Calif. gray whale shot with machine gun

[Yamagushi]

NEAH BAY, Wash. - An injured California gray whale was swimming out to sea Saturday after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state, officials said.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. The extent of the whale's injuries were not immediately known.

Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

A preliminary report said the whale was shot with a .50-caliber machine gun, Oswell said.

Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The whale had begun heading to sea Saturday afternoon, Oswell said.

Although the tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, Oswell said preliminary information indicates the whale may have been shot illegally.

"We allow native hunts for cultural purposes. However, this does not appear to be of that nature so far," he said.

The Makah Tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay.

A call to tribal officials was not immediately returned on Saturday. Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson told The Seattle Times that the tribe has been seeking an exemption from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act so that it could take up to five gray whales per year. However, Johnson said the tribe had not yet secured that exemption for a new hunt.

[shadowkhas]

I'm gonna go with the .50 caliber NOT being culturally accurate.

[Cryticfarm]

Why does the tribe have a .50 caliber machine gun? Are those even legal?

[HPDarkness]

Wow, that's pretty br00tal.

[-DeToX-]

Why does the tribe have a .50 caliber machine gun? Are those even legal?

^^Yeah, what the hell...

[Leiukemia]

lol I bet you anything it wasn't a .50 cal. Something like a 5.56 probably.

[patchesreusch]

Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale

thats not enough for a .50 cal and u don't mistake a 5.56 for a .50 cal

[sneakyn8]

west coast environmentalists are probably trying to make the story sound more gruesome so that they will have everyone pushing for the tribe to be arrested

[SHOUTrvb]

Still, they shot a whale...

[Yamagushi]

with a 50 call machine gun....

[WaywornMmmmm]

Where the hell did they find this?

[GametagAeonFlux]

This is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in the news ever.

Also Wayworn, there's other machine guns that are .50 caliber.

[Leiukemia]

Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale

thats not enough for a .50 cal and u don't mistake a 5.56 for a .50 cal

err, actually the media has a nice way of getting their terms wrong. Any type of assault rifle to them is an m16, any sort of terrorist weapon is an uzi, and most usually any sort of fully automatic gun is a .50 cal machine gun.

[patchesreusch]

not uzi or m16 ak-47 the most famous assault rifle so that why it is often mistaken for any other gun

[Leiukemia]

Um, actually no. I've personally seen myself on the news several occasions where they called europian guns m16's, and some american submachine guns called uzi's because somebody was using them in an unjust way. It's rediculous.

The average news reporter sees this and thinks .50 cal:

[Cuda]

"AS AN INDIAN I WOULD LIKE TO RESERVE MY RIGHT TO SHOOT WHALES WITH MA FITTY."


This is probably more Traditional for Indians on the west coast as building Casinos, Claiming Random plots of land, Including Parking Lots, Prisons, and U.S. Landmarks as Tribal Lands, and universal hate of the White Man.

[Yamagushi]

Im a 16th Indian thank you, and we have the right to take all the land we want, u bastards stole it from us with ur germs >_>

[sneakyn8]

saying poor indians we took all theyre land is like saying poor street gangs we took all theyre land
think about it indians had names of clans and certain symbols and colors to represent themselves so do street gangs
rival clans will run through each others villages and burn and slash people just because theyre not from the same clan so (to some extent) do street gangs
indians used land as an excuse to fight eachother so do street gangs
notice a pattern?
now im not trying to say that all indians of modern day suck im saying that the whole white people stole land from indians kidnapped african babies for slave use and corrupted the world is bullshit

[shadowkhas]

Im a 16th Indian thank you, and we have the right to take all the land we want, u bastards stole it from us with ur germs >_>

I'm full Polish, and you don't see me beating up German kids.


Actually, that's a lie. I hit my German friend all the time.

[Danke]

I'm a red blooded American and I give smallpox to just about every Native American I know.

now im not trying to say that all indians of modern day suck im saying that the whole white people stole land from indians kidnapped african babies for slave use and corrupted the world is ***

These tribes were firmly established and many of them were settled in their land. Just because someone sees their culture as barbaric doesn't give them the right to take their land by force. Their land was stolen, their women raped and stolen, their people enslaved or decimated by foreign illness (sometimes intentionally) and their culture nearly eradicated.
If highly advanced aliens came and landed here, and suddenly started killing us and taking our land because our culture was "barbaric" and "inferior," we wouldn't say "Oh, okay. That's fair."

Your comment on "kidnapping african babies for slave use" is repulsively ignorant.