No shit! I have this problem with native hunting special rights as well. In Montana, Idaho, and Washington (probably other states as well, but these are the only ones I have read regs for) they are allowed to hunt when and where other people aren't, and they are allowed to use their 4 wheelers and snowmobiles in areas where everyone else is not allow. This is nostalgia? Come on.
Tradition is independent of technology. Hunting with a gun instead of a bow is like sending email instead of a letter.
Native hunting rights are a privilege, true, but that's what you get for being here first.
That said, a right to hunt whales doesn't mean you have to hunt whales. Especially when the whale meat is so full of bioaccumulated PCBs that it qualifies as toxic waste.
Tradition is not independent of technology.
It is tradition in my family to knit. I knit. I do not use a knitting machine to knit, I use the needles my grandmother gave me. That is the tradition.