How not to do a tribal whale hunt

I'm embarrassed that this is a WA State tribe... From MS/NBC:

Gray whale shot with machine gun off Wash
Members of Makah Tribe detained after animal hit by .50-caliber gun

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.

And a bit more:

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.

I'd hate to be the people involved right now. Tribal justice can be brutal and long-lived and the whale is sacred to the Makah...