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Melton Ozenna
Harpooned whale flips boat, kills Alaska hunter
ANCHORAGE,
Alaska - A whale hunter working in the Bering Strait died after his
boat was flipped by a harpooned gray whale, state police said last
week.
Melton
Ozenna, 41, of Little Diomede, died on Wednesday morning from a head
wound sustained when the bow of his boat struck him, Alaska State
Troopers said.
Ozenna
and several other local men were hunting whales about 20 miles (32 km)
southwest of Little Diomede, a rocky island in the Bering Strait near
the Alaska-Russia maritime border. One of the four hunters on Ozenna's
boat had harpooned the whale before it came up under the vessel and
capsized it, sending its occupants into the sea, the troopers said.
Hunters
from nearby boats rescued the men, but they saw that blood was running
from Melton's ear and that his eyes were glazed and dilated, the
troopers said. He stopped breathing after about 10 minutes.
Little
Diomede, about 650 miles (1,040 km) west of Fairbanks and less than 3
miles (5 km) east of Russia's Big Diomede Island, is home to about 150
Eskimos. Under
federal law, only Native Americans may hunt whales and other marine
mammals, and only for traditional subsistence purposes.
Source: Reuters News
Service, 1 July 2002
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