Aboriginal whaling

A number of new initiatives were endorsed in order to facilitate a more straight-forward process when catch limits are next considered at the 2024 meeting of the Commission.

It no longer occurs on the Atlantic coast, although the Pilgrim Fathers found the original inhabitants of New England had a well-developed understanding of drift whales.

[14] On 5 April 2019 NOAA Fisheries proposed issuing a waiver under the MMPA to the Makah tribe to allow hunting, as well as a what stakeholders can do to engage in the public rule making process before an Administrative Law Judge.

Whaling is carried out by various Inuit groups in the Canadian Arctic in small numbers and is managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Chukchi people of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East are permitted to take up to 140 gray whales from the North-East Pacific population each year.

[18] Natives of Bequia are allowed to catch up to four humpback whales per year using only traditional hunting methods of hand-thrown harpoons in small, open sailboats.

In the 2012 meeting of the IWC, delegates from several anti-whaling countries, and environmental groups, spoke out against it, with Peter Sanchez of the Dominican Republic calling it "artisanal whaling out of control".

Lamalera, on the south coast of the island of Lembata, and Lamakera on neighbouring Solor are the last two remaining Indonesian whaling communities.

The whale hunts are carried out in a traditional manner, with bamboo spears and small wooden outriggers, 10–12 m long and 2m wide, constructed without nails and with sails woven from palm fronds.

In 1973, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization sent a whaling ship and a Norwegian master whaler, to modernize the hunt.

According to the FAO report, the Lamalerans "have evolved a method of whaling which suits their natural resources, cultural tenets and style.