It’s been three weeks since a crew of hunters shot, harpooned, and killed a gray whale in the Kuskokwim River, and federal agencies are still investigating the incident.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials collected samples of the whale’s meat after residents hauled it to shore near Napaskiak. Julie Speegle, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, confirmed in July that her organization was reviewing pictures and video from the hunt.
NOAA would not discuss their ongoing investigation with KYUK, but the agency's Office of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Ally Rogers did say that determining whether anyone’s at fault in an unauthorized whale killing can be an arduous process.
"We have to assess penalties, and that is based on a number of factors," said Rogers. "It’s kind of like an onion - you have to peel back multiple layers."
NOAA enforces federal statutes across three million square miles of open ocean, and they often rely on Facebook, citizen tips, and social media screenshots to hear about offenses. Officials interview witnesses, ship captains, and crewmembers. Rogers said that biologists often perform necropsies, examining the whale's organs and tissue to determine cause of death. If they determine that someone is at fault in the whale’s untimely demise, Rogers says that NOAA officials send their materials to the agency’s lawyers.
Rogers says that these cases can result in fines or financial settlements, but the penalties for killing a whale vary widely. When hunters in Toksook Bay illegally killed an humpback whale last year, NOAA punished them with an “educational letter” explaining the rules. NOAA took the humpbacks off the Endangered Species List last September.
Illegal whale hunts have been punished more severely. When hunters from Washington State’s Makah reservation killed an unauthorized gray whale in 2007, five of the men involved were indicted and two served time in federal prison.