Government offers eagles to U.S. Indians for religious rites

Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 07:07:28 -0500

Colorado office ships birds

upon receipt of application

By James Brooke

New York Times

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- As a closed circuit camera scanned for intruders, Dennis
 Wiist swung open a heavy vault door to reveal his sacred treasure -- rows of 
plastic bags, each suspended by a meat hook, each containing one frozen eagle.

The day before, in the Southwest, eight Indians had been arrested for taking 
golden and bald eagles the old way, with baited traps and rifle fire.

But here on the outskirts of Denver on Friday, wildlife officials showed off the
 federally approved method for Indians to receive an eagle free of charge -- by 
filling out a four-page Native American Religious Purposes Permit Application 
and Shipping Request and forwarding it to the brand-new site of the National 
Eagle Repository.

``Each person is entitled to one whole bird,'' said Bernadette Hilbourn, 
supervisor of ``the eagle morgue,'' as wildlife biologists call the refrigerated
 warehouse that opened last year at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife
 Refuge, a deactivated chemical weapons manufacturing center. ``We send them out
 in overnight mail, packed in five pounds of dry ice.''

Under federal laws surrounding the national bird, an officially threatened 
species, ownership of bald eagle parts is largely restricted to Indians and 
educational institutions. Indians cannot sell parts to non-Indians. And the 
killing of eagles is illegal. The restrictions also apply to golden eagles.

According to prosecutors, the five Jemez Indians and three Navajos who were 
arrested Thursday in New Mexico and Arizona were not killing eagles for 
religious purposes. They were feeding a clandestine tourist market for 
Indian-style fans and adornments, a market where a double-train Indian war 
bonnet can fetch $20,000.

But this black market, coupled with a resurgence in Indian religious practices 
and a dearth of dead eagles in good shape, is forcing the Eagle Repository to 
manage scarcity.

``Each year, we get about 900 birds -- and about 3,000 requests for birds,'' 
Hilbourn said Friday as she pulled out a yardlong drawer in a filing cabinet. At
 the back of the drawer was the most recent request, from the previous week. At 
the front of the drawer was a request that was being filled Friday, from 1994. 
``The waiting period is 24 to 30 months for a whole bird.''

Hilbourn said that 90 percent of the requests are for whole birds, although 
heads, talons and feathers are occasionally in demand. Orders for up to 15 
feathers, the maximum allowed, are filled almost overnight from a ``loose 
feather inventory'' in a separate walk-in cooler.

Complaints by Indians about the long wait and the uneven quality of birds coming
 from the Repository have met with two changes.

President Clinton has signed an order that reserves virtually all dead eagles 
for Indian religious uses, cutting off the supply to museums and schools. And 
Repository officials say they now express-ship feathers and carcasses in case of
 medical emergencies.

``If someone is dying of cancer, I will send ASAP, of course after checking with
 the BIA that the request is kosher,'' Hilbourn said, referring to the Bureau of
 Indian Affairs, an agency that handles the preliminary phase of all eagle 
requests. ``If someone is really sick, we will send tail feathers right away for
 that ceremony.''