Should Indian tribes be allowed to do as they wish with eagles? Ted Williams gives many reasons why not. Their justifications are religious; their reasons sometimes financial, their methods crude to say the least. "In New Mexico one member of the Jemez Pueblo claimed that he and his fellow tribal members had killed 60 to 90 eagles during the winter of 1995-96 and that he had caught six at once by setting traps around a dead cow. He explained that the best way to dispatch a trapped eagle is to sit on it, get it to bite a stick, then ram your thumb down its throat so it can't breathe. They jump around for 10 or 15 minutes, he said".
What, you think all Indians hold beliefs like the ones in that Chief Seattle speech? Sorry, that's a fake too-- the creation of a TV screenwriter.
Falconers, who revere eagles without strangling them, can only take one from the wild with special federal permission, and then only in areas where they are preying on livestock.
I was sent to this story by my friends at the Raptor Education Foundation, about which more above.
3 comments:
I am not aware specifically in law where they get the exemption for killing raptors. Is it under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 or are there other explicit exemptions in law for raptor collection?
The only justification claimed is in Williams' article-- and it doesn't seeem very convincing.
There is a similar article on the front page of the LA Times today (7.18.05) with an interesting twist. Non-Native American practitioners of Native American religions say they are being discriminated against because they cannot obtain permits to own eagle feathers. Link is here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050718/ts_latimes/atroublingchapterinthebaldeaglessuccessstory;_ylt=Ahv4VWPh9vdw6eMhbBLtJiLrbr8F;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
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