Kaktovik. In 2015 Alaska Natives caught 326 beluga whales and 49 bowhead whales. In 2016 they caught 59 bowhead whales, two minke and one humpback whale; The latter two species were not authorized, though no one was prosecuted. Annual catches vary between 300 and 500 belugas and 40 to 70 bowheads. The hunt takes the bowhead whales from a population of about 10,000 in Alaskan waters. Anti-whaling groups claim this hunt is not sustainable, though the IWC Scientific Committee, the same group that provided the above population estimate, projects a population growth of 3.2% per year. The hunt also took an average of one or two gray whales each year until 1996. The quota was reduced to zero in that year due to concerns about sustainability. Washington State According to federal law, the Makah people of Washington State are entitled to hunt and kill one baleen whale, typically a gray whale, each year, though archeological records and oral history indicate a significant number of humpback whales were hunted as well. The Makah ended their whaling practices in the 1920s, but notified the U.S Government of their wish to reassert their whaling rights in 1995. The first permitted Makah whale hunt in 70 years occurred on May 17, 1999, when they caught a north Pacific gray whale, an unpermitted hunt killed another in 2007, and in 2018 they took meat from a humpback killed by a ship strike. An environmental impact statement for further hunts was issued in 2015. On April 5, 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. One of the main stipulations that NOAA proposed was allowing the Makah people to hunt as many as 20 gray whales every five years, however prior to any hunt the tribe would have to obtain a permit from NOAA. On August 2, 2019 the Administrative Law Judge announced that the final agenda for the hearing on NOAA's proposed waiver and regulations was set for November 2019, which was postponed from the previous June 26, 2019 announcement. Canadian whaling Canada left the IWC in 1982 and as such is not bound by the moratorium. Whaling is carried out by various Inuit groups in the Canadian Arctic in small numbers and is managed