence Take of Gray Whales 



The IWC is the international organization responsi- 

 ble for setting catch limits for both commercial and 

 aboriginal subsistence whaling (see Chapter IV). In 



May 1995 the Makah Tribal Council of Washington 

 state wrote to the Departments of Commerce and State 

 indicating that the council intended to ask the agencies 

 formally to seek IWC approval of an annual ceremo- 

 nial and subsistence harvest of up to five gray whales. 

 The council indicated that whaling has been a tradi- 

 tional part of the tribe's way of life for 1,500 years. 

 It further contended that there were no legal impedi- 

 ments to the tribe's rights to take whales because the 

 eastern North Pacific gray whale stock had been 

 removed from the Endangered Species Act's list of 

 endangered and threatened wildlife and because the 

 enactment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act had 

 not abrogated the tribe's whaling rights recognized 

 under the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. 



As discussed in previous annual reports, the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service, the Department of 

 State, and the Department of the Interior reviewed the 

 tribe's proposal and related information and decided 

 to seek a quota from the IWC on behalf of the 

 Makah. However, at the 1996 IWC meeting, the 

 United States announced that, after consultations with 

 the Makah representatives, it was asking the IWC to 

 defer consideration of the proposal until 1997. This 

 deferral gave the tribe an opportunity to provide 

 additional background on its proposal, including 

 information on the nutritional value of subsistence 

 foods and the health benefits to be derived from 

 including whales in the diet of the tribe and on the 

 steps it was taking to develop a safe, effective, and 

 humane method of killing gray whales. The revised 

 proposal indicated that the tribe intended to hunt 

 whales fi-om traditional cedar canoes and was consid- 

 ering using a specially modified rifle to kill the 

 whales. 



The deferral of the Makah proposal also gave the 

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the 

 opportunity to prepare an environmental assessment of 

 the proposal under the National Environmental Policy 

 Act before seeking a gray whale quota from the IWC. 

 On 22 August 1997 the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service published a draft environmental assessment on 

 the annual harvest of up to five gray whales by the 

 Makah Tribe for cultural and subsistence uses. The 

 draft environmental assessment preliminarily conclud- 

 ed that landing up to five gray whales, or striking up 

 to ten gray whales, per year would have no impact on 



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