Presenter: The Indians though for instance - those are Indians in Washington - they want
to kill five. I mean what is five, if it's cultural?
Jim McLay: Well it's more than that though. The problem is that under the terms of the
convention, in order to get a, what's called an aboriginal subsistence quota, you've got to
demonstrate an ongoing nutritional need. Now this particular tribe hasn't actually taken
whales for seventy years. They certainly did at one stage and they ate them, and of course
in the meantime, as is common with most native American groups, these people have
moved on. They now, they now have their own fishing industry. They're comparatively
speaking quite prosperous. They've got facilities within their own area. There isn't a
nutritional need any longer, and you can actually, when you think about it for a moment,
you realise that nutritional need either exists or it doesn't exist and you can't really store it
away for seventy years.