Will Gun Kill Whale Quickly? -- Veterinarian Touts Weapon As Humane

NEAH BAY, Clallam County - If there's anything more controversial than blowing away a gray whale with a gun in 1998, it's doing it badly, causing the whale to die a slow, agonizing death.

So when regulators opened the door for the Makah tribe to go whaling for the first time in 70 years, they insisted on a "humane kill" with a powerful gun.

The Makah must try to kill any whale they strike, not wound it and lose it. And the whale must die quickly.

When Makah whalers take to the seas in a cedar canoe sometime this fall, they will not take aim with the AK-47s used by Russian whalers or the penthrite bomb lances used by Alaskan Eskimos.

Instead the Makah may pioneer the use of a .577-caliber elephant gun that packs the punch of a stick of dynamite.

"That's got a nice kick to it. That was awesome," said whaler Donnie Swan after firing the gun with a deafening blast that sent him staggering back four steps. "Fun," he said, with an awestruck expression.

The whaling-crew gunner, Wayne Johnson, will attempt to hit a 2-foot-square area of the gray whale's head from no farther than 100 yards, drilling a slug the size of a man's index finger into the whale's brain.

Death should come within 15 to 20 minutes.

"Take out the brain stem and they are toast," said Allen Ingling, a Maryland veterinarian and ballistics expert, who brought the elephant gun to Neah Bay Thursday.

Ingling favors the larger-bore elephant gun over the .50-caliber anti-tank gun the tribe was intending to use at his initial recommendation. It is about half the weight of the .50-caliber, easier to handle, and can hold three rounds of ammunition, while the .50-caliber holds only one shot.

Tribal members soon will decide which gun to use in the hunt.

The elephant gun is an elegant, expensive weapon. It has a smooth wooden stock and lustrous black steel barrel with a muzzle big around as a Bing cherry.

The guns are custom-made in Kentucky, and there are only 30 in the world. Each costs about $4,000. Every blunt-nosed solid brass round of its ammunition weighs a quarter pound and costs $14.

The gun eventually could be used by whalers in Russia who now kill gray whales with hundreds of rounds from assault rifles - a slow and cruel death.

The penthrite bombs used by Eskimos are deadly and effective. But the bombs are too big to use on gray whales, which are half the size of the bowheads hunted by Alaskan natives.

The Makah need a weapon to kill the gray whale quickly, not explode it.

Yet, no matter what weapon the tribe uses, there will be critics who still say the hunt is inhumane.

"The only humane kill is no kill," said Will Anderson of the Progressive Animal Welfare Society of Lynnwood. "Whales should not be killed anywhere for any reason."

Whaling opponents are skeptical that a whale can be killed humanely.

"I have never seen a whale killed quickly," said Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Watson and others contend that tribal members who have never hunted a whale on the open ocean will have a hard time getting a clean shot at a whale. The seas could be rough; the boat will be moving; and none of the whalers have any experience in the task at hand.

Tribal whalers spent the weekend building wooden tanks, which they filled with water and used for target practice.

Even Ingling isn't satisfied with the term humane kill.

"You can't define it. Basically the magic number seems to be 15 minutes," Ingling said. "If we can kill something in less than 15 minutes, that's what we'd like to accomplish."

Ingling has been in the humane killing business for decades at the University of Maryland in College Park. He's worked with everything from slaughtering cattle to electrocuting horses.

"It's dirt simple," he said. "They drop like a stone."

He has a love for guns he says stems from a passion for tools. He seeks the right tool for any job, whether it's killing a whale or sinking a nail.

"It's not the idea of killing things," he said. "A gun is just another tool. I really don't like killing things."

Ingling started working with whale hunters more than 10 years ago, when he helped Alaskan Eskimos refine their darting guns to reduce the percentage of bowhead whales struck but lost.

Using refined penthrite grenades, the percentage of whales wounded but not killed dropped from 70 percent to 10 percent. The whales now die within 10 minutes, Ingling estimated.

It used to take an hour or longer.

Lynda Mapes' phone message number is 206-464-2736. Her e-mail is lmapes@seattletimes.com