Native Americans Killing Bald Eagles

[Guest guest]

[We Europeans have definitely destroyed most of the

environmental thoughtfulness that was once in the

native American cultures/people. They've become just

as destructive as any of the rest of us now. How very

sad. The story below is just another of many-many

recent examples. Rick.]

 

 

A Troubling Chapter in the Bald Eagle's Success Story,

LA Times 7-18-0

 

A Troubling Chapter in the Bald Eagle's Success Story

By Steven Bodzin, Times Staff Writer

 

 

SITKA, Alaska — A smile crinkled Steve Johnson's

face as he opened the express-mail package on his

desk. The box was big enough to hold a new computer,

but it was lined with insulation — and what Johnson

extracted, frozen solid in separate plastic bags, were

the body, talons, wings and head of a bald eagle. A

separate bag held several long white tail feathers.

 

" Have you ever held a dead eagle? " he asked an

astonished co-worker.

 

 

 

Johnson is a Tlingit Indian of the Sitka tribe of

Alaska, and his extraordinary package was part of a

striking environmental success story — the rescue of

the American bald eagle from the edge of extinction.

 

Thirty years ago, as a result of pesticides, water

pollution, hunting and other factors, bald eagles had

vanished from all but the most remote corners of the

country that had made them a national symbol. Today,

they can be found in every state except Hawaii, and

are even making their home in a New York City park.

 

But the eagles' comeback, still fragile at best, is

threatened by an unusual confluence of factors. And,

paradoxical as it may seem, Johnson's package is

linked to the policies and institutions that made the

resurgence possible as well as to the new dangers that

threaten it.

 

What enabled eagles to return to areas they had

vanished from was a nationwide effort to control

pesticides and water pollution, plus the strictest

wildlife protection law on the federal books.

 

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act says that

anyone who so much as collects a fallen eagle feather

off a forest floor could face as much as a year in

jail and a $5,000 fine.

 

The sole significant exemption from the ban is for

Native Americans, who have long venerated eagles in

their religious observances and have used eagle

feathers, heads and talons in ceremonies and tribal

regalia.

 

That's where Johnson and his unusual package come in.

 

For more than three decades, the National Eagle

Repository, an obscure federal agency near Denver, has

quietly collected deceased eagles from zoos, highway

departments and game wardens, and distributed them to

people so they could carry on religious and cultural

practices without having to hunt or trap live birds.

The repository sends about 1,700 deceased eagles each

year to Native Americans across the country.

 

However, the system of legal protections and

government-controlled distribution of eagle parts to

Native Americans is showing signs of breaking down.

 

And the demand for eagle feathers has begun to soar.

Black-market prices for eagle feathers and parts are

climbing too. And that, wildlife experts fear, could

set off a wave of illegal poaching — with disastrous

results.

 

One reason for the growing demand for feathers is that

thousands of non-Indian practitioners of New Age

religions have embraced Indian beliefs and ceremonies.

Four of them are arguing in federal court in Utah that

restrictions on possessing eagle artifacts violate

their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

 

Demand is growing among Native Americans as well:

Indian leaders, seeking a revival of the community

bonds that can improve education and prevent

alcoholism, are promoting traditional beliefs and

ceremonies.

 

As powwows and other observances grow in number, so

does the demand for eagle parts. Currently, it takes

as long as five years to have a request filled by the

National Eagle Repository.

 

Many powwows include competitions among Native

American performers, with cash prizes awarded, in

part, for the most complete regalia.

 

This year the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is

offering more than $200,000 in prizes at Schemitzun,

from the Algonquin word meaning " feast of green corn

and dance. " More than 3,000 participants are expected

at the festival, near the tribe's Foxwoods Resort and

Casino in Connecticut, for the dance competition

alone.

 

Then there are the private collectors of Indian

artifacts, many of them in Europe, who pay tens of

thousands of dollars for authentic regalia adorned

with eagle feathers.

 

With demand outstripping legal supply, wildlife

experts warn that any significant increase in the

killing of eagles could undermine their continued

recovery. The eagle population is especially

vulnerable to disruption by hunters and trappers

because the birds' reproductive cycle is long, slow

and barely able to maintain itself under favorable

circumstances.

 

" Eagles are vulnerable to shooting because they

produce few young, " said Jody Millar, a bald eagle

recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service in Illinois. " The way they thrive in numbers

is through longevity. "

 

Eagles are usually between 4 and 8 years old when they

pair up and begin laying eggs. They remain productive

for about 10 years, usually having one successful

chick per year. In harsh climates, where they live

about 12 years, a typical couple will produce six

fledglings. No more than half of the baby eagles

survive long enough to reach adulthood.

 

" Any animal that has a low reproductive rate is going

to be sensitive to new sources of mortality, " said

James Fraser, an eagle specialist at Virginia Tech who

has been studying their reproductive patterns since

1974.

 

Golden eagles between 2 and 3 years old are especially

tempting targets for hunters and trappers because

their black and white feathers are most prized by

collectors, ceremonial dancers and religious

practitioners.

 

To honor Indian treaties, the Fish and Wildlife

Service will issue a permit for eagle feathers to

anyone with a government-issued Certificate of Indian

Birth, but such permits are not frequently checked.

 

Also, many Native Americans receive feathers as gifts,

but the National Eagle Repository does not require

that they get a permit. Nothing distinguishes a gift

feather from one acquired illegally.

 

Sam Jojola, a special agent with the Fish and Wildlife

Service, said that checking permits would take too

long for the fewer than 200 federal wildlife agents in

the field.

 

" I'm more interested in the most egregious wildlife

violations we can find, " Jojola said.

 

Native Americans retained the right to hunt eagles

well into the 20th century. After the government

banned eagle hunts, it created the permit system and

the repository to allow Indians to maintain their

religious practices.

 

But the permit system and the repository are under

attack in the Utah case, which will be argued before a

U.S. District Court judge in Salt Lake City this

summer.

 

The defendants, who are being prosecuted by the

federal government for possession of eagle feathers,

are Utah residents Samuel R. Wilgus Jr., Raymond

Hardman, and Christopher and Faye Beath. Wilgus is a

member of a Christian sect called the Native American

Church; Hardman and the Beaths have spent much of

their lives on the remote Uintah and Ouray

Reservation, taking part in local Native American

ceremonies. None is Native American.

 

In separate cases in the 1990s, Wilgus and Hardman

were found guilty of illegally possessing eagle

feathers. Each appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of

Appeals, which in August 2002 ordered their cases

reheard by the district court to determine whether the

government was violating a federal religious freedom

law by allowing only members of officially recognized

Indian tribes to have feathers. The Beaths were

charged in 2000 with illegally possessing eagle parts.

 

The defendants call the permit system discriminatory

and ineffective, saying that the government's

restrictions go beyond what is necessary to protect

eagles and preserve Native American culture. They

predict that the black market will grow under current

policies.

 

One measure of the rising demand, they say, is the

fact that the repository's waiting list, now as long

as five years, was only a few months a decade ago.

 

Hardman was using a bundle of feathers to purify his

truck after transporting a relative's body to a

funeral. At the time, he had a wife and two children

with Certificates of Indian Birth, and they regularly

took part in religious ceremonies together. When he

was given a feather bundle by a Hopi practitioner in

Arizona, he promptly called the Fish and Wildlife

Service to get a possession permit.

 

He was told he was ineligible because of his

bloodline. Though his wife and children had

Certificates of Indian Birth and he was an accepted

practitioner of American Indian religion, he was not a

member of a tribe.

 

" They told me not to even bother — that the best

thing for me to do would be to turn over my feathers

to the authorities, " Hardman said. Instead, he hung

the feathers from the rear-view mirror of his Ford

pickup.

 

They stayed there until 1996, when his wife left him

and turned him in to tribal police.

 

Hardman is angry at being prosecuted because, he said,

some Native Americans trap, trade and sell eagle

feathers. They don't get caught, he said, because

police never check permits.

 

" If you are buying or selling eagle parts, the

likelihood of being detected is slim to none, " said

Jojola, the Fish and Wildlife agent.

 

Hardman said police should check Native Americans'

permits, but Native American practitioners consider

that idea offensive.

 

" It's the same as having to have a permit to carry a

cross, " said Ron Rader, a powwow dancer in Sacramento

whose regalia includes the wings and wing feathers of

several golden eagles.

 

But Native Americans warn that allowing non-Indians to

possess feathers because they practice Indian

religions would create new demand for black-market

feathers and spur an increase in poaching.

 

Edward Wemytewa, a tribal council member at Zuni

Pueblo, a 500-year-old settlement in New Mexico, wrote

in an affidavit for the prosecution, " Today, there are

very few places left on Zuni lands where eagles still

live in the wild. Additional demand for eagle feathers

would have a detrimental effect on the Zuni way of

life. "

 

Though practitioners condemn killing or selling

eagles, wildlife police, eagle biologists and Native

American leaders agree that such a black market

exists.

 

In 2000, one bald eagle and two golden eagles were

killed and stolen from the Santa Barbara Zoo;

authorities believe the birds were targeted for their

feathers.

 

In an affidavit in the Utah case, Fish and Wildlife

Special Agent Kevin Ellis wrote that the black-market

price for a whole golden eagle carcass was about

$1,200, a price that has tripled since the 1980s.

 

" It's a problem of supply and demand, " said Cindy

Schroeder, who retired last year from the Fish and

Wildlife law enforcement division. " Every additional

dancer or worshipper is more demand. The supply is

flying around in the air. "

 

 

 

 

 

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