The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has dropped the charges filed against two Native Hawaiian practitioners who were cited in 2015 for what the federal agency described as an illegal “take” of the remains of a small, ailing whale the pair had watched over before it died and buried at sea off Kawaihae on Hawaii island.

Roxanne Stewart and Kealoha Pisciotta, who said they were facing fines of up to $27,000, escaped prosecution for violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act last week following a long and winding appeal.

The final decision didn’t come until the women engaged in failed mediation with NOAA officials, appeared with their attorney in a hearing before an administrative law judge and appealed to the agency’s administrator, who then asked the judge to review the case again.

It was only then the charges were dropped.

Stewart and Pisciotta said the process left them bitter and angry for being made to feel like criminals by the federal government for practicing their religion. The women said they spent over $10,000 defending themselves.

“We feel like we’ve been dragged through the mud,” said Pisciotta, who runs Kai Palaoa, a Hawaii island group dedicated to marine mammals. She is also president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou and lead litigant in the Mauna Kea Hui lawsuit against the Thirty Meter Telescope.

The worst part, she said, is that it seems the case hasn’t moved NOAA to consider policy changes to its legal obligation to allow for Native Hawaiian traditional cultural practices.

“We’re still vulnerable,” Pisciotta said. “Nothing’s changed. They can charge us again for doing the same thing.”

Jolene Lau, spokeswoman with NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, said the agency does not comment on the reasons civil enforcement actions are dismissed.

“With this said, NOAA continues to work with the Native Hawaiian practitioner community to ensure both scientific investigations and cultural practices are respected,” she said in an email. “Our overriding goal has been to handle marine mammals in a culturally appropriate manner to the maximum extent allowable considering the law, animal welfare and human safety.”

The incident in question started June 10, 2014, after Pisciotta and Stewart were summoned by West Hawaii cultural practitioners to help respond to a stranded melon-headed whale at Kawaihae Harbor. The small whale appeared to be suffering from bites from a cookiecutter shark.

The dolphin-size whale species, which is related to pygmy killer whales and pilot whales, is found in all the world’s tropical and subtropical oceans but is rarely seen because it lives in deep water far from shore.

Working with a team of volunteers, the two women watched over the animal they called Wananalua in the nearshore waters. Onshore were members of Westside Monk Seal and Cetacean Rescue teams, who were in contact with NOAA. Eventually NOAA directed the team members to leave.

Stewart and Pisciotta said they were never told to leave and stayed with the whale through the night and even after it died at about 1 a.m. When the sun came up, they transported the carcass by canoe a couple of miles offshore and conducted a Hawaiian burial ritual meant to help the animal “transition into the realm of the deities.”

The women didn’t hear anything more about it, they said, until weeks afterward, when federal agents appeared at Stewart’s workplace and she was informed of the NOAA violations in front of a classroom of children.

What followed was a lengthy administrative proceeding. Christine Donelian Coughlin, an administrative law judge with the Environmental Protection Agency, came to Hawaii in August 2016 to hear testimony over a three-day period.

According to Coughlin’s written decision, NOAA officials argued the women violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act when they took the dead whale out to sea for burial instead of keeping it so a formal necropsy could be conducted to determine the cause of death.

Officials were especially surprised, the judge wrote, because Stewart and Pisciotta knew the rules as members of NOAA’s Hilo Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

In her conclusion, however, Coughlin said she was persuaded the pair’s conduct was “motivated by their deeply held beliefs and with good intentions.”

“I found their testimony in this regard to be exceptionally genuine and compelling, and it became abundantly clear to me that they acted as they did in order to show their reverence for Wananalua and to comfort her in her debilitated physical condition, in a manner that was consistent with their belief systems.”

Given the circumstances, she fined the pair only a “nominal amount” of $500.

Still unsatisfied with the conclusion, Stewart and Pisciotta appealed to NOAA’s administrator, who eventually sent the case back to the judge asking her to review the case, keeping in mind Stewart and Pisciotta’s rights under the Hawaii Admission Act.

The Admission Act, as the defendants’ attorney, Gary Zamber, argued during the hearing, states that all land in Hawaii, including submerged lands, is held in trust for the betterment of Native Hawaiians.

Stewart said dropping the charges appears to be a move to sweep the issue under the rug.

“This does not absolve NOAA of owning their perpetual colonizing perspectives, the root of which is that they are the authority in all things kanaloa (marine mammals),” she said. “They are not by any means.”

But Lau defended the agency, saying it has been working with cultural practitioners to help it be more culturally respectful during stranding responses.

In several cases, Lau said, NOAA’s Pacific Islands Regional Office has made arrangements to have skeletal remains or cremated remains of stranded marine mammals buried on land or placed in the ocean by cultural practitioners. It has also funded contractors to serve as cultural liaisons.

“Our goal is to continue to expand this effort while remaining in compliance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act, which require us to retain final decision-making authority on permitted activities,” she said.

Despite NOAA’s efforts, Pisciotta said the agency doesn’t offer practitioners enough leeway to allow them to adequately follow their customs and “fulfill our familial responsibilities to our ohana,” potentially leading to the kind of conflict that happened at Kawaihae.

Pisciotta said Native Hawaiian practitioners should be exempted from the Marine Mammal Protection Act so they are free to honor their religious, traditional and spiritual relationships. Some type of co-management arrangement should also be put in place, she said.

“As it stands, we are vulnerable to prosecution, as this case demonstrates,” she said. “We should not be adversaries with NOAA. We are trying to help, but how can we if NOAA continues to cite us?”