Native American Tribe Gets Permit to Kill Bald Eagles
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unusual step of issuing a permit allowing an Native American tribe to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes.
The agency’s decision comes after the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming filed a federal lawsuit last year contending the refusal to issue such permits violates tribal members’ religious freedom.
Although thousands of Native Americans apply for eagle feathers and carcasses from a federal repository, permits allowing the killing of bald eagles are exceedingly rare, according to both tribal and legal experts on the matter.
“I’ve not heard of a take permit for a bald eagle,” Steve Moore, lawyer with the Native American Rights Fund, or NARF, in Boulder, Colo., said Tuesday.
“I see it and NARF would see it as a legitimate expression of sovereignty by the tribe, and respect for that sovereignty by the Fish and Wildlife Service,” he added.
Federal law prohibits the killing of bald eagles, the national bird, in almost all cases. The government keeps eagle feathers and body parts in a federal repository and tribal members can apply for them for use in religious ceremonies.
No longer endangered
The bald eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened species in 2007, following its reclassification in 1995 from endangered to threatened. However, the species has remained protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 stated in a report that it had never issued a permit for the killing of bald eagles to that time. The report states the government had issued permits for the Hopi Tribe in Arizona to take golden eagles since the mid-1980s.