When a Humpback Whale Got Stranded in Oregon, a Native Community Turned the Tragedy Into a Revival of a Traditional Practice

Members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians salvaged a beached whale’s remains, a practice that hadn’t been performed in generations

Sarah Kuta

– Daily Correspondent

December 9, 2025 9:57 a.m.

For the first time in generations, an Indigenous tribe in Oregon has harvested a whale, turning a tragedy into an opportunity to revive a traditional cultural practice.

In mid-November, members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians were called in to salvage the remains of a beached whale on the central Oregon coast. The young humpback whale, estimated to be around two years old, was found stranded on November 15 on a beach north of the city of Yachats, located roughly 150 miles southwest of Portland. It was entangled in Dungeness crab fishing gear.

For two days, experts tried unsuccessfully to get the massive marine mammal—which weighed roughly 20,000 pounds and measured 26 feet long—back into the water. Thousands of people watched the nightmarish scenario unfold via an online livestream.

When it became clear they could not save the whale and that the creature was suffering, veterinarians made the “very difficult decision” to euthanize it on November 17, said Jim Rice, program director of Oregon State University’s Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network, to Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Courtney Sherwood.

The Oregon State Police reached out and asked if the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians wanted to harvest the whale’s remains. The Siletz’s leaders secured a special permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and quickly gathered volunteers to help with the harvest, which Lisa Norton, the tribe’s chief administrative officer, described as both an “incredible privilege” and a “daunting task.”

“The folks that stood up and said ‘we could do this’ were very brave,” she told the Oregonian’s Jamie Hale. “And what they did was a very important piece to the next chapter of this whale.”

Siletz tribe harvests beached humpback whale at Oregon coast in rare cultural practice

Around noon on November 18, roughly 20 members of the tribe gathered on the beach and formed a circle around the whale. Before getting to work, they laid down tobacco as an offering and gave thanks to the whale for its sacrifice. They also prayed, asking the Creator to guide their hands as they used knives and meat hooks to carefully dismantle the large carcass.

Working for about 12 hours, tribal members harvested as many usable parts as possible from the whale, including its blubber, bones, skull and baleen. They did not harvest the meat because of potential health concerns, since the whale had been chemically sedated and euthanized. Instead, they put the meat in a deep trench so it could be washed out to sea.

Looking ahead, tribal members will decide together what to do with the animal’s usable remains. Its blubber, for example, might be used for soap, fuel or oil, while its bones may become part of their tribal regalia.

Some of the pieces may end up in a museum so the tribe can “retell the story of that whale, and that story goes on for generations,” Norton told the Washington Post’s Anumita Kaur.

“To take this tragic thing and—we didn’t make it beautiful—but we made the best of a tragic situation,” she added. “And that’s valuable.”

None of the tribe’s living members had ever harvested a whale before, and no one could recall the last time traditional practice had been carried out.

Before the harvest, tribal members spent some time researching humpback whale anatomy. And once they arrived, they tuned in to their intuition and instincts to complete the monumental task. “We’re salvaging the whale for cultural purposes, but it’s not like we come with a handbook,” Norton told KPTV’s Julia Lopez.

Hunting whales was once common among coastal Indigenous communities, but the practice is now mired in red tape. For example, earlier this year, the Siletz had their historical hunting and fishing rights restored, ending nearly 50 years of government restrictions. Even so, the tribe had to obtain federal permission to harvest the whale.

The Siletz are made up of more than 30 distinct bands and tribes whose ancestral territories once stretched from northern California to southern Washington. In the 1850s, the federal government forced these groups to relocate to a reservation on the Oregon coast; they joined together to form a single federally recognized tribe, even though they had different cultures and languages.

As tribal members harvested the whale, veterinarians and scientists worked alongside them to conduct a necropsy. The two groups worked in collaboration, leading to a “remarkable day” of shared learning, said Kurt Williams, a veterinarian at Oregon State University, to the Washington Post.

“It was honestly the best day I’ve had at the lab,” he added. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience from a science and cultural standpoint.”