Five U.S. Indian men indicted for hunting whale

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A federal grand jury indicted five Washington state American Indian men on Thursday on three misdemeanor charges each for their involvement in an illegal hunt of a gray whale last month.

The five members of the Makah tribe, frustrated over lack of progress gaining federal approval to resume a tribal whale hunt, shot a 30-foot (9.1-metre) whale at least 16 times with a high-powered rifle before it died.

The Makah, a tribe of about 1,200 members in western Washington, has been waiting since 1999 to resume its gray whale hunt after a federal court ruled that the tribe needs to secure a waiver from the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Each misdemeanor is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.

"We sought out the harshest penalties we could find for the conduct. We believe this is egregious conduct," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Oesterle said in a news conference in Seattle.

According to the indictment, the group entered into a conspiracy to illegally hunt and kill a gray whale. The men are also charged with the unlawful taking of a marine mammal and unauthorized whaling.

The five men are also expected to face charges from their own tribe, who denounced the hunt and promised to prosecute the hunters to the fullest extent of the law.

One of the men charged in hunt, Wayne Johnson, a Makah whaling captain who was involved in the tribe's legal hunt in 1999, told the Seattle Times last month that he was not sorry and that he should have done this years ago.

The Makah is waiting on an environmental impact study from the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A NOAA official said the illegal hunt could delay progress of the study.