Neah Bay, Wash. ? The Makah Indian tribe’s whaling commission did not authorize the killing of a gray whale that died after being harpooned and shot several times in northwest Washington’s Strait of Juan de Fuca, a member of the tribal panel said.

“The commission had not reviewed this,” Chad Bowechop told the Peninsula Daily News in a story that appeared Sunday.

The U.S. Coast Guard detained five men believed to have killed the whale on Saturday, then turned them over to tribal police for further questioning.

Tribal officials did not return calls from The Associated Press. The tribe’s chairman, Ben Johnson, told The Seattle Times that tribal whalers were out practicing hunting skills Saturday in keeping with their treaty rights to hunt whales.

Witnesses said the gray whale had been harpooned a few miles east of Neah Bay and that five men on two small boats fired shots from what sounded like a high-caliber rifle.