A new genetic study could result in restrictions on where the Makah tribe can hunt for gray whales, prompting a review of the results by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which is now conducting its own gray whale research.

The study has suggested that approximately 200 of the whales which annually feed during summer in areas that include the Washington state coast, including Strait of Juan de Fuca and Clayoquot Sound off Vancouver Island, have a separate genetic identity from the rest of the gray whale population.

Scientists examined the whales' mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on only from mother to offspring, discovering DNA sequences that led them to believe that the Washington-area whale population is different from the rest of the 20,000 eastern north Pacific gray whale population.

Since the mid-1990s, when the whales were removed from the endangered species list, the Makah have asserted their right to hunt the animals off the Washington coast under the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, killing one whale in a legal hunt in 1999. The Makah are given permission to hunt the gray whales from the federal government and a quota from the International Whaling Commission (IWC). In 2007 five whalers killed a whale without permission but in the same year the IWC granted the tribe a new harvest of up to 20 whales over five years, limiting it to four a year. The Makah tribe have said they will work with the IWC and NOAA in evaluating the study as it relates to the tribe's ongoing Marine Mammal Protection Act waiver application, in which the tribe pledges to hunt only migrating whales from December to May each year.

The NOAA study will include data from the recent scientists study and from tissue samples now being taken from whales in the Bering and Chukchi seas. It will be submitted to the IWC by the end of the year. NOAA does not recognise the southern feeding group whales as a distinct biological group, but as part of the overall groups of 20,000 eastern north Pacific gray whales that migrate back and forth from Mexico and California to Alaska every year. The IWC refers to the summer population as the "Pacific Coast Feeding Group.

The Makah are Native American people and live in and around the town of Neah Bay, Washington, a small fishing village along the Strait of Juan de Fuca where it meets the Pacific Ocean.