transcript of the testimony of eagle summit, iii march 20 ... · transcript of the testimony of...
TRANSCRIPT
Transcript of the Testimony of
EAGLE SUMMIT, IIIMarch 20, 2014
vs.
Doreen Girdeen, R.P.R.
Doreen Girdeen, R.P.R.
Hansen and Company, Inc.Registered Professional Reporters
1600 Broadway, Ste. 470Denver, Colorado 80202
Phone (303) 691-0202 * Fax(303) 691-2444
EAGLE SUMMIT, IIIMarch 20, 2014
(303) 691-0202 * (303) 691-2444Hansen & Company, Inc. Registered Professional Reporters
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EAGLE SUMMIT III
DENVER, COLORADO
MARCH 20, 2014
GOVERNMENT-TO-GOVERNMENT CONSULTATIONS
This hearing was held at Rocky Mountain Arsenal
National Wildlife Refuge, 6550 Gateway Road, Commerce City,
Colorado 80022, on March 20, 2014, at 2:55 p.m., before
Doreen Girdeen, Registered Merit Reporter and Notary Public
within Colorado.
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1 A P P E A R A N C E S
2
3 Noreen WalshSteve Olberholtzer
4 Matt HoganClint Riley
5 Adam ChavezAlbino Lujan
6 Bernard ChavezDarrell Shay
7 Daryl CandelariaDelbert Sanchez
8 Jess C. GutierrezLee Juan Tyler
9 Mark RoundstoneRobyn Spain
10 Terry G. KnightWinfield Russell
11 William VoelkerWilfred Ferris
12 Gerald RowlandYolynda Begay
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page insert by Ivy Allen 4/1/2014.**Page added to note the consultation participant’s Tribe.
Adam Chavez, Pueblo of San FelipeAlbino Lujan, Taos PuebloBernard Chavez, Pueblo of San FelipeDarrell Shay, Shoshone Bannock TribeDaryl Candelaria, Pueblo of San FelipeDelbert Sanchez. Pueblo of San FelipeJess C. Gutierrez, Santa Clara PuebloLee Juan Tyler, Shoshone-Bannock TribesMark Roundstone, Northern Cheyenne TribeRobyn Spain, Northern Cheyenne TribeTerry G. Knight, Ute Mountain Ute TribeWinfield Russell, , Northern Cheyenne TribeWilliam Voelker, Comanche Wilfred Ferris, Eastern ShoshoneGerald Rowland, Northern CheyenneRaymond Lasley, Osage Nation
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MS. BEGAY: The person who is going to appear to
3 do the consultation. She is from the Fish and Wildlife.
4 And we actually have four subsets you will be consulting
5 with today.
6 Noreen.
7 MS. WALSH: Thank you very much, Yolynda.
8 And I just want to start with a few notes of
9 thanks this afternoon. First, I really wanted to thank
10 Mr. Rick William -- if you're still in the room. I
11 appreciated his humor -- the humor of his stories this
12 afternoon at lunchtime.
13 And then I also really wanted to thank Mr. Alvin
14 Windy Boy. There he is. I really appreciated your
15 comments. Alvin, you've got me thinking about -- through
16 your stories and the history you've shared with us, you've
17 got me thinking about division; the word "division" and what
18 divides us or maybe what can unite us. And you also got me
19 thinking about the word "consultation" and what does that
20 word that we throw around really mean.
21 And then this gentleman --
22 SPEAKER: (Indiscernible)
23 MS. WALSH: I'm not sure that's the gentleman that
24 I'm referring to, but somebody made a comment about do we
25 mean -- it was you -- do we all mean the same thing when we
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1 talk about a "consultation"? When we use that word, do we
2 mean the same thing? So that really got me thinking at
3 lunchtime.
4 And then I really want to thank the Native
5 American Fish and Wildlife Society and Fred Matt and the
6 whole Society for providing such a delicious lunch for us.
7 I ate too much, I confess. And now, there's a new pot of
8 coffee brewing for anybody else who might need that this
9 afternoon.
10 So, over the last hour, I think we had a chance to
11 break bread together, which I think is always a good thing
12 to do, and a chance to laugh a little bit together, which I
13 always think is helpful. Now, we've done both of those
14 things. I hope it's a good time to actually start our
15 formal government-to-government consultation.
16 Through the whole conversation this morning, I
17 heard, very clearly, about how everything that the U.S. Fish
18 and Wildlife Service does relative to eagles impacts you at
19 the very core of your being because of the special
20 significance that eagles have to you and to the Creator and
21 the relationship between that. So we know that when we are
22 contemplating changes in our policies or regulations that
23 that has a significance to you, and that's why we're here
24 today.
25 We also heard about respect. We heard from -- I
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1 think it was Mr. Rick Williams during his stories, who
2 talked about consulting with respect. And that's our
3 intention here today is to have respect with you in this
4 consultation. And part of that is not rushing.
5 And so you-all may have noticed we are way behind
6 our schedule. What I'd like to do is ask if -- we are not
7 going to be able to get through all of the issues that we
8 had on our list for consultation today, and they're all
9 important issues because they're all changes that the
10 Service is contemplating making. They're not changes we
11 have already made; they're changes we are contemplating that
12 we need your input about. And so if we can't get through
13 all of those in the next couple of hours, we, the Service
14 leadership, will come back tomorrow morning and continue
15 this consultation for a couple of hours with you then.
16 So I'd ask you to think about that and maybe we
17 can check in near the end of our time together today and see
18 if we need to do that; see if we need to continue tomorrow
19 while you're all here. So I make that offer because you-all
20 have shown us respect to come here, where we are, in Denver,
21 to have this conversation with us. And I don't want to
22 conclude the consultation prematurely. So thank you very
23 much.
24 And just as we get started, I want to reintroduce
25 the folks that I have with me to consult with you today.
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1 So, again, at the end of the table is my deputy regional
2 director. So he's second in command over this region of the
3 Fish and Wildlife Service, Matt Hogan.
4 Next to him is Clint Riley. Clint is over our
5 Migratory Birds program, which means he is our technical
6 expert on eagles. So as we go into this consultation today,
7 Clint will lead us through these issues that we're proposing
8 or contemplating changing and give you some background on
9 those. And then we want to hear your reaction.
10 And, lastly, Steve Olberholtzer, who will join us
11 again in a minute. You-all heard from him quite a bit this
12 morning and you know that he is our special agent in charge
13 of law enforcement. The four of us are here today to listen
14 to you. Thank you.
15 Yolynda, I'll give it back to you.
16 MS. BEGAY: All right. I want to thank you all
17 for -- for helping us this time. And like said, you know,
18 we're all willing to come back tomorrow morning to finish up
19 the pieces that we do need to talk about.
20 There are six items that we do have. They are the
21 management of depredating eagles, golden eagle
22 rehabilitation, allowing captive propagation of golden
23 eagles, policy on eagle carcass disposition, revising the
24 2009 eagle take regulations, and then the Chokecherry-Sierra
25 Madre wind project permit application. Those are some of
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1 the things that we have on the table. And we know that all
2 of those are important to the topic that we have here today,
3 which is why we offered to come back tomorrow.
4 What I want to do is -- because you all have
5 heard, you know, Noreen, also Steve, Clint and Matt, where
6 they are coming from, I think it would only be right for you
7 to tell us where you're coming from, your name, your title,
8 and what tribe you're coming from. So that way, we know
9 who's at the table and we can see -- and they also know
10 who's here on the table with them.
11 MR. RUSSELL: My name is Winfield Russell. I'm a
12 vice president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. And I have
13 three people with me from our tribe -- from the program and
14 are involved in this program that we talk about eagles. So
15 I'll have them introduce themselves.
16 MR. ROUNDSTONE: I'm Mark Roundstone. I'm the
17 acting director for the Northern Cheyenne Natural Resource.
18 MS. SPAIN: Hi. My name is Robyn Spain. I'm the
19 assistant to Mark Roundstone, the Natural Resource director.
20 MR. ROWLAND: Hello. My name is Gerald Rowland,
21 Northern Cheyenne.
22 MR. LUJAN: Good afternoon. My name is -- my
23 taxpayer's name is Albino Lujan. And I'm from Taos, New
24 Mexico; Taos Pueblo. I hold the office of war chief
25 lieutenant of my tribe.
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1 MR. OLDMAN: Good afternoon. My name is Ron
2 Oldman. Also, that's my given name; my government name, I
3 guess. My Arapaho name is (indiscernible), which is very
4 difficult to translate. But I'm the co-chair of the
5 Northern Arapahoe Tribe.
6 THE REPORTER: Could you spell that?
7 MR. OLDMAN: No, I can't.
8 MR. LASLEY: My name is Raymond Lasley. I'm
9 representing the Osage Nation. I am the -- one of the
10 senior executive advisors for the Osage Nation. And on
11 behalf of Chief Big Horse and the rest of the -- the
12 assistant principal chief, Terry Moore, and the Osage Nation
13 Congress, we just want to extend our appreciation for having
14 this consultation here. Thank you.
15 MR. TYLER: Good afternoon again. My name is Lee
16 Juan Tyler. I'm from the Shoshone Tribe for all Idaho. And
17 my treaty was reached in the 1860s when it was ratified. We
18 had about 12 treaties for different bands and groups. We
19 had another ratified treaty in Montana as well, River Forks
20 area, and to this day, we have treaty rights to go hunting.
21 And so that is very awesome for my past leaders. So -- so
22 this is not really a true consultation because I'm only one
23 councilman here. But I'll do my best.
24 And I know -- what I was going to say earlier was
25 the trade people -- and that was mentioned earlier -- that
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1 it's really, you know -- that's really with the humblest
2 respect; no racial -- racial thoughts. And that's not going
3 to amend things. That has to be educated in all areas, not
4 just this. But in every type of situation that -- that
5 comes to our people. And that's -- that's where it's wrong
6 right now.
7 I had my nephew almost killed -- boom, boom --
8 shot twice in the head back here during Thanksgiving by a
9 Pocatello city officer that chased him to the reservation
10 and tried to kill him. And he's still in the court. But he
11 survived through prayer.
12 And he had his box with his sun dance whistles in
13 the back and his feathers, and then that protected him and
14 through prayer. And he told me a story how he came up and
15 his body and that he came back alive. He (indiscernible).
16 He's -- he's okay now, but he lost his voice.
17 But, see, some of that, that's going on, the
18 racial is still going. That has to end. And we're going to
19 have a true -- get something really established. It's not
20 going to work if we had our own people sitting in this room
21 -- not you guys -- but it might be somebody in here that we
22 can't -- we've got to be careful; we can't trust. That's
23 difficult. And that's going to have to change if this is
24 going to work. And right now, it's not going to work if we
25 don't get the right people involved in these key-area jobs
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1 that's going to come meet with our people. Thank you.
2 MR. SHAY SHOWBAN: Darrell Shay Showban. I'm in
3 charge of the language and cultural preservation for our
4 tribe. And, you know, I'm kind of the technical assistant
5 to my councilman. So I do have -- I have been a former
6 councilman and I have been around dealing with the federal
7 government.
8 I don't like to deal with the state governments
9 because, in my opinion, they're -- they're inferior to the
10 status of, you know, treaty tribes. And, you know, I just
11 kind of -- a long, long time dealing with, I guess, this
12 bureaucratic-type stuff. That's why some of my -- I don't
13 know if you call it animosity -- but some of my concerns
14 about how these things develop, just like -- just like this
15 whole thing.
16 You know, the very first thing is, the Fish and
17 Wildlife Services is contemplating these changes. Why? You
18 know, why are they contemplating these changes? Why haven't
19 they consulted with us Indian tribes even before
20 contemplating these changes? Why aren't you taking some of
21 our concerns to contemplate these changes? These changes
22 that we're seeing that are listed in here, they didn't come
23 from us. And that's why I think that's really important
24 that you listen to us on what changes we would like to see,
25 if there's any.
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1 And the concern -- I think you had a pretty good
2 introduction to, I guess, this spirituality part of what
3 we're talking about, because this particular topic is really
4 related in that area. It's -- there's no way that you could
5 separate it out. We're not going to give it up.
6 MR. KNIGHT: Good afternoon. My name is Terry
7 Knight. I'm a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
8 Currently, my -- my work -- and I work in the Tribal
9 Historical Preservation office. But I'm a former tribal
10 chairman and tribal councilman, signatory Ute Mountain Ute
11 Tribe spiritual leader. And I'm on the Wildlife Commission,
12 and almost everything else that affected our people. I've
13 been there, done that; sent this, signed that.
14 And I'm also -- I guess I could say that I'm the
15 ranking tribal spiritual person for all the Ute people
16 within the sun dance and bird dance, any Native American
17 tribe with ceremony, whatever have you. And I came from a
18 long line of medicine people where I had seen them do
19 miracle things in just a few hours.
20 So I'm aware of the use -- and Mr. Crow Dog said
21 the communication that the individuals have with the animals
22 and the birds. My late father was one of those people that
23 used this golden eagle quite a bit. So I watched; I
24 listened to him. And I wanted to see again and just see how
25 far this summit regarding the eagles has progressed.
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1 And in the line of consultation -- I'm more
2 familiar with Section 106 -- but through that, these last
3 few years would have been going head to head and having to
4 educate different federal agencies as to what consultation
5 is -- what we think it is; what it should be.
6 And we -- we tell them that consultation is a
7 two-way street. And a consultation is not you imagine
8 you're right up here, your thoughts, your -- what you want
9 to talk to us about, and then say, Yes; we consulted with
10 them. No; it's two ways.
11 So -- and the most important thing is that I was
12 not aware that this was going to be a
13 government-to-government consultation. Otherwise, I would
14 have had a few more of my tribal people -- maybe the
15 chairman, vice chairman, secretary or treasurer, whomever.
16 But I came up because I represent some of those factions in
17 the tribe.
18 So there's one thing that I remember when one of
19 our tribal leaders, several years back, told the lady who
20 was doing a report -- facilitated a meeting like this. He
21 said, I hope you're not taking this as a consultation in a
22 sense of -- of -- that a government-to government
23 consultation, because I'm the only one here for my tribe.
24 And you're here, but you are not the supervisor. We want to
25 know -- we want to talk to your supervisor, your director,
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1 the state director, whoever it is, and me, as a councilman.
2 I want to talk directly to them. These are just staff
3 people. They're the ones that's going to write it and work
4 it. But to have effective consultation, it has to be
5 government-to-government; your boss, your regional director,
6 whomever it is, and me. Then we have that effective
7 government-to-government consultation within the line of
8 respect. That way, as you can say, that person said the
9 person that's responsible for this, and I am the person that
10 is responsible for my people. So from there on, we take it
11 down to our people.
12 So I've been there at the very top. And I
13 understood what they were saying. But now I'm a staff
14 person. And being the staff people, I don't necessarily
15 have to be nice. I can say whatever I want. Of course, I'm
16 not -- I don't have to play this what I call game. You
17 know, well, this is the government and this is this; hello,
18 how do you do? I don't have to do that anymore. I can be
19 direct, straightforward. And that's what I do.
20 So, therefore, what I say, that has to be said and
21 let -- let the -- as what they say -- chips fall where they
22 may. And, hopefully, things will get done. If we don't say
23 that, you think sometimes we're too nice. You know, we're
24 just too nice. And I don't have to be nice anymore. So I'm
25 the one that throws things out. See, try this. This is
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1 what we think. So I just want to let you know that.
2 And I thank all the tribal leaders and the staff
3 people. And we're going to take this back and say, This is
4 what we're talking about. And they'll say, What? I'll say,
5 Consultation -- a regular form of consultation. And I'll
6 say, That's what she said. And then they'll say, Well,
7 wasn't the appropriate information sent to my office? Why
8 wasn't this consultation -- this information sent? How did
9 she get ahold of -- how about these other people? How about
10 German Newton and German Morgan; how about them people? And
11 I'll say, I'm not the one that makes up the list.
12 So I just want to let you know. Thank you.
13 MR. GUTIERREZ: Good afternoon. My name is Jesse
14 Gutierrez. I'm from Santa Clara Pueblo from New Mexico. So
15 I just came to represent Santa Clara tribal council member.
16 And I have some of the same concerns from some of the
17 individuals, you know, with the consultation and the
18 government-to-government, because in the way I -- the way we
19 think is this should be them talking with our governor and
20 tribal council at our home, you know, and kind of consulting
21 with each other.
22 So that's something that I know -- at the
23 beginning of the meeting, you said that it's hard with all
24 the many different tribes that we have and that everyone's
25 unique, but, at the same time, there has to be some kind of
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1 meeting between -- somewhere, some communication. So maybe
2 we can talk more, before a lot of these laws or changes come
3 into effect. Because, there's too many times it's after the
4 fact. You know, after the fact, the tribes get a -- they
5 let us know, We're changing this; what do you think about
6 it; we already changed this; what do you think about it?
7 And we feel that it should be done before we can get to
8 those processes.
9 So thank you. And I probably have more questions
10 later.
11 MR. VOELKER: William Voelker, founder of record
12 for Comanche Nation Eagle program. And it's an honor to be
13 here with everybody.
14 MR. FERRIS: Wilfred Ferris from the Eastern
15 Shoshone Tribe, THPO officer. And, also, our councilman,
16 Darwin St. Clair, Jr., is supposed to be here also. And,
17 also, I share the same treaty with Showban over here; 1863
18 and 1868.
19 And I wanted to be here. And, also, I kind of
20 have the same feelings that councilman and representatives
21 for -- on behalf of the government-to-government
22 relationship. I, too, also have to take information back to
23 my leaders and explain to them that this is what went on.
24 And the list has to be forwarded to them -- to the right
25 individuals. So when that time comes for the
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1 government-to-government that will be taking place.
2 MR. GOOGLE: Good afternoon. My name is Dean
3 Google. I represent the Northern Arapaho Business Council
4 in Wyoming.
5 MR. MCELROY: My name is Ron McElroy. I'm from
6 the Northern Arapaho Business Council.
7 MR. SANCHEZ: Hello. My name is Delbert Sanchez,
8 lieutenant governor for Pueblo San Felipe.
9 MR. CANDELARIA: Good afternoon everybody. My
10 name is Daryl Candelaria, tribal administrator for the
11 Pueblo San Felipe in New Mexico.
12 MR. CHAVEZ: Good afternoon. Bernard Chavez. I'm
13 from Pueblo San Felipe, fiscale.
14 MR. CHAVEZ: Good afternoon. I'm Adam Chavez,
15 Pueblo official of the Pueblo San Felipe.
16 MS. BEGAY: All right. I also wanted to introduce
17 myself. My name is Yolynda Begay. I'm actually coming here
18 -- or not from -- I am not from Fish and Wildlife. I am
19 actually just the facilitator. I'm just here to make sure
20 that this meeting goes by smoothly and we stick to the
21 times.
22 So I'm not from Fish and Wildlife. I'm here as
23 sort of the person that's going to move the conversation
24 along. I do apologize for rushing everybody off, trying to
25 get you to follow some ground rules, but we have a lot to
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1 talk about. So I'm trying to move this forward and trying
2 to get us to stay on the task.
3 And without further ado, what we're going to do is
4 going to turn this over to Clint Riley.
5 Did we get everybody in the room? I want to make
6 sure that we get everybody introduced.
7 SPEAKER: I have a question on the consultation
8 topics. Who was it that selected those?
9 MS. BEGAY: This was a list that was generated
10 from -- I think they are decisions that are not -- have not
11 been made yet. These are the things that they have -- that
12 are sort of bubbling to the surface. No decisions have been
13 made on any of these consultation topics. They're here to
14 purely solicit your input, for you to provide comments on,
15 for you to provide them some feedback.
16 There's one thing that I did forget to do.
17 Clint, I'm so sorry.
18 We do have a lot of items to talk about. In the
19 event that we do not come back tomorrow morning or if you're
20 unavailable, what I want to do is to take at least five
21 minutes of your time and you tell me on that list what is
22 your priority -- your first, your second, your third and
23 your fourth priority.
24 I'm asking the tribal leadership because we want
25 to talk about those items. What is your number 1, number 2,
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1 number 3, and number 4? And based on your response, we're
2 going to go straight to that topic, just based on how folks
3 feel about these topics that we have here. We have six
4 items. I have them all listed on there. They're also on
5 your agenda. And you tell me what is your number 1, number
6 2, number 3, and number 4.
7 What I want you to do is -- we have this dry-erase
8 board up here. We have a couple of markers available as
9 well. Over here, out onto the side, if this is your number
10 1, you're going to put a 1 here. If this is your number 2,
11 you're going to put a 2 here. And I want you to write your
12 responses out onto the side. And I'm going to go ahead and
13 ask our tribal leaders to come up here first. And this is
14 going to -- shouldn't take no less than five minutes. This
15 will help us center on what it is that's important for
16 you-all.
17 So if I could have the leadership please come up
18 here and tell us what's important for you. Definitely come
19 up. I'm going to go ahead and allow Matt, Clint and Steve
20 to introduce themselves as well.
21 MR. OLBERHOLZER: Hello again. Steve
22 Olberholtzer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent
23 in charge of our law enforcement division.
24 MR. RILEY: Clint Riley, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
25 Service, assistant regional director for Migratory Birds.
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1 MR. HOGAN: Matt Hogan, deputy regional director
2 for Fish and Wildlife Service in the Mountain-Prairie
3 region.
4 MS. BEGAY: What we have up there, your number 1
5 is revising 2009 eagle take regulation. And that's where we
6 will begin. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.
7 MR. VOELKER: From marking that system, it looks
8 like we're not going to get to captive breeding, it looks
9 like, today. I wanted to make a correction. On the handout
10 everybody got, the captive propagation of golden eagles, the
11 last line is incorrect.
12 We are the only Native American -- so, actually,
13 we are the only facility in the nation currently authorized
14 to breed golden eagles. We've been breeding golden eagles
15 since the '70s. But it says, Primitive propagate eagles
16 under a scientific research permit. The authority in this
17 case is under Native Religious Use. And it's important for
18 everybody to know that because we fought long and hard.
19 We've bred almost 500 native eagles in captivity
20 since 1970. In the old days, they were all under
21 special-use permits. But we fought hard for over a decade
22 to get captive breeding under Native Religious Use because
23 it's sacred work. The work that we do in bringing new eagle
24 life forward is done in a very holy fashion. So I just want
25 to make that correction. Thank you.
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1 MR. CLINT: Thanks, Bill. That was our error in
2 what we understood that permit to be.
3 Before we get started, I do have a couple of
4 introductory things, because they do come up as questions.
5 The question was, where these topics came from. The first
6 five of these are topics that nationally -- in discussion
7 across all regions in the national office -- felt like these
8 topics affecting eagles could be a potential interest to
9 tribes, and we wanted to have the opportunity to reach out
10 and to have consultation on these topics. We can find an
11 opportunity to do so.
12 The sixth topic regarding the Chokecherry-Sierra
13 Madre wind project is something that is just in Region 6 but
14 affects the tribes outside of our regional boundaries. And
15 we wanted the opportunity to try to reach out to as many
16 people as possible.
17 So we certainly heard many of the comments, the
18 frustrations with what can constitute effective
19 consultation. We very much appreciate people's interest and
20 letting us be here.
21 One of the things that as we move forward we would
22 like to hear about what -- when there are opportunities --
23 is, how to better communicate interest to consultation. We
24 did send communications to tribal chairmen that were within
25 our region or within the boundaries of the
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1 Chokecherry-Sierra Madre BCRs. We tried to reach out in
2 various ways in all these topics with information both in
3 written letters as well as in e-mails. Are we getting to
4 the right people? Are we doing the IDL and our -- our
5 Native American brigades on all posts, as you know, has been
6 trying to reach out.
7 So to the extent that it still results in some
8 uncertainties or confusion about whether the right people
9 are getting the message or whether information in advance is
10 -- is the appropriate information, that, certainly, feedback
11 is important to us. And that's where the -- these topics
12 came from.
13 All of these are under discussion internally.
14 They -- that's how they came up is within the Fish and
15 Wildlife Service's base. And we'll talk with each one as we
16 get them, what sort of internal conversations led to this as
17 a potential topic. But that's why we thought -- before we
18 want to go any farther, we wanted to try to reach out in a
19 consultation, because for all of these -- what Yolynda was
20 saying is this is happening before decision. Actually,
21 before that. This is before we even made proposals.
22 Most of the ones that are dealing with
23 regulations, there's one policy that's a slightly different
24 process. But for us to do anything, we will eventually have
25 to make a proposal to the public. We have not made a
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1 proposal to the public on any of these yet. So we are
2 wanting to talk to you before we would even develop
3 something that we would propose to the general public.
4 The permitting action is the last one on that wind
5 project. That one, the public certainly knows about because
6 we've tried to begin a need for process. However, we have
7 not even received a permit application on that one. So we
8 are wanting to talk to you through some opportunity for
9 consultation even before we have in hand an application from
10 the company in question.
11 So I know it's always hard to start as early as --
12 as we might wish. But, in this case, at least for these six
13 topics, we are raising them with you before we've even
14 developed proposals and before any proposals would have been
15 obviously shared with anyone else in the public. And we
16 hope your input will allow us to -- to put together a
17 proposal and may be more appropriate if we decide to propose
18 anything.
19 Oh, and then the last thing I want to make sure
20 about -- we did have written handouts that say more than
21 what is going to be on the slides for each of these topics,
22 again with the intention of trying to provide enough --
23 enough background information for you to feel somewhat
24 informed and what sort of feedback you may want to provide.
25 Did everyone get a copy of -- that copied pack of
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1 information?
2 With that said, let's move forward to the topic
3 about the take regulations. What I'm going to be trying to
4 do on behalf of the Fish and Wildlife Service and on behalf
5 of Noreen, our regional director, is provide a baseline, a
6 background information, that will allow us to have a common
7 understanding of what the potential topic is, what the
8 potential kind of proposal might be for you to be able to
9 share what your thoughts and perspective will be. For most
10 of those, I'm just going to provide one quick slide and more
11 information, as necessary, to follow.
12 This topic is -- so one -- I actually wanted to
13 give a little bit more information to make sure people do
14 have a basic background that is a similar baseline for a
15 conversation.
16 So I'll try to do it quickly, but bear with me.
17 This morning I mentioned, in 2009 we created some new
18 regulations for new types of permits, and it evolved over
19 the Bald Eagle Protection Act. And it was largely in
20 response to the fact that the bald eagle was being delisted
21 and realizing we didn't have permits and permits to what
22 could be accomplished per the Endangered Species Act.
23 In these permits, the two primary permits that
24 were created, standard take permits would allow for take of
25 an eagle in a single instance; a one-time take. We know
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1 it's going to happen or can predict what would be happening.
2 A programmatic permit would be an instance where there could
3 be take into the future that would be recurring over time.
4 Potentially, a way to think about that difference would be
5 if a bridge construction project that was going to be built
6 one time and it was going to take an eagle, that's a
7 one-time take.
8 If there is a wind farm going in over a number of
9 years, there may be recurring take in that sort of instance
10 and that would be one way to think of a potential difference
11 in those two different types of permits.
12 Many of you probably were aware that the
13 programmatic permits, while they were originally created as
14 five-year permits, it could be renewed. In -- December
15 2013's amendment to these regulations changed it so that the
16 applicants could apply for those permits to be up to 30
17 years. They would have to review -- we would have the
18 opportunity to review those each five years. For them to
19 continue, they would be issued, potentially, up to 30 years,
20 given those five-year reviews.
21 These -- either case, the take permit, to be
22 awarded, they have to be consistent with the goal of
23 stabilizing or increasing breeding populations. That was a
24 phrase that was created anew in the regulations to define
25 what the standard would be. One way to think about that
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1 would be there's supposed to be no net loss, generally, to
2 the eagle population.
3 They would have to be a part of an otherwise
4 lawful activity. If building a bridge is otherwise meaning
5 all the rest of the permits had and is something you can do,
6 everything else has to be okay. But if you think you may be
7 killing an eagle when that happens or otherwise taking an
8 eagle if it's not legal, then you could apply for this
9 permit.
10 To qualify for the permit, you have to avoid and
11 minimize the take to a maximum extent -- maximum-extent
12 practical goal. And especially for the programmatic
13 permits, you have to have an eagle conservation plan in
14 place about how that would be accomplished. Those criteria
15 are part of what I think you would like to hear more about
16 and we'll talk about here in a second.
17 So the -- when these regulations were first
18 created, we did receive some tribal input on those.
19 Concerns about how these affect tribes; how they affect the
20 fact that eagles are a sacred entity; the concerns about to
21 whom these permits might be issued, under what
22 circumstances, how we would be engaging with the tribes and
23 updating our policies, and just in -- generally, how we
24 implement the regulations.
25 We do still have records of that input, certainly.
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1 And, in fact, I would say that much of those concerns are
2 part of -- only part of what leads us to this stage, which
3 is the Fish and Wildlife Service's feeling that we need to
4 reconsider those 2009 regulations, examine them to see
5 whether there should be changes made to those regulations to
6 better achieve the original intent behind those regulations.
7 That being said, if you were a tribe that provided
8 input originally or were not, you're encouraged to share
9 your input in this forum, whether it's something you had
10 said before or not. And there will be other opportunities
11 in various forms as -- if these potential changes were able
12 to move forward.
13 So let me run through some of the kind of things
14 we anticipate thinking about in terms of changes. First is
15 the underlying language and terminology. And I mentioned
16 there's a difference between standard one-time take permits
17 and programmatic permits that are ongoing. Are those
18 different standards? What do we have to do to achieve them?
19 One of the things that's been raised is should
20 there even be any differences there. How would we define
21 those permits?
22 The second topic that's being considered is
23 mitigation. If -- if a permit said that you have to
24 compensate for a take through mitigation, when do you need
25 to provide that mitigation and under what circumstances and
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1 what type of mitigation should be allowed?
2 The preservation standard that I quoted a minute
3 ago was created as part of these regs, consistent with a
4 goal of increasing breeding populations. Is that the reg
5 standard for us to be using to determine when it would be
6 appropriate to issue a take permit?
7 The population had managed to object us. And by
8 that I mean, within a region, within a bird conservation
9 area, how do we decide what our goal is for a stable --
10 stable eagle population of either species? Is it that as
11 long as those species appears to be stable across the
12 continent, we're doing okay? Or if it appears to be stable
13 within state boundaries, is that okay?
14 How should we be thinking about our objectives of
15 the -- of a -- for the management of these species?
16 As we've mentioned this morning, our agency's goal
17 and mission is dealing with the birds and this -- their
18 long-lasting stability. How should we be defining that as
19 we move forward?
20 The geography's consultation. The -- for the
21 topic of the permit; that's the six bullets that we have
22 listed for the Chokecherry-Sierra Madre. We look towards
23 tribes that will then -- what we call bird conservation
24 regions or reasonable approximation that eagles that would
25 be flying within their -- within this potential wind farm
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1 might also be flying within your tribal boundaries. That's
2 one way we could do that. That was not established. One of
3 the things that could be established if we were to revise
4 these regs is to more clearly define when -- when there's a
5 specific permit being issued, when and how we should engage
6 with which tribes.
7 And that is standard. One of the frustrations
8 we've run into is we've tried to start implementing these
9 regulations is companies that wish to apply for a permit
10 would come in, and maybe they've done some surveys for
11 eagles or maybe they haven't or they've done some surveys,
12 but we don't think they're very effective surveys. At what
13 point can we require them to do something for us to feel
14 more confident when we represent to the public whether or
15 not it's appropriate to issue that take permit?
16 And a number of the other issues. I've visited a
17 list to try to prompt some of the thinking that's been going
18 on in our offices, but I don't want this meeting to be as
19 restricted with these issues. Also, just trying to be
20 transparent as much as possible about if we were to move
21 forward with potential changes once our listing of some of
22 the topics that we're most interested that we would have.
23 MR. TYLER: Can I have a comment?
24 MR. RILEY: Sure.
25 MR. TYLER: Lee Juan Tyler, Shoshone Tribe. On
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1 that issue, the habitat is the key. And that was mentioned
2 as the -- in the sacred water areas. That area is where
3 we're at in Salvation Idaho. And for about 280 days
4 straight last year, their rivers -- they start from Wyoming,
5 some of them, like Snake River, some of the headwaters start
6 in all different areas -- they call them east or west where
7 the the start of Rockies are running by it.
8 But there's like 17 super fun sites in our area.
9 A lot of eagles there. There's the riparian areas where
10 their habitat is. And then that area of the Snake River to
11 American Falls Reservoir, and I think that Terry knows where
12 that's at, like Creek Way, some sun dance (indiscernible).
13 There were 3- to 5,000 waterfalls there in the area of a
14 site that they were dumping into there in 1949 about 3- to
15 5,000 waterfalls, day and night. And how did that happen?
16 The thing did not belong to us and, like, nobody ever came
17 and stayed there. Not to bring an issue -- not to bring
18 this up, but I don't know. It seems like it goes up every
19 year.
20 And I think that's where the key is. You guys
21 need to work with the federal agencies, like the EPA,
22 because where we're at, money will control that because they
23 give money, probably somehow under the table, right here.
24 They give money to somebody, like corruption, like in a
25 pass. That's the genius.
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1 Well, if that's happening still -- because right
2 now, they're in charge. They're in the driver's seat. And
3 the power company, they have their big hydropower. And they
4 have three dams over there. They destroy the camerons --
5 destroy the camerons and it's really sad. And this area was
6 65 miles long. The dam reservoir, it's all pollution. It's
7 the sewer system. Every day is warmer; everybody is dumping
8 there, everything. And there's other species that can't
9 survive. The eagles go there. And the others, you know,
10 they go there. They eat on the predators, so they eat on
11 some of this. This is a chain reaction. It's going to lead
12 to something that's going to cause, you know, West Nile
13 virus. Somebody going to panic -- an epidemic, oh, oh.
14 That's where you're going to find that.
15 Stop these things before they happen. And we need
16 somebody to hold those guys accountable because right now,
17 they are running crazy because of this short-term profit.
18 And that's happening with this -- sound like, with this
19 Chokecherry, Keystone and everything, hydro-fracking over
20 here. And it goes on and on. But that's one of the keys.
21 The EPA, I think, is not -- not as powerful as they should
22 be, allowing other companies, industries there take over
23 because of that money.
24 MR. RILEY: Thank you. I think, for certain
25 comments we're going to be looking for, I do need a little
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1 bit more background information where everyone could share
2 as much of that. Maybe, specifically on that, what I would
3 to say, that's an example or a part of the challenge that
4 led to want to create something like these permits. Our
5 recognition in our general responsibility of wanting to take
6 steps to conserve eagles. Eagles are being affected and
7 even killed. A classic sort of "bureaurat-eze" governmental
8 way of thinking, you know, for what that's worth, frequently
9 is if you can issue the permit to something, you can control
10 the standards of that permit and start trying to affect what
11 they are doing in ways to limit the impacts.
12 For those sorts of impacts, should these permits
13 be created in such a way that we would be trying to address
14 these permits or those sorts of actions and -- and manage
15 those? That's part of the kind of question you were asking.
16 MR. KNIGHT: I have a concern. It's a
17 jurisdictional issue where I come from. It's really
18 Cortez -- north of Cortez, about a quarter of a mile.
19 There's a -- like a -- what I would call a block, maybe a
20 section. I think it's County Road M and whatever the
21 alphabet is before that. But on a good winter day, I could
22 drive through there -- on an average day, I could see twelve
23 eagles sitting in there, all kinds.
24 And this guy -- I guess the land was up for
25 sale -- guy came in, bought it, put in his cattle, put in a
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1 big house, a pond, and cut down most of those old trees.
2 And now I can drive by there and I'm lucky if I see three,
3 maybe two. I know where there's one. He doesn't live in
4 that man's land -- on the other side.
5 And it all goes -- their habitat, it is destroyed.
6 And even on a better day, you could come all the way --
7 almost a block away from Main Street; there's a swimming
8 pool there -- and you could see bald eagles, golden eagles
9 sitting there. And now that all this development has
10 occurred, they don't come around.
11 So I was just wondering -- I know you are a
12 federal agency -- just who and what are you looking to
13 regulate? And if I say -- if I point out prime eagle
14 habitat during the winter and it's not federal land and it's
15 private land and it's up for sale and they would destroy the
16 habitat, like it happened before, what could you do about
17 it?
18 You know -- and then, similarly, development over
19 there on the southwest corner of the state of Colorado in
20 the reservation, they put in a pig farm. And one year,
21 before that farm was still up, me and one of my nephews went
22 up and looked around. And just for that small area, we
23 counted 32 eagles, all kinds. And they were feeding on
24 prairie dogs. But now you can see maybe three or four.
25 But during the wintertime, you know, you see
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1 dozens of them because they're eating off the birds. But
2 that's the only time they're there. But other times they're
3 out, you know, doing -- you know, hunting to provide for
4 themselves and their little eaglets. But we were a party to
5 that; destroying their habitat and their food source.
6 But the other part, who -- who -- who is it that
7 -- if there's -- it's a prime eagle habitat, it's --
8 especially during wintertime, who is it that can say, no, we
9 can't; you can't -- as a private citizen, you're not going
10 to buy it and you're not going to destroy this habitat?
11 It just seemed like in everything else, you have
12 federal government, their authority, and then state,
13 private, whatever companies who wanted to develop for
14 whatever areas, they have a -- they have a free hand to do
15 whatever they want. Like we're talking about this -- this
16 -- this electrical energy.
17 And so where are all this work and all this
18 concern, and excuse me, just say, Well, we want -- we want
19 your recommendation. We want to help you. We want to know
20 what we can do about this, this management. But yet, today,
21 right now, some of those eagles -- our sacred birds -- are
22 dying because of all this progress.
23 So where do you stand? And we're saying, you
24 know, you're not supposed to do that. You're saying that's
25 against the law and some guy over here wants to get eagle
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1 feathers, whatever it takes. You know, a long time to get
2 some from here. So he goes out there. He sees one, whether
3 it's on a reservation, off reservation, and he'll -- not
4 going to say kill it -- he'll harvest it. Somebody sees him
5 and he has to go to court and is threatened with jail time
6 because he needed that for his sacred ceremony.
7 Now, where do all of this fit in? You know,
8 because sometimes they come to me -- and my nephews and my
9 grandsons and they say, Here, Uncle; here, Grandpa, here.
10 They came in -- I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble
11 for this -- but where is our attorney? But they say, Here,
12 I found this over there. Or so-and-so, you know, got this
13 bird, and we don't know what to do with this, so I'm going
14 to give it to you; you might need it or somebody might need
15 it. So I say, Oh, thank you, and I put it away.
16 And even non-Indians. They say, Oh, here. There
17 was a bird over there by my road, my driveway; you better
18 come get it real quick. It's somebody that I don't even
19 know. You better come real quick because the sheriff or
20 somebody sees it, they're going to report it and it's going
21 to be gone. You're not going to be able to use it. So I
22 dash up there real quick, get my plastic bag, throw it in
23 the back seat, and off I go.
24 So I guess I'd broken the law, huh?
25 But, anyway -- not the first time in that sense.
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1 But, so where -- where does you stand and how can you say,
2 Well, this is development, multi-billion-dollar development.
3 We got this. We're going to -- we need electrical energy?
4 And we're saying we're faced with the same thing
5 in the New Mexico part of our reservation in mining and
6 solar-panel energy. And we're going -- they're going to put
7 power lines. And that's the other thing that's like, you
8 know, kill a lot of birds -- power lines. And I'm saying,
9 Well, we could have -- we could have looked at it. We could
10 have looked at the habitat. What are we going to lose and
11 what are we going to gain by this, if most of the electrical
12 energy is going to go to California or Arizona or what?
13 What about me? You know, what do I get out of it? And
14 you're going to destroy all this livestock habitat and, you
15 know, the birds and whatever else that lived there. You're
16 going to destroy their habitat, then what?
17 Well, we need -- we need the money. We need the
18 cash. I said, Well, that's a heck of a trade-off, because,
19 like I said, it just so happens that some of us might want
20 to rain test it. That's why I've got to go home this
21 evening and going to check on the animals and say, that's
22 when winter rain -- that's what I learned to walk and ride a
23 horse. My grandmother was taking care of me when I said
24 that. Your kid is too close to home. You're too close to
25 home. So I'm -- I can go along with you so far, but you
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1 have to give me assurances that these things are going to be
2 taken care of.
3 So just, you know, comment on what a -- how --
4 what is your reaction to that?
5 MR. RILEY: You raised several really important
6 topics there. Thank you. One of them that's important for
7 us to know in terms of what we can and can't do with the
8 regulations is that the law prohibits the take of eagles'
9 eggs in their nests. And to the extent that it impacts on
10 habitat, we can make a very clear definitive connection and
11 say, Hey, what you did with that habitat meant you've killed
12 an eagle; we can say that's illegal. If we can't, the law
13 does not protect the habitat just as habitat. And that's
14 important to know that -- the limits of what we can do.
15 What we are looking to do -- part of, I think, some of the
16 other important points you were raising are affecting where
17 we can focus on eagle conservation.
18 And Steve, in his presentation this morning, spent
19 some time discussing the fact that, you know, while he is --
20 as head of our law enforcement section in the region, he
21 can't say something is okay. It's technically illegal. The
22 priorities and where we spend our time pursuing prosecutions
23 are largely for energy development. The prosecutions are
24 pursued against energy companies with their power lines,
25 against wind power companies. That can take a long time to
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1 build those cases and to bring those cases and to bring them
2 successfully.
3 We have -- as long and as slowly as that process
4 can be, it's even longer and slower to permit. And we have
5 not yet issued a permit at all for any power companies to
6 have a programmatic permit, because they haven't yet met the
7 standards that we feel like are appropriate. Part of what
8 we're asking for is your continued input as we continue to
9 figure out how to implement these regulations out with what
10 the standards would be.
11 MR. SHOWBAN SHAY: Darrell Showban Shay. I'd
12 like to make a comment on that -- on that last -- referring
13 to that bullet there, Establishing required data standards
14 to adequately assess risk to eagles. I think what you've
15 been hearing all morning is you can't -- you can't assess
16 the risks to eagles without considering the human
17 connection. I mean, they are a part of us, and I don't know
18 if you got that message.
19 And I think you don't go far enough in how you can
20 look at the -- the whole picture. Because, like -- like for
21 EPA and some of the other federal agencies, they ask you to
22 do risk assessments on a certain kind of either a
23 contamination or development on a human impact. Okay. When
24 you do that and if you're talking about the eagles, there's
25 going to be human impacts. We've told you that. They are a
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1 part of us; we are a part of them. And when you assess the
2 risks to the eagles, it doesn't seem like it takes that into
3 consideration.
4 I know I've been involved in a couple of risk
5 assessments on contamination. And I think my councilman,
6 Lee Juan Tyler, mentioned we're in a -- we're in a super
7 fund site. Okay. We've done some risk assessments on the
8 impacts of that contamination to the human -- the people
9 living around that area, not only -- not only tribal
10 members, but people that live close by and, you know, up and
11 down that whole general area. And there's a high incidence
12 of cancer, different things that are cropping up. But we're
13 saying the same thing with the eagles. Something is wrong
14 with the eagles. So how does that connection -- how is that
15 connection made to the human impact? And we're telling you,
16 they're a part of us.
17 So I think -- I don't know if you addressed that,
18 but I got this Power Point that I was given by Fish and
19 Wildlife folks that -- I think it was last year's
20 discussions -- but they talk about tribal traditional
21 ecological knowledge. And I think if you took that and
22 incorporated it into assessing risks and incorporating it
23 into part of a data standard that goes into the equation, I
24 think you would be -- you would actually -- I know you would
25 satisfy me on -- on being able to assess that risk with the
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1 human impact. Because if you're just assessing the risk to
2 the eagles, you're not going far enough. Because if
3 anything happens to the eagles, then it's an impact on us.
4 I mean, right now, you're giving some deference to
5 falconers. I mean, at least that was part of the earlier
6 discussion. Falconers have some say into what goes on.
7 They actually, you know -- according to some of the rules
8 that were in the Power Point is that falconers are allowed
9 to take, you know, after the -- after the eagles have been
10 rehabilitated.
11 And then now there's mitigation. Mitigation, to
12 me, is another -- another yes-means-no word. Because, you
13 know, we're talking about all these prohibitative (sic)
14 activities on eagles, taken eagles, you know, impacting in
15 somehow. But mitigation will allow you to do that. It's a
16 trade-off.
17 And I don't like the word "mitigation". But it's
18 in there and I guess some folks like -- like the word, but I
19 don't like it because all it is a -- is a trade-off. You
20 don't like what you're -- what this person is doing --
21 activity; it could impact the eagles. But you're going to
22 trade it off by saying, Okay, in order to mitigate, you can
23 do this to minimize that damage. And I don't think that's
24 right. Either you've got to -- you've got to treat him in
25 the sacred manner that we're telling you or else you
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1 shouldn't even be dealing with them.
2 MR. RILEY: Thank you. Thanks. The mitigation
3 point; well, that's exactly what we need to be hearing and
4 understanding. Again, you covered a lot of ground, and I
5 want to make sure that we're all in the same page.
6 So, working backwards, it is absolutely a case.
7 The way the current regulations and law are structured would
8 be that if they otherwise meet standards for the permit,
9 which is that they're conducting a lawful activity, they've
10 put in sort of best management practices or they swore or
11 demonstrated they're trying to avoid and minimize the take
12 as much as they can practically do it. Then the remaining
13 take can be permitted, but they have to mitigate for it.
14 And as you said, that does mean you've got a chance to take
15 the eagle.
16 It's mitigation in a different sense than what EPA
17 might frequently mean. It's not simply doing something good
18 for eagles. You have to come up with something that we
19 believe, scientifically, can be demonstrated is going to
20 save an eagle's life that would not otherwise been saved.
21 But the current structure does allow for takes as long it's
22 mitigated golden eagles. What I'm hearing from you is
23 that's just terribly inappropriate. And we do need to
24 capture that.
25 Traditional ecological knowledge is on the handout
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1 that we have. It's something we wanted to learn more about;
2 how we can incorporate that into our understanding both to
3 gather biological knowledge but, also, certainly, to gather
4 the cultural understanding or the meaning of this.
5 And I must say your -- your interpretation of that
6 bullet is much more nuance and interesting than what we
7 intended when we wrote that bullet. I think that's also
8 what we're looking for hearing, to think about when we say
9 "risk to eagles", thinking about that also in a sense of the
10 impact to the humans and the Native American tribes that
11 take -- when we wrote the bullet, it was meaning something
12 much more pedestrian than that. It was simply, if someone
13 said, We wanted to put up some wind turbines, to what extent
14 can we predict that an eagle is going to get killed there or
15 not? If no eagle is going to get killed there, we shouldn't
16 be worried about it.
17 If this is a flight path that eagles migrate
18 regularly, we should be very, very worried what sort of data
19 standards can we require to better understand the likelihood
20 an eagle might happen to get killed. That's a -- that's a
21 much simpler meaning of risk than what you were alluding to.
22 And I appreciate your -- your expansive reading for us to
23 consider.
24 There is a little bit more information I'd like to
25 get to, and then what I would intend to do is to hand this
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1 over to Yolynda and let this be conversation and
2 presentation.
3 There was another portion of the 2009 rules that
4 allowed for take of eagles' nests that hadn't been allowed
5 previously for similar reasons. There's information in the
6 handout that talks about when and what are -- what
7 circumstances eagle nests could allow somebody to remove a
8 nest.
9 To just hit some of the -- some of the things that
10 have come up in our own internal discussions, we'd like to
11 consider one. And is, simply, the definition of "nest".
12 What's an active nest versus an inactive nest? The current
13 regulations talk about sometimes you can take an inactive
14 nest, but you wouldn't be able to take an active. Can you
15 define that better?
16 The question of mitigation comes up again in a
17 situation for a safety emergency. For example -- in what we
18 think is appropriate to allow someone to remove an eagle's
19 nest because there's an -- there's a danger being presented;
20 it's going to cause an electrocution or something like that.
21 Is that a situation where we should require mitigation or
22 not if it's a safety emergency? That's something that we're
23 thinking about again and look for input.
24 Protection of a wildlife. An inactive eagle's
25 nest, if there's something about impacts to wildlife that
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1 may be occurring, is that a reason that we might look at
2 removing an eagle's nest, if it's inactive?
3 Right now, the requirement says that you have to
4 demonstrate that there's suitable nesting habitat somewhere
5 else in the vicinity. There are parts of the country where
6 -- especially for bald eagles, for example -- that might be
7 an impossible thing to demonstrate; the habitat has been
8 saturated in that particular locality. Well, should we
9 still say that's a requirement and look out farther, or is
10 that requirement not appropriate in that sort of
11 circumstance?
12 And then, finally, right now, there's a
13 requirement if the eggs are nestlings, if you are allowed to
14 remove the nest, it needs to be transferred to a real good
15 rehabilitation facility. Is that something that should
16 always be a requirement or is that something that is case by
17 case? Maybe we make the requirement of a given permit.
18 Again, that's a -- a quick picture of a number of
19 the issues that as we've tried to figure out how to
20 implement these regulations that have come up in our minds,
21 that we might consider proposing some sort of an amendment
22 to the regulations. We haven't made any of these proposals
23 yet. Whether any of those or anything else that you're
24 thinking of would seem appropriate as an amendment, we're
25 looking for your input.
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1 Then to finish here for -- for what I'd like to
2 make sure is in front of all of you, on this whole concept
3 of revising this regulation, the Fish and Wildlife Service
4 has just recently decided we're going to be holding some
5 scoping sessions. Denver would be one of those locations,
6 DC, probably Minnesota, Albuquerque and Sacramento. There's
7 other locations. None of those dates have been selected or
8 anything finalized, but highlight that to you. Certainly,
9 you will be welcome to participate in any of those public
10 meetings.
11 There is at least a possibility -- and this is
12 something else that could be accepted -- but that we would
13 be trying -- in some or all of those -- to have affiliated
14 chance for some discussion with tribes, separate from the
15 general public -- general public meetings. That may or may
16 not turn out feasible if there's a ground school of desire
17 that may help that occur, if that seems like that would be
18 appropriate.
19 And there may be -- through the public legal
20 process as well as comments on any take regulation as well
21 as -- if the -- if the tone or tenor on what the changes may
22 turn out to be very different than -- for example, what I
23 represented here, we may be looking for other opportunities
24 for tribal input.
25 The time line, however, that has been discussed
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1 would be greatly accelerated, at least in terms of how
2 quickly the federal government quickly moves. And that
3 would be to try to generate some sort of a proposal by this
4 summer and try to finalize whatever changes we might need to
5 by the end of this calendar year. That's the time line
6 that's being discussed.
7 We can have a -- well, frankly, it's sort of an
8 external Fish and Wildlife Service, too. But we understand
9 if we are to -- people -- people take this rule seriously
10 enough and people have concerns from all different angles --
11 industry has concerns, tribes have concerns, and we have
12 concerns as we try to implement it. If we can make changes,
13 the sooner the better. But we'd also like to smarten up
14 those changes.
15 That's -- along with the front and back handout
16 you have is my attempt to at least paint the picture of what
17 the potential issues are. And I'm going to hand this over
18 to Yolynda. I'd like to hear from you and certainly respond
19 to comments or questions as that's appropriate.
20 MR. TYLER: You guys are talking about the tribal
21 ecological knowledge. Here in the environmental agency, the
22 protecting environmental office and the regions all put
23 together a national tribal caucus to add wisdom, tribal
24 ecological knowledge and wisdom, because everybody can have
25 knowledge, but the -- that one gentleman here was speaking,
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1 that's wisdom, and Terry and I and others and everybody in
2 this room. So that needs to be added to that as well. So
3 just to throw that in there before we go too far.
4 MS. BEGAY: Thank you.
5 MR. ROUNDSTONE: I just had a question. I think
6 I, like, know the answer, but I'd like it to be spoken by
7 the federal government. With the legal take permit that I
8 read in this literature here that's been in existence since
9 1940, they made some -- they added golden eagles in '62.
10 How many eagle take permits have been given to individual
11 tribes and tribal members to date?
12 MR. RILEY: In the last 15 years or so -- let me
13 find it. As far as Native American take permits, there have
14 been -- let's see -- this goes back to just 2001, and there
15 have been nine applications for permits. Now, one of those
16 applications is the -- the Hopi permit that many of you are
17 referring to and familiar with, which has an annual permit
18 that to re-apply for that goes back a number of years. So
19 it's eight others in addition to that that have been
20 permits. And in each one of those, at least, take was
21 authorized. I don't know if anybody else is -- Janelle -- I
22 should check -- do you know if any of those applications
23 were denied in any of those?
24 SPEAKER: Not to my knowledge, no.
25 MR. RILEY: To our knowledge, those are -- those
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1 nine applications were authorized. And we don't know of any
2 that were denied.
3 MR. ROUNDSTONE: So with that said, how many
4 eagles do you allow to corporate organizations to take
5 before it's a problem? I heard you say -- one of you say up
6 there that it was 232 eagles taken in two years and you're
7 only allowing nine eagles since 1962.
8 MR. RILEY: We didn't allow them to take those 232
9 eagles. We prosecuted them as illegal acts.
10 MR. ROUNDSTONE: But what I'm saying is that if
11 corporate America asks for these permits for take, how many
12 are you going to allow them to take before it becomes a
13 mitigation issue or before you start having them having to
14 pay?
15 And the other thing is, you know -- and this
16 really irks me -- is if a Native American individual takes
17 eagles, they -- and then you prosecute him, goes through
18 that prosecution and decides to take another, then you're
19 going to send him to prison for over two eagles or three
20 eagles. Now, corporate or energy development, energy
21 developers, take 232 eagles and the very next year, they
22 take 200 because of your mitigation attempts, is that right?
23 Is anybody in that corporate system going to jail like us
24 natives? I don't think so.
25 And I think the bottom line here that we're
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1 talking about is a way of life and a religion -- if you want
2 to put that religion stamp on there -- versus money. You
3 know, in all the time that I have ever seen in the white
4 world, money always wins.
5 So I think that, you know, you guys are going on
6 the right trail in this consultation. But I also think
7 that, you know, there's a lot more awareness, you know.
8 There's only 20 of us sitting up here, and you say there's
9 570 tribes or so. And I think you guys need to consult with
10 at least half of them. Thank you.
11 MR. RILEY: The way the regulations are set up
12 right now, we do attempt to calculate how many eagles could
13 be authorized, whether it's a company or a Native American
14 or otherwise, before we would require mitigation. With bald
15 eagles, that's a region-by-region number that's done with
16 folks in our office who talks to (indiscernible) who read
17 the charts more or are working it through.
18 And there's a number of bald eagles for each
19 region. We have not reached that number since the
20 regulations are created in any of those regions. So that
21 the limit has not been because of that calculation, whether
22 it's for Native Americans or anyone else.
23 For golden eagles, the people who do that
24 statistical work, they found out based on that data -- feel
25 like we should not be authorizing any golden eagles unless
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1 it's mitigated and that, often, in either cases, we should
2 not authorize take unless someone can demonstrate they have
3 put together a plan that has minimized what would it take to
4 the maximum extent practical. So far, nobody has achieved
5 that standard and achieved a permit. And those are specific
6 things. You raised much deeper issues than that, I realize.
7 But to make sure folks sort of understand how we -- how we
8 regulate to this point and how we've been attempting to
9 implement them.
10 MR. OLDMAN: Ron Oldman for the Northern Arapaho
11 Tribe. The Northern Arapaho Tribe did apply for a permit --
12 for an eagle take permit on the reservoir reservation. And
13 I mean no disrespect to the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. We both
14 share their Wind River reservation. But the Arapaho Tribe
15 -- the Northern Arapaho Tribe was denied a permit for an
16 eagle take permit on religious and ceremonial purposes.
17 However, we've been given -- we've been offered -- the
18 Northern Arapaho Tribe has not accepted yet, to my knowledge
19 -- that we've been offered a permit to take two eagles off
20 the reservation in the state of Wyoming. However, that
21 would break a state law. So we were put in a catch-22
22 situation.
23 And, you know, I feel that -- that we -- we are --
24 we are being denied our First Amended -- Amendment rights
25 of freedom of religion in respect to taking these eagles,
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1 which we use in our sun dance. And I will not speak any
2 more beyond that. And this -- you know, they've made a
3 mockery of -- in regard to our First Amendment rights.
4 But I guess I would like to take it a step further
5 in how energy companies can be having a -- have priority of
6 receiving up to 65 permits in the state of Wyoming in the
7 Sierra-Madre energy purposes and we're being denied access
8 to practice our religious rights.
9 And I'd like to know what assurances that the
10 Northern Arapaho Tribe has that are high -- higher
11 priority -- are higher priority to taking of these eagles to
12 practice our religious ceremonies will be implemented. And
13 how will the department balance and implement the stated
14 priorities as to issuing these permits? Two tribes, as
15 compared to energy companies, wind farms, and how -- how do
16 -- how did the forest service add that -- I guess, the
17 government -- a way of the protection of religious freedoms
18 and the practices against the non-religious takes by wind
19 farms?
20 Is there any way that -- I guess I'm going to need
21 -- I'm going to read this question because I'm kind of
22 getting lost here. Will any tribes be empowered to block
23 permits by wind farms on religious grounds? If so, which
24 tribes? Those which take the eagles for religious purposes
25 or those which do not? And how -- how are the affected
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1 tribes determined in relation to geographic purposes for the
2 reason of consultation?
3 MR. RILEY: Again, a number of issues you raised
4 there. Each -- each of them is very important. The things
5 are -- I'm supposed to say, before anything else, we are not
6 intentionally trying to burn anybody out of here.
7 Apparently, the air conditioning is out of fritz. They're
8 trying to get it fixed.
9 In terms of priorities and your concern that we
10 would be issuing as many as 60 permits to a company in
11 Wyoming, as you know, we certainly have not issued those
12 permits yet. We don't have the application yet. That --
13 that application will be considered when we receive it.
14 But --
15 MR. OLDMAN: Can I interject right here? Sorry
16 for the interruption -- I don't need that -- but you've
17 offered it to them, right?
18 MR. RILEY: No, no. Not at all.
19 MR. OLDMAN: So the statements in the media that
20 came up last fall were wrong?
21 MR. RILEY: Oh, you should know well enough not to
22 believe what you read in the media. There were a number of
23 things written in the media that were phrased incorrectly.
24 No. Not only have we not offered, we have not received an
25 application.
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1 What we said we would do is -- is review their
2 application. We do meet with them and have been meeting
3 with them to advise them of ways that would take a limit to
4 their take so that their application might be permittable.
5 And that would be our hope if this were to go
6 forward as a project, that they would take steps to the
7 extent we can identify any steps to limit the amount of
8 takes, whether it would be less than 60 eagles, for example.
9 But we have not offered any permits. It would be illegal
10 for us to do so until we have a permit.
11 When we do have a permit application in hand, the
12 reg -- the same regulations we're talking about did
13 establish a priority order that said we are not allowed to
14 issue a programmatic permit if it would impair our ability
15 to issue permits to a higher priority. Of that -- of those
16 higher priorities, the first is for safety emergencies. But
17 the second is for Native American religious take.
18 So at some point today or tomorrow morning,
19 perhaps, we'll be talking about the Chokecherry-Sierra Madre
20 project. The -- one of the reasons we need to be talking
21 with you about that is because under the regs, if -- if we
22 were to believe that by issuing a permit for that wind
23 project as a programmatic permit that the act of issuing a
24 permit would prevent our ability to issue permits for Native
25 or religious permits, we shouldn't issue it. We haven't
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1 gotten to that step yet.
2 As far as the permit offerance for the take of two
3 bald eagles for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, just acknowledge
4 that, yes, we -- we have -- well, in our department, we've
5 issued the permit as available to take two eagles off of the
6 reservation somewhere in Wyoming. We had worked with the
7 State of Wyoming to confirm that that would be legal. It's
8 not a violation of state law. There was a concern about
9 that, certainly. And our decision in issuing a permit with
10 those restrictions was based on consultation that we had on
11 the reservation with -- with both of the tribes.
12 But whether we had that balance right or wrong, as
13 you know, is now subject to litigation. And consequently,
14 it'd be inappropriate for me to do anything more than
15 acknowledge those facts. But, yes, to acknowledge those
16 facts and -- and recognize that the tribe has -- has -- has,
17 as formally as can be done by filing a lawsuit, demonstrated
18 that you're not convinced that we corrected a balance to
19 those interests.
20 MR. KNIGHT: I'm going to have to leave here in a
21 couple of minutes, but I'm just sitting here thinking in --
22 in other situation language, a phrase that the energy
23 companies have to deal with is called historical districts,
24 traditional cultural properties, culturally-sensitive areas.
25 And I work a lot with archeologists and this -- they say,
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1 Well, this is that kind of an area because we have a spotted
2 owl nest in there and -- and whatever kind of rocky mountain
3 or (indiscernible) cactus and we have that here and we have
4 this here, so, therefore, whatever development has to occur
5 should go around it. And we have sacred sites. We have --
6 what do you call -- ruins. They are thousands of years old,
7 so we have to avoid it.
8 So what is it that we can say, as tribes, when the
9 Fish and Wildlife say, these eagle-nesting areas would be
10 traditional cultural properties, culturally-sensitive areas
11 because they are essential to our religion, our lives, our
12 belief? Why couldn't we declare those -- those kind of
13 areas historical districts? And so when an energy company
14 comes in, say, I want to lay a pipeline or whatever they're
15 going to say, then we have people to stand up and say, No,
16 that has been declared that kind of an area, off limits. We
17 have the support of the Fish and Wildlife and other people,
18 other tribes, together -- not just one tribe, together.
19 Because we've done that with the -- with the water supply
20 project with our neighbors from the south of Pueblo, the
21 Navahos, the Inca Apache, the two Ute tribes. And we have
22 one nesting area that it's off limits. And I can't remember
23 what they call it, all these different names -- whatever
24 abbreviation. And that area is off limits to everybody.
25 And the Bureau of Reclamation, they paid one man a
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1 lot of money to watch it -- sit there and watch it, make
2 sure nobody stole some feathers or one up there did this and
3 did that. And there's some of the areas within that -- that
4 -- that's an area for -- for -- what do they call it -- oka
5 (phonetic)? And it's right in that area and nobody touches
6 that site. Of course, it's way up on that cliff, but if we
7 could -- we could use our -- our people that we work with,
8 our attorneys and the staff people -- and I'm sure that the
9 Fish and Wildlife have those -- incorporate those concepts
10 into these areas that we're talking about.
11 Like I said, that one section, on a good day, on a
12 really good day, I could see 16 or 17 eagles sitting around.
13 But now, no. If someone was there and said, This is a
14 traditional cultural property due to this tribe and other
15 tribes, and this is the significance of that bird, and we'd
16 have to give some of our information, that's where it's
17 touchy. What do you use that eagle for? How do you use;
18 why? They want to know why. And that's really sensitive
19 because, you know -- and this is that -- that's something
20 that is ours; that our medicine people use. We can't tell
21 them that. Besides, they won't understand it. They will
22 sure print that and make a good story out of it.
23 But if we use these concepts that have already
24 been developed in these contexts of energy development to
25 hold back all these -- like you're saying, just these
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1 windmills, whatever, that's killing eagles, you know,
2 there's -- somewhere, somehow, there was, within a migration
3 period of the tribes that were there -- and there were
4 sacred sites, burial grounds -- they could have said, No;
5 you can't use this site. This is a sacred site. This is a
6 historical property. It's a historical district. And
7 you're going to have to go through all kinds of paperwork.
8 And the bottom line is, I'm going to have to sign off on it.
9 If I don't sign off on it, too bad, because I'm not going to
10 sign on it. And we've done that. So I've become the bad
11 guy.
12 But, anyway, the tribal government understands
13 this and they support it. So if we could -- just a word,
14 and an idea; think about it, chew on it, sleep to it. How
15 can you incorporate those concepts into what we're talking
16 about here? Because that's what the energy companies have
17 dealt with. And that's what holds them some back and say,
18 Oh, well, we, the company, do this because this so-and-so
19 and this and so on.
20 And one of the major players, the archeologists
21 and tribal officers and others, the -- the medicine people
22 and elders and whomever, and they all get together and say,
23 No; we don't want that anyway because this is a traditional
24 cultural property, this is this -- should be declared a
25 historical site, which means no development, no this, no
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1 that, because of the habitat and they're hunting grounds and
2 they're nesting grounds. And we say those two-legged wind
3 people are our brothers. So let's say, Let's take care of
4 our brothers. We don't want these people there. They can
5 go around. They can go somewhere else, you know, to do this
6 energy development.
7 And we use this concept and put it together,
8 because energy companies already have that in their head.
9 They have attorneys that have worked with it. And, so far,
10 it's working. It's holding them back. So something that
11 you can think about. So I just want to leave that with you.
12 Thankful that I came. Like I said, I have to go
13 back and I've got some ceremonies pending. And I will think
14 about you-all and think about what we're doing. And, we,
15 cooperatively, it can be done. All you have to say, Us;
16 we're going to do this. Us; we can do this. But if you
17 stand by me, don't turn your back. Stay with me. Stay with
18 me because this is a good cause.
19 And so I'm -- I'm not sticking my neck out. When
20 I go home, I tell my nephews and my nieces and my grandson,
21 this is what I said and this is what we're going to do
22 regarding that. And they'll say, Oh, okay. Okay, Uncle.
23 All right. We'll go with you. So just -- that's it. Thank
24 you.
25 MR. RILEY: As you're leaving, I just want to make
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1 sure we thank you for your time and your comments.
2 Certainly, as you go home, when you think about it, if there
3 are additional thoughts, feel free to contact us, send us
4 comments or anything, and we'll talk about that with
5 everyone else. I want to make sure you know that.
6 Also, before I can let you go -- and say this to
7 the rest -- but some of the ideas you were just sharing are
8 -- we're thinking about trying to think of something
9 similar, I guess, is the way to say that. So, thank you.
10 But to share that with everyone, it's just --
11 obviously, it's hard to challenge in some ways for eagles
12 than some because it's not just a spot on the ground where
13 there might have been a cultural artifact, but the darn
14 things just keep flying around. And how you draw lines on
15 maps to tell an energy company not to develop there, it's
16 more of a challenge.
17 However, with Chokecherry-Sierra Madre as an
18 example, this version of that conversation is exactly some
19 of the conversation we have been trying to explore. Can you
20 say, around an eagle's nest becomes an area you shouldn't
21 put wind turbines? Do we have authority under these regs to
22 require that? Would citing the impacts, the risk to humans
23 and impacts to Native American cultural and religious needs
24 be one of the reasons that would allow us to say that? And
25 I think it's a useful comment for us to take into
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1 consideration. Thank you.
2 MR. VOELKER: The 2012 permit for eagle take for
3 the Northern Arapaho, that was specifically bald eagles,
4 correct? Was the tribe and maybe the tribal members -- can
5 -- were they required to show historical activities that
6 required the need for taking bald eagles today?
7 MR. RILEY: Under the regulations, yes, that is
8 what a tribe needs to demonstrate -- is that there is a
9 traditional cultural religious purpose to needing to take
10 the eagle as an eagle from a wild nest as opposed to used
11 parts or something else. We have to meet that standard in
12 issuing a permit.
13 I would also say, in practice, that we would not
14 prefer to be particularly picky about investigating
15 someone's demonstration of that standard if we can avoid
16 that, because that's certainly not what Fish and Wildlife
17 Services' expertise is in -- in understanding Native
18 American traditions and cultural group. We would prefer to
19 defer to that.
20 And Steve Olberholtzer is reserving your
21 discussions about asking for certification by tribes about
22 an individual's need. And he speaks well here to -- we
23 would like to be able to refer to tribes somehow to
24 accomplish that, but it is a requirement under the reg.
25 MR. LASLEY: Raymond Lasley, Osage Nation. I have
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1 a letter from the State of Oklahoma's Historic Preservation
2 office. And one of the things that they're saying -- if you
3 don't mind, I would like to read this into the record. It
4 is the opinion from the -- from this entity that the
5 assumption should be that the federal action permit issuance
6 of an incidental take permit makes a wind farm undertaking
7 subject to Section 106.
8 If that were true, before the Fish and Wildlife
9 would issue a permit, whether it's a programmatic or an
10 incidental take permit for a particular area, Section 106
11 review would be required through a regulation. Now, you
12 could do that.
13 And as a gentleman was saying earlier, in order --
14 when we do a Section 106 review, we would identify those
15 cultural resources in that -- in that field. And in -- I'm
16 going to use the Osage in this particular case because we're
17 dealing with it now -- there wasn't an adequate 106 review
18 performed by the wind company. That is in question right
19 now. There was a -- the methods they used were questioned.
20 It's been under question now by the State Historic
21 Preservation office as well as the Tribal Historic
22 Preservation office as well.
23 So those things, if -- have lent us to another
24 situation and that, in order to get a voluntary permit --
25 and these are all voluntary; there's nothing mandatory about
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1 these permit requirements -- that will be another issue that
2 I'd like to see us address, whether to actually put some
3 teeth into the permitting process. We're not seeing that
4 now.
5 And one of the things that Fish and Wildlife
6 recommends to industry is siting. Siting is critical. Do
7 not put wind farms in a migration corridor. Do not put wind
8 farms in an area that's rich in cultural resources. And
9 it's a recommendation that the corporations -- these
10 corporate entities begin consultation with the affected
11 tribes.
12 Now, if none of those have been met -- none of
13 those criteria has been met, then it would be -- it would
14 seem to me that before Fish and Wildlife would issue a
15 permit, whether it's an incidental or programmatic permit,
16 that these situations would need to be resolved.
17 One, making sure that it's a -- it's a proper
18 site. You don't want to build in a migration corridor.
19 Two, cultural resources aren't affected. Three, you consult
20 with the -- with the affected tribe.
21 Now, that is not being -- Fish and Wildlife is not
22 doing that now. And it's not good for folks at the regional
23 office. We're getting the -- this situation is in
24 Washington, D.C., and that's where we're directing our -- a
25 lot of our fight is with the Department of Interior in
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1 Washington, D.C., And we're trying to get meetings with the
2 Secretary of Washington, D.C., and others, you know, and
3 trying to get these standards raised instead of lowered.
4 And this 30-year permit is ridiculous. And, I
5 mean, we must have missed that consultation on that one to
6 go from a five-year to a 30-year permit. I mean, that's a
7 -- that's a long time. I'll be dead and gone in 30 years,
8 in all likelihood, and these things will still be chopping
9 up eagles year after year after year.
10 And, you know, five-year review, that's too -- too
11 long as well. If you're to do a 30-year permit, then a
12 five-year review is way too long. I mean, two years, 232
13 eagles -- I mean, is not -- that's not feasible.
14 I've got some other things, but, you know, we --
15 we use best management practices, you know, and we use that
16 buzz word -- buzz words. And we're not seeing it. We're
17 not seeing it with this industry. This industry is being
18 given to pass by this Administration. Well, now, not the
19 folks here; just the Administration. And that's what we're
20 seeing most of the situation, and we're -- our struggle is
21 with the Administration.
22 Data; I mean, that's another thing. We're not
23 getting -- we're not getting reliable data. And there's too
24 many variables to get that type of reliable data. If an
25 eagle or another raptor -- and we're seeing -- there will be
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1 raptors as well. I mean, we're just not talking about
2 eagles. We're talking about hawks, we're talking about
3 owls, we're talking about the different types of migratory
4 birds that will be going through there.
5 In our period of case, we're holding onto one of
6 the last vestiges of tall grass prairie. I mean, our Osage
7 reservation is the southern edge of the front hills. And
8 the front hills is only found in Oklahoma and parts of
9 Kansas. So we're trying to hang onto that as best we can.
10 And you go back to the poor siting. And before
11 Fish and Wildlife issues a permit, all these variables
12 should be considered. And here again I understand, is a
13 voluntary permit, but I would like to see us address it a
14 little more solidly or put something -- a permitting process
15 in there that is actually -- carries some weight.
16 Thank you.
17 MR. RILEY: I'm not going to summarize all of that
18 because we do have a court reporter capturing it in. And
19 those are excellent comments for us in consideration as we
20 move forward. And, clearly, you and your tribe have been
21 very involved in many of these issues.
22 And the only three things I wanted to point out
23 for use of everyone here, one is referring to this as a
24 voluntary permit. For folks who have not been exposed to
25 this issue, what Ray is referring to is the fact that lack
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1 of a permit is not in itself a violation of the law; killing
2 the eagle is a violation of the law.
3 If a wind company fails to or decides not to apply
4 for a permit but he's lucky enough that an eagle doesn't
5 happen to go through and gets sliced and dies, they're not
6 in violation of the law. And, in that sense, it is
7 absolutely technically accurate to say it's voluntary for a
8 company to decide that they want to apply and obtain a
9 permit so that they would be legal if an eagle were killed.
10 Their decision not to apply for a permit is not a violation;
11 killing an eagle is, of course, a violation. That's just to
12 explain for those of you who haven't been exposed to this
13 issue.
14 The one -- one other thing I was going to mention
15 is you referred to the incidental take permit in Wyoming.
16 I'm assuming the Endangered Species Act. That's the
17 technical term for that kind of a permit entity and say --
18 the reason to reiterate that is to say that that's also, I
19 think, an appropriate way to demonstrate some of the
20 challenges that we are looking at -- when and how, with a
21 programmatic permit under the Eagle Act, should it be
22 considered under the same standards of issuing an incident
23 of a take permit under the Endangered Species Act; when is
24 it similar, when is it not similar. We haven't issued one
25 yet. Including, in your main point, when and how 106 is
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1 required, the issuing of that permit. And that is certainly
2 under discussion and whether that should be a case-by-case
3 decision; whether that should be a general decision. All
4 these permits should be the same as incidental permits and
5 of the NSA. That, essentially, is an ongoing discussion or
6 comments and are valuable to have.
7 And the third thing I was going to say is, Hey, I
8 grew up in the foothills of Kansas. I'm with you on this.
9 MS. BEGAY: All right. We're going to take a
10 ten-minute break and allow you guys to get up and walk
11 around, get out of this room for a little bit and get some
12 water, coffee. And we'll come back.
13 MR. TYLER: I just wanted to add; are you familiar
14 with Sho-Ban Tribes permit as well and with the
15 consultation? And they showed up and they made me aware of
16 the map. And we -- we asked to -- if the eagles die on the
17 reservation, no matter how, you know, that they'll be --
18 they will be asked -- to have come to us, us tribes, so we
19 can utilize them for our own use and et cetera. And so when
20 that happens -- no answer yet. You know, this is being
21 submitted as a resolution form, and then where did it go?
22 To someone and said, yeah, yeah. And then that was even
23 over there, with our council, our own council submitted it
24 and asked people there. And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
25 Services said, Hey. So we're still waiting for an answer.
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1 It's been years, so...
2 So sometimes, you know, it gets the --
3 disrespectful. That's why we need to get those answers and
4 at least say "yes" or "no". But, at least, you know, that's
5 how, for the reservations, for all of our people. If it
6 dies, it belongs to us. And if it's been there and lived
7 there, then it's part of us. And I want to share that.
8 There's laws and acts that have been implemented,
9 but it's where you live -- 30 seconds? Okay. And
10 instigated and developed way back prior to even the
11 consultation process. It's 1879 law. That's old. That
12 needs to be amended. It has been, here and there, a little
13 bit. But, still -- but not tribes' input.
14 And all these other laws, Clean Water Act, all
15 this Clean Air Act; it goes on and on. It's the only one
16 part behind for us. But now is the time to get this
17 implemented; really do it right. So that's what we want to
18 do; make sure it's going right from here. You can do it
19 with four, five or six, whatever. Thank you.
20 MR. MCELROY: Thank you. I appreciate that. We
21 -- the Arapaho members are going to leave here shortly. We
22 appreciate -- we appreciate you guys' interest. However, we
23 do know that you don't make the policy. We understand that.
24 We appreciate the chance to come over and get to speak our
25 piece. We hope that you would get the notice out from this
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1 consulting session as soon as possible. You do have our
2 contact information because we did receive an invite from
3 you.
4 And I would also like to say that in regard to the
5 Sierra Madre permit, whatever, you know, we -- I've been an
6 Arapaho business council for a while. And -- well, for just
7 a little over a year -- ten months left in my term -- but I
8 have not yet seen a formal consultation letter to the
9 tribes. It may have come. I haven't seen it personally.
10 But please, keep us in your thoughts, so when you
11 want to get out and actually have some consultation
12 regarding this Chokecherry-Sierra Madre permit -- because
13 that is part of the Arapaho ancestral homeland, as is this
14 area, all the way up to the Absolokas (phonetic) down to the
15 Black Hills and along with the Lakotas and the Northern
16 Cheyenne also. Thank you.
17 MS. BEGAY: We're going to take a quick break.
18 MR. TYLER: We don't need a break.
19 MS. BEGAY: If you have something very, very
20 short, then we can do something about that. I have a
21 feeling that we have a need for a break here from everybody
22 around the room.
23 MR. FERRIS: Thank you. Wilfred Ferris from
24 Eastern Shoshone reservation office. I want to elaborate on
25 the ruling on which Mr. Oldman was speaking about. The
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1 Eastern Shoshone and the Bannock Tribe had a treaty in 1863
2 and 1868 on the forfeiture. And, personally, the Wind River
3 is what you call it.
4 In -- two years ago, 2012, we had a court ruling
5 over Cheyenne that took place over the eagles, and it was
6 the -- the Northern Arapaho to have their permit proposed to
7 get the eagles off the reservation. And their permit hasn't
8 been filed at that time. I was present at that -- over at
9 the court. And we have two tribes living in the reservation
10 -- the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho. And what
11 we do is we said, No, we don't want no illegal taking of
12 eagles from the reservation.
13 And so that's the way we stood. And I don't know
14 how -- like a -- we've been in disagreement because the
15 Shoshones, we've been there over 3,000 years. That's our
16 ancestral homeland, 3,000 to 6,000 years. And that area up
17 there, that's how we took care of our area up there. And
18 the Arapaho, they came there about 130 years ago.
19 And so what I'm saying is, that's how we base our
20 -- we don't want illegal taking from the reservation of the
21 eagles. And in the past, too, we had to set up -- we had to
22 set up a game code the same way. And we had this to protect
23 our species. So that's what we did.
24 And so right now, to me, the way I understand it,
25 it just falls -- falls between the Arapaho and the U.S. Fish
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1 and Wildlife Service for their permit. And I think it was
2 for two -- two -- two bald eagles. But that's the way --
3 that's the way I understood it.
4 I kind of feel bad because my chairman is not
5 here. Our councilman was here earlier, but he left. And
6 they're all aware of all this ruling. And so I came down as
7 part of my office to be able to sit in this eagle -- eagle
8 summit.
9 But right now, we're trying to establish some way
10 that we can be able to develop a program working with --
11 trying to work with the Comanches. And that's what we're
12 trying to do, establish something so that -- are -- we're
13 not going to -- we want our eagles to be able to prosper.
14 Because right now, we have really low eagles right now. So
15 we don't tell them. We don't tell where they're at. And we
16 used to have quite a bit. There are different species, but
17 now we have just various -- very limited.
18 And also, I worked with the Fish and Wildlife
19 office in the Lander office. And I'm waiting for some
20 information from them for the effects why the eagle
21 population has gone down. But, based on that, we're trying
22 to work with the Comanches. And they have their -- the way
23 they set up their sanctuary aviary/repositories. But we're
24 trying to set up something like that. So that way, we're
25 not illegally taking them. And then, also, we can teach our
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1 younger generation to be able to -- be able get items from
2 the eagles without killing them.
3 Like I told you earlier, how Grandpa used to do
4 it; how they used to trap them. You don't see that anymore.
5 That is being lost. And it's a -- it's a pretty touchy
6 subject because like what Mr. Ron Oldman, councilman, he
7 didn't have no disrespect to us Eastern Shoshones and the
8 same, vice versa. Because, that ruling, we stand by our
9 treaty. And once you have your treaty, that's -- that's the
10 contract with the government. We -- we -- we signed that
11 with the government. So we rely on the government to stand
12 up on their end. That's what we do. So that's how we have
13 the government-to-government consultation, government
14 relationship.
15 So even though they put on there, we had to go to
16 court in the '30s. And it was trespassing; not 50/50
17 homeland. Only for trespassing. And when you research that
18 more, you'll find out what that trespassing means. That's
19 why, we stand on our treaty 1863 and 1868. Sho-Ban has the
20 same treaty. So that's what I wanted to clarify.
21 And, like I say, I want to apologize because my
22 chairman, he had other -- something came up, so he had to
23 take off and he couldn't attend this meeting. But he was
24 supposed to be here. So I am the next in line. My other
25 councilman, he was here earlier, but he left, too. So I had
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1 to step up and then also answer Mr. Oldman's -- council
2 Oldman's suggestions earlier.
3 I don't -- in order -- in order to be able to get
4 this thing, like, situated, the other alternative was to be
5 able to set up a program where we're able to have those
6 types of species and then also to be able to utilize them.
7 But not killing them. Killing them and take them and use
8 them to help people. That's -- that's where I'm -- I don't
9 understand that. Because once that person is able to do
10 that, that -- that species is gone. And they're trying to
11 bring that back to be able to help that person that is sick.
12 How are you going to do that? Whereas you use and utilize
13 those items in the correct way to help that person or those
14 people.
15 It's hard to explain. But like this man right
16 here, he was talking about that. That man who walked in
17 here, he was talking about that. Only those people -- only
18 those people that take care of those things, they'll tell
19 you that, too.
20 So that's what I wanted to -- it's kind of hard --
21 it's kind of hard to explain it. But, like I said, I don't
22 want to offend them, but this is our right. And I hold that
23 treaty. That's my treaty. So I have to stand and stand up
24 for my treaty, even though my councilmen aren't here. But
25 that's my treaty between the government and my people.
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1 My inherited right; like they say -- that's what
2 the man said right here, inherited right. How could a
3 person go to your home and -- and take something that he'll
4 have a document saying that he's entitled to that?
5 Like I said, we've been there anywhere from 3,000
6 to 6,000 years. I'm sorry, but they've only been there for
7 130 years. And that's, you know, that's -- history will
8 prove it; historical sites, prehistoric sites will prove
9 that. So I just want to say that.
10 MS. BEGAY: All ready. Thank you. Since we have
11 some folks that really want to go until 5:00 p.m., we're
12 going to continue. I haven't heard from any of Pueblo --
13 Pueblo of San Felipe and also Santa Clara, I want to give
14 them an opportunity as well.
15 MR. GUTIERREZ: Good afternoon. Just a few
16 comments, you know. I guess, you know -- I guess, just one
17 concern, kind of stepping away from the subject a little
18 bit, is -- is, maybe you guys should schedule this for,
19 like, two days, you know, because this gentleman -- we have
20 a lot of things to say. And she hits 5:00. We only got to
21 one of your topics up there. Maybe next time -- in the
22 future, maybe do it for maybe two or three days, you know,
23 because we all have a lot of issues. These gentlemen have a
24 lot of issues and they have a lot of things to say, you
25 know. So maybe in the future, you can think about doing
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1 those things also.
2 But just a few comments, you know, on this -- on
3 the -- I guess, the -- when we read this, the one concern we
4 had was that 30-year permit thing, you know. And I guess
5 the thing is, if those companies or whoever -- and I guess
6 you kind of explained a little bit that they'll have to be
7 reviewed every five years. If -- if you give one of those
8 permits to somebody and, you know, the eagles, they kill
9 someone or they fight someone, who's going to -- are they
10 going to give it to the repository? How is that going to be
11 handled?
12 MR. RILEY: First, yes. We have heard -- I take
13 that as a comment that concerns about the 30-year permit,
14 and we certainly have that on the record. That's a fairly
15 recent decision, but we will certainly report that as a
16 concern.
17 The eagles that are taken, as long as they are
18 within the permit and there's no reason for a law
19 enforcement investigation or something like that, would be
20 going to the repository. The only exception might be if
21 there's a concern about the way they're operating in the
22 facilities; the fact that they are killing an eagle is In
23 excess of what was permitted, was not in compliance with the
24 permits, something like that, there might be a need -- the
25 law enforcement investigation might be an example where it
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1 wouldn't immediately go to a repository if it was evidence.
2 But, otherwise, the general rule is if there's an eagle
3 carcass, will go to the repository.
4 MR. CANDELARIA: My name is Daryl Candelaria. I'm
5 the tribal administrator for Pueblo San Felipe. This is a
6 very great discussion that's going on here. And what I
7 would like to mention is, hopefully, all this information
8 gets sent to the regional offices. We're not a part of the
9 mountain region here. We're a part of the southwest there
10 in New Mexico.
11 And I see this time and again, and I believe your
12 respective tribes also see this as when we go to Washington
13 to meet with the leaders there, you know, the heads of the
14 department, the Interior Department or what have you, it
15 seems to me that the word there is very different from the
16 local level. You know, there, they say, Okay, we'll do this
17 and we'll do that. But when we come down to the local
18 level, you know, there's so many obstacles that's put in
19 front of us.
20 You know, one of the gentlemen mentioned this
21 morning, where I would say -- and I was thinking they're
22 sitting -- I was hoping somebody mentions this -- but we're
23 among the most heavily-regulated population within the
24 country. You know, why is it that we have to have permits
25 to practice our religion? And, you know, I saw a great
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1 comment recently -- and I don't want to put any specific
2 religion down -- but I think it was the -- one of the Plains
3 leaders in the past said "holy water". All holy -- our
4 water is holy. You know, it's not just because of the
5 church that it's holy, you know. It's everything. Every
6 drop of water is holy, wherever it is.
7 But I guess the reason why I say this is, you
8 know, when -- before we came up here, in my position, I
9 opened up and read all the correspondence. It says that
10 come in for our -- at the tribal office from the federal
11 government to state government.
12 And we recently got a letter from the U.S. Forest
13 Service telling us that, you know, they've put together
14 again some documentation for us to follow in order to
15 collect herbs and foliage in the nearby forest to practice
16 our religion. You know, why is it that I have to have a CIB
17 card to collect what we need in the forest whereas
18 non-natives, they just get a little permit to go get a
19 Christmas tree? You know, what's -- where is the, I guess,
20 justice in that?
21 You know, but, again, coming on behalf of our
22 leadership and the rest of Pueblo, we didn't realize that
23 this is going to be a government-to-government consultation.
24 There are religious leaders at Pueblo, you know, that would
25 speak on more -- on what we're discussing here. And again,
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1 I just want to thank all the tribal leaders for the comments
2 here.
3 Just one last thing about these utility
4 corporations. And I see that this is more of a wider -- you
5 know, with a lot of the wind turbines going up. We do have
6 a significant amount of wind turbines going up in east
7 central New Mexico. And right now, we're dealing with a
8 major corporation out of Houston who is wanting to put --
9 get a new right-of-way through our reservation. These
10 corporations have never worked with tribes before. And then
11 it's like a whole total, you know, education process for
12 them to come up from Houston, from their corporate offices.
13 And they come through our tribal offices, and they're like,
14 Oh, wow, culture shock, you know.
15 And I think it's about time that we stand up for
16 what we believe in. You know, I did mention to the
17 personnel when they came to our last right-of-way meeting is
18 whatever right-of-way that was negotiated back in the early
19 -- in the -- the turn of the 20th century when the
20 electricity lines were going up, we weren't at the table.
21 My -- my leaders were not at the table. Times are different
22 now. We're at the table. This is how we value our land,
23 and we have the right to do that.
24 You know, we inherited what happened in the past.
25 Our children will inherit what we do today. And so it's
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1 very imperative that we all stick to what our beliefs -- our
2 core beliefs that we all believe in. The eagle is at the
3 center of this. And I want to thank all of you. Thank you.
4 MS. BEGAY: All right. Thank you. What I want to
5 do is take -- right over here.
6 MR. LUJAN: Many powerful words have been spoken
7 today and this afternoon. The elder guy who was standing
8 here, he gave us an extensive -- we must stand up
9 altogether. We need summits like this on our people here.
10 We're all relation. And somebody mentioned about congress.
11 We need to get together; perhaps march together. I don't
12 know how, but we need to group together.
13 More of these summits need to be taking place in
14 the New Mexico area and all throughout the states where we
15 can empower ourselves and strengthen our minds. There are a
16 lot of tribes from the Pueblos here throughout the United
17 States. We have medicine men and women; they need to be
18 here also. So you can understand, really, our core of our
19 beliefs in reference to eagles and feathers.
20 I was told when cell phone came in, that this is a
21 very important technical thing. But, a long time ago, the
22 eagle feathers were wireless. We can communicate. When one
23 goes to the other side of the ocean to fight for our
24 country, we have ways of saving people, pray to them, eagle
25 feather, for the well-being of our boys and the young
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1 warriors and the young women who are out there. We have
2 communication with feathers to communicate with our Creator
3 or Maker. Also, the moon, the sun, our feathers.
4 I don't go deep into detail, but you must
5 understand our ways. How, when the light comes up in the
6 morning, you're a part of our prayers. So all this comes
7 down to -- to gather ourselves together as one relation so
8 we can address this in congress and do it the right way.
9 Thank you.
10 MS. BEGAY: Thank you for your words.
11 What I want to do is -- at this point, we've only
12 gone through one topic that we have up there on the list.
13 We do have Northern Cheyenne's vice president who is willing
14 to come back tomorrow. And we also have the folks from San
15 Felipe who are willing to come back tomorrow as well.
16 What I wanted to do is ask the rest of you: Would
17 you be willing to come back tomorrow morning to continue
18 this discussion that we've been having? I'm getting a nod
19 from council; I'm getting a nod from Osage.
20 Lee Juan?
21 MR. TYLER: Yeah. What time are we going to go
22 through the -- after the --
23 MS. BEGAY: I'm sure we could pull a few strings
24 because you could -- we also have tour group that are signed
25 up for the tour as well.
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1 MR. TYLER: I would like to call this the
2 listening session. It's no proper consultation whatsoever.
3 So it's another listening session. And I agree; I will be
4 here tomorrow to listen and learn from each other. You
5 know, there's a lot of issues going on. And there's a lot
6 of tribes that do have minerals, and then they're probably
7 restricted due to the fact that they're like the fiduciary
8 and responsibility of the government. The trust. And some
9 of them have to go get the minerals and get the -- so they
10 can survive.
11 And that's what I said; it's unfortunate. And,
12 you know, we should be -- us tribes, you know, put against
13 each other to a great respect for each other and how -- how
14 it -- it came about.
15 And not -- not to offend you guys, but the
16 Euro-Americans, like, they brought all this to us. They
17 brought all this tension, reservation, and Mother Earth and
18 how it's divided up from the Europeans. There's no states.
19 Mother Earth is Mother Earth now. And the gentleman that
20 shared that -- Crow Dog.
21 Just be careful. So I want to say that.
22 MS. BEGAY: Let me go back to that initial
23 question of who's willing to come back.
24 MR. LASLEY: There's a little bit I want to
25 address to everybody here about Mr. Crow Dog. The reason
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1 why we have consultations today or listening sessions today
2 was directly the result of that gentleman's work. He was
3 the spiritual leader to the American Indian Movement in 1973
4 during -- at Wounded Knee takeover. He was at the -- at the
5 very heart of negotiating terms with the United States
6 government or the -- or the ending of the occupation. That
7 -- those -- those negotiations went on for -- it seemed like
8 a very long time. I don't know; months. The whole time I
9 was there, they were negotiating. He and several others,
10 they put their lives on the line. People died as a result
11 of that occupation.
12 And I just wanted everyone to know how critical it
13 is for those tribal leaders to come to these types of
14 listening sessions and to impart their wisdom on the rest of
15 us. It -- it is involvement.
16 The other leaders that were there -- Russell
17 Means, Dennis Banks, Stan Holder, Carter Camp; it goes on
18 and on -- but -- but they were -- they were the ones that
19 taught us -- taught me about tribal sovereignty. They
20 taught me about tribal self-determination.
21 In 1975, two years after the Wounded Knee
22 occupation, the congress enacted the Indian Education and
23 Self-determination Act, signed by President Nixon. That was
24 a direct result of the occupation of Wounded Knee and the
25 work that Mr. Crow Dog did. I just want to let everybody
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1 know about that. Most everybody knows that anyway, but --
2 thank you.
3 MR. VOELKER: I won't be able to join you
4 tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm going to be on a plane in the
5 morning. It's nesting season back home, and I got eagles
6 relying on me to be there.
7 The imprint birds will go through nesting.
8 Actually, there's some disappointment with our friends here
9 because I planned to bring one of our third-generation
10 captive produced golden eagles with us today because we --
11 the one thing that's been consistent now about all three
12 eagle summits is we hear -- and no offense, but a gentleman
13 here made a comment -- all those captive eagles behind bars
14 are prisoners. They're like, they don't have as much
15 medicine.
16 Well, we're breeding eagles that I worked with
17 their grandparents back in the 70s. We're bringing this new
18 eagle life forward in a way that while we're trying to
19 decide through the Service whether propagation of eagles is
20 going to be allowed in a bigger way, right now, we're the
21 only ones charged with that sacred duty. And we're honored
22 by that. We take that responsibility very seriously.
23 But you probably wondered, what's this Comanche
24 doing up here in this country? Well, we have a history
25 here, too, where there's two rivers that come together. Our
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1 response -- that are dear and sacred to us. And we left the
2 high country in the north. We broke away from our
3 Sheepeater background and came gradually under the southern
4 Plains. So we have a stake here today. It's good to be
5 here, always, and with our ties here.
6 But, I'm here mainly -- and, like in the old days,
7 a person was called upon. If you were up in this country or
8 a country of another tribe, you had to show that you had the
9 wherewithal, a reason to be there.
10 So my -- my warrior story for you-all is that I
11 stand here as the first Native American to ever hold permits
12 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the care and
13 breeding of bald and golden eagles. I'm the only Native
14 American who has bred both species and the only person in
15 this country to have bred both species by artificial
16 insemination.
17 Now, that sounds like a term that really puts off
18 some of the elders and holy people until they understand, by
19 living with the eagles, bringing a fourth generation of
20 eagles that imprint to you; they choose to be with you.
21 These are birds that get the opportunity to fly free.
22 There's nothing like having an eagle to spec in
23 the sky and bringing out our ho-hots (phonetic) on it or our
24 eagle-bone whistle and calling to that bird and that bird
25 dives out of the air and lands on your glove. I just can't
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1 tell you what it's like. But that's one of the great joys
2 in my life.
3 But that young adult we were going to bring, we
4 are -- we are going to be producing fourth generation in
5 captivity. It's never been done; never been done in this
6 country. But it's something that everybody needs to take
7 pride in because it's done in the sacred format of our
8 special sensitive spiritual ways with these birds that comes
9 forward with us.
10 So -- so the Arapaho/Shoshone situation that we're
11 sensitively dancing around, it was a bittersweet day at
12 home. We fought for years to get a special authority for
13 captive propagation under Native religious use. It was a
14 big step forward. That's the reason I made that correction
15 on that form. Produced the first golden eagle produced
16 under a religious use permit. And in 2010 and 2012, we
17 hatched the first bald eagle under that authority. But it
18 happened to be the same day that the news release came out
19 that the Northern Arapaho were given the authority to kill.
20 It was hard, you know; one Indian country, they're happy
21 they got a legal authority to kill, and back home, we're
22 hatching this egg and caring for it in our hands.
23 So you don't know where to stand sometimes because
24 you don't want to talk about anybody else's ways. But we
25 went up to one river. We took bald eagle feathers many
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1 times and distributed them to the spiritual leaders as they
2 were identified to us and showing them that there's another
3 way to -- maybe we can help in this regard. We've even
4 saved 148 different federally-recognized tribes from molted
5 feathers from those eagles that we care for at home. And so
6 there are other ways. And I just want to open your minds to
7 think in that regard; good ways, ethical, absolutely legal.
8 Oh, the reason that eagle is not with me today --
9 our federal permits allow us to take eagles anywhere in this
10 country, but you have to have a corresponding state
11 authority. It was too short a time and Colorado didn't
12 issue a permit. So we didn't break that rule. And we, you
13 know, let that the bird stay home. But, hopefully, the next
14 eagle summit, we can arrange well enough in advance and be
15 able to share the living bird. Because that was the thing
16 alarming for we Numunuu, the Comanche. We were watching our
17 people losing our connect with the living. And, you know,
18 everybody's talking about eagle carcasses, eagle feathers
19 and eagle this and that. But it's knowing intimately that
20 medicine work.
21 Talk about endangered species. That's what's
22 endangered in Indian country. Yes, we still have doctors
23 and we still have medicine people. Many, many different
24 tribes come to us. They take feathers from these living
25 eagles. The eagles give up the feather by molting each
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1 year. We've had numerous Indian doctors come to us and say,
2 This feather from an eagle that we know is living and
3 breathing there at Sia, it had so much more meaning to the
4 people helping. We've had people show up healed from the --
5 you know, the near-death as it was -- the way it was told to
6 us. They come to see that living eagle whose feather helped
7 them at a time of need.
8 So there are other ways. And in -- in closing, I
9 guess, what I would like to say is there's means within the
10 permitting process with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
11 anything we want to do, that we require to do in our
12 historical authentic ways. And it's working with the
13 Service.
14 I can stand here and say we have seven authorities
15 that exist with us that don't exist with any other tribes.
16 Captive breeding is just one of them. For 40 years, I
17 fought for a non-eagle repository permit. 40 years it took
18 to finally get that made into a permittal -- and it was in a
19 pilot period for two years -- and now it's going permanent.
20 So it takes persistence.
21 And I just want to leave with you this one last
22 thought. And that, we live by the motto today and our
23 mantra at home is that an eagle should no longer have to
24 forfeit its life to benefit culture. So think -- think of
25 these medicine birds that way.
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1 MS. BEGAY: I'm going to go ahead and turn the
2 time over to Clint and then also to Noreen to provide us
3 with a few closing comments. They also have a couple of
4 things that they want to share with the group in terms of --
5 I want to call them "action items" or "commitments"; things
6 that they're willing to do on their part, based on the
7 discussions that we've had throughout the day. I want to go
8 and turn it over to Clint.
9 MR. RILEY: First and foremost, thank you for your
10 time, for your sharing today, for your patience as we work
11 through these topics; the realization that, once again, you
12 had a federal agency that misjudged how much time you might
13 need for effective discussion. And then I hope all of you
14 are willing and able to come back tomorrow and can continue
15 the conversation.
16 To summarize today, starting at the end, for this
17 topic, as I said, this is a high-priority action on behalf
18 of the Fish and Wildlife Service to review these regulations
19 that were created in 2009. We intend to have something
20 available to the public as a proposal this summer. As we
21 move through this process, I hope you and other tribes stay
22 engaged. And I appreciate your comments today on that and
23 look forward to comments on other topics tomorrow.
24 On some of the discussions from this morning, we
25 want to think about some of the potential action items. Two
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1 of them that we discussed as a group this morning -- if you
2 want me to try to cover those briefly -- one is simply the
3 recognition that from our perspective -- and we are
4 interpreting from your perspective -- these conversations
5 are valued. This is the third eagle summit. We are looking
6 through a glass darkly sometimes to see the -- see the light
7 and then grow in understanding. But we think we're moving
8 in that direction, and we would have an intention of hosting
9 another eagle summit in the future, presumably, in the next
10 year, and potentially making this just a -- someone else was
11 talking about consistency and developing that
12 relationship -- turning this into something that is a
13 regular part of our relationship, I think, would be
14 meaningful to us as we work towards that.
15 The other thing that we were hearing about your --
16 from this morning is a concern of the cultural sensitivity
17 of -- certainly, our own staff and our agents, still, but
18 even more so, the people who aren't a part of the Fish and
19 Wildlife Service, representatives of the federal government,
20 and their need to understand that things that we may say
21 here about our intention and our interpretations should be
22 the way that the others do when you're crossing a border
23 when you have something with you that you legally have the
24 right to have and people's understanding of that and aware
25 of that.
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1 And at least one other action item that we were
2 taking from this morning is whether we can develop some sort
3 of a proposal to the Department of Justice; for example, a
4 paper of how we can reach out to some other of our sister
5 agencies and share -- to the extent that we have gained an
6 understanding of your concerns -- share that in a way that
7 may affect how -- how your relationship with other law
8 enforcement agencies and other agencies may move forward.
9 That's clearly beyond our control of this table in so many
10 ways, but it's a step that we're going to do that and is
11 important enough that we should try to pursue something.
12 Is there a better way to summarize that?
13 MR. OLBERHOLTZER. I think you hit it. What I was
14 going to say and thinking is, working with Scott and the
15 tribal representative and to put together some type of
16 information product that we can share with other agencies
17 and the other law enforcement divisions in how to deal with
18 the Native Americans who are possessing feathers.
19 MS. WALSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I do want to
20 make some closing comments, but we're not closing yet. So
21 I'm going to keep my remarks brief right now because I have
22 listened today and I have learned a lot. But we're coming
23 back tomorrow. And I'm not done with my learning. So
24 tomorrow, when we close, I'll share some thoughts with you
25 about what we heard from you, what it meant to us and what
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1 we can do about it.
2 Today, for tonight, I will just say thank you to
3 each and every one of you for what you've shared with us.
4 We are listening to you. We value the time that you've
5 spent with us. We want to come back tomorrow. We'll be
6 here from 9:00 until 11:00 to try to tackle the rest of the
7 subjects that we didn't get to today. It's my hope that
8 every one of you can come back and be a part of that.
9 And then even after tomorrow, that will not be the
10 last time that we talk with you or discuss these issues. It
11 will just be another beginning. So thank you very much.
12 MR. TYLER: Even those insects out there, the air
13 we breathe, they're all sacred. So you can understand it's
14 difficult. It's hard, you know, to explain to everybody,
15 you know. We try to educate everyone and that they have
16 enough interest that still comes about. You know, the
17 story, you know, we're better than you; we're supreme, that
18 still happens. That happens in Idaho a lot. We're a racial
19 state. It's really sad. There's Republicans and there are
20 Tea Party, and then we can't get nothing done. You know, we
21 try to get things up for them; it don't happen.
22 We need to change that around. And it starts with
23 the young children; starts in the elementary. They're way
24 smarter than we are now. Not going straight to college and
25 learn about Indians, from the experts. You've got to -- I
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1 think you've got to -- to a certain extent -- not
2 everything -- just to a certain extent that we can share so
3 much. And that will be a -- that that's where we go from,
4 move forward, step forward. And I think these can be
5 accomplished better -- and respect. I wish everyone was
6 like you guys. I think America will be a real beautiful
7 place. And we walk out this door and we're going to maybe
8 feel that.
9 There used to be no Indians allowed in our places.
10 You know -- and my uncle, we just buried him two weeks ago.
11 He joined in for all -- there was very few -- he went to
12 teach in Korea. He came back in Idaho to go have a meal
13 with her. And we don't serve Indians in here. So he was
14 pissed off. And when the Ames came to us, knocking on my
15 door, you want to come join us? I said, Yeah. I was only
16 14. But, you know, that was after Wounded Knee that he was
17 talking about. There was so much suicide going on. But
18 there's so much each tribe could share. And then we can't,
19 you know, just share so much. Nobody knows about our
20 people. Just very few. There was a Bear Massacre in 1863,
21 400 of our people were massacred. And there was a manic
22 massacre over here in Green River, Wyoming, 120 miles east
23 of Ogden where Salt Lake -- the Gila River, in 1825, 400
24 bandits were wiped out. There were different bands, not
25 just, you know, the Comanche relatives and East Shoshone.
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1 We were all part of these areas, both sides of the Rockies.
2 So we could share with the Arapahos and all the other
3 tribes, the Cheyennes. And we know that every tribe in our
4 reservation, they share our Indian health service.
5 I have a son-in-law. He's a Northern Arapaho, and
6 I have a little grandson and he's a Northern Arapaho. So
7 you know, we have to respect everybody. And, you know, it's
8 hard to get involved with all these fights going on. And
9 especially the North Dakota, they've got the great boom
10 going on. They're rich here -- got oil. There's tribes
11 like that, that, you know, have to have that. So it's
12 unfortunate. So I think there's so much we've got to learn
13 from here. The Navajo Nation, they're the largest.
14 But still, you know, there's so much. There's big
15 giant eagles in Siberia. It's like Yellowstone National
16 Park, 700 miles long. Those golden eagles are way bigger
17 than our eagles here. So the continent was at one time
18 together.
19 MS. WALSH: Thank you for that, Lee Juan. And I
20 want to make one more comment. I really appreciate what you
21 said and I like to look for what we do have in common. I
22 know that we don't share everything -- everybody together in
23 this room, but I like to look at what we do have in common
24 and build on that.
25 And so when you point to those pictures on the
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1 wall and talk about how they are sacred and talk about how
2 it's our duty to protect and share for those things, I can
3 tell you that those of us in the Fish and Wildlife Service,
4 that's why we're here in the Fish and Wildlife Service
5 because we share that perspective. So I'm confident we can
6 build on what we have in common and go forward. Thank you.
7 MS. BEGAY: All right. Before we break for the
8 day, the way that I was taught was that before you leave and
9 after you have shared a lot of words; you have a lot of good
10 minds that have come together; they talk about a lot of
11 different issues; they talk about a lot of different
12 things -- when there's a lot of words that had happened, you
13 always have to pray about it, pray that words get heard and,
14 you know, we do the best that we can as we walk out the
15 door. So I ask Lujan, he's the lieutenant WarChief, to help
16 us out with the closing prayer. So I'm going to turn it
17 over to Lujan.
18 (Prayers were said.)
19 WHEREUPON, the within proceedings were concluded
20 at the approximate hour of 5:10 p.m. on the 20th day of
21 March, 2014.
22 * * * * * *
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1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2
3 STATE OF COLORADO )
4 ) ss.
5 CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER )
6 I, DOREEN GIRDEEN, Registered Merit Reporter and
7 Notary Public, State of Colorado, do hereby certify that the
8 said HEARING was taken in machine shorthand by me at the time
9 and place aforesaid and was thereafter reduced to typewritten
10 form, consisting of 94 pages herein; that the foregoing is a
11 true transcript of the questions asked, statements given, and
12 proceedings had. I further certify that I am not employed
13 by, related to, nor of counsel for any of the parties herein,
14 nor otherwise interested in the outcome of this hearing.
15 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have affixed my signature and
16 seal this 27th day of March, 2014.
17 My commission expires March 16, 2015.
18______________________________________________
19 Doreen GirdeenRegistered Merit Reporter
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Transcript of the Testimony of
EAGLE SUMMIT, IIIMarch 21, 2014
vs.
Wendy McCaffrey C.L.R.
Wendy McCaffrey C.L.R.
Hansen and Company, Inc.Registered Professional Reporters
1600 Broadway, Ste. 470Denver, Colorado 80202
Phone (303) 691-0202 * Fax(303) 691-2444
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EAGLE SUMMIT III
DENVER, COLORADO
MARCH 21, 2014
GOVERNMENT-TO-GOVERNMENT CONSULTATIONS
This hearing was held at Rocky Mountain
Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, 6550 Gateway Road,
Commerce City, Colorado 80022, on March 21, 2014, at
9:10 a.m., before Wendy McCaffrey, Professional Court
Reporter and Notary Public within Colorado.
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1 A P P E A R A N C E S
2 Mr. Clint RileyMs. Noreen Walsh
3 Mr. Steve OberholtzerMr. Mark Roundstone
4 Mr. Darrel ShayMr. Ricardo Ortiz
5 Mr. Raymond LasleyMr. Lee Juan Tyler
6 Mr. Conrad FisherMr. Wes Martel
7 Ms. Jannell SuazoMr. Kelly Hogan
8 Mr. Jesse GutierrezMr. Albino Lujan
9 Mr. Winfield RussellAnd others in attendance who did not speak during the
10 conference
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Page insert by Ivy Allen 4/1/2014.**Page added to note the consultation participant’s Tribe.
Mark Roundstone, Northern Cheyenne TribeDarrell Shay, Shoshone-Bannock TribeRicardo Ortiz, Pueblo of San FelipeRaymond Lasley, Osage NationLee Juan Tyler, Shoshone-Bannock TribesConrad Fisher, Northern Cheyenne TribeWes Martel, Eastern ShoshoneJess C. Gutierrez, Santa Clara Pueblo Albino Lujan, Taos PuebloWinfield Russell, Northern Cheyenne Tribe
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. ROUNDSTONE: I'd like to say good
3 morning, everyone. Hope your day is good. My name is
4 Mark Roundstone. I represent the Northern Cheyenne
5 Tribe.
6 I work as the acting director for the
7 national program. More so, more important, I'm very
8 active in traditions. I sit on one of our societies
9 that we have created many hundreds of years ago.
10 Again, I want to greet each and every one of
11 you this morning. A gentleman sang a song yesterday to
12 start us off. We liked that. I'll do the same.
13 I'd like to think about all the natives that
14 are all the nations' brothers coming into town,
15 traveling today and throughout the weekend for the
16 Denver March Powwow. I've been to the Powwow most of
17 my life. Powwow is a form of healing.
18 Our elders and ones that are invalid sit
19 there and watch the dancers. In a few minutes, they're
20 out there dancing. In a few minutes, they feel really
21 happy and good. It's a form of healing.
22 The song I'm going to sing is a -- the
23 Cheyennes, we call it Journey Song. A couple of
24 hundred years ago, a hundred years ago, 50 years ago,
25 we sang it to our warriors when they were leaving.
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1 It's kind of a blessing song.
2 Today, we sing it for a different kind of
3 warrior, modern, some that are going into the military.
4 I call it a different kind of warrior, because today, a
5 new battle is being fought in places like here. We
6 have to arm ourselves differently, with a degree, with
7 knowledge, common sense.
8 All of us among here sitting here are
9 warriors, because we're here in protection of our
10 people. And our people are those that cannot speak for
11 themselves, but the eagles are our brothers. They're
12 people with wings. They're made up of the same
13 material that we're made of, mostly water.
14 (Singing.)
15 (Prayer.)
16 MR. RILEY: We have some name tags. And
17 those are the -- pass them back around so we know --
18 these aren't my names.
19 MS. WALSH: Good morning, everybody. Thank
20 you so much for coming down today. Thank you,
21 Mr. Roundstone, for the prayer this morning. It's a
22 very wonderful way for us to start the second part of
23 our meeting.
24 We're looking forward to talking with you
25 about the topics that we didn't get to present
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1 yesterday and hear your input of those. We have until
2 11:00 today. We will have to close the meeting at
3 11:00. So I want to make the best use of our time this
4 morning.
5 And I'm going to turn it over to Clint, who
6 you know from yesterday, to start off with the next
7 topic that we didn't get to discuss. And we'll move
8 right into those things. Thank you.
9 MR. OBERHOLTZER: If anybody wanted a
10 repository tour -- I know there were some people that
11 did, instead of participating in the formal government
12 consultation -- Tom Tidwell, the gentleman back there
13 in the green shirt, is going to be heading out on the
14 repository tours right now.
15 We'll also offer one for anyone who wants one
16 after we're done with the consultation.
17 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Is there a refuge tour
18 later also?
19 MR. OBERHOLTZER: There is one. There is a
20 refuge tour for whoever wants one of those after the
21 repository tour.
22 MR. RILEY: Good morning. One -- another
23 point that I was asked to announce, we had some
24 applications for repository pieces, and I guess we ran
25 out yesterday. So if you were wanting to pick one of
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1 those up and couldn't see them until they ran out,
2 we've got some more today.
3 As we get started today, we're -- we're going
4 to try to get to everything. So I'm just going to go
5 back and start at the -- what we had at the top of the
6 list in the order, and we'll try to get to everything.
7 The bullet that had been listed first dealt
8 with depredating eagles. Does everyone still have some
9 of the handouts we had yesterday that summarized each
10 of these issues?
11 Again, we'll have a slide up here that is an
12 overview, but there's a little bit more information
13 that was in writing, including in that information --
14 and if anyone doesn't have that, we've got some extra
15 copies right over here.
16 So, again, what I'll try to do is give a,
17 hopefully, briefer and more concise summary on most of
18 these issues. These are each -- they're not simple
19 issues. They're meaningful issues. But they can be
20 summarized more quickly, in terms of why it is we're
21 bringing them to you and asking for input.
22 In terms of management of depredating eagles,
23 they're --they're currently in regulation, coming from
24 the statute. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act
25 is the ability to issue permits to remove an eagle if
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1 it is depredating on livestock or wildlife.
2 There's some human health and safety, and
3 there's some more potentially complicated issues. But
4 for purposes of this, in the handout, it describes what
5 I verbally described yesterday as three criteria that
6 we have to say we agree with before we can issue that
7 permit, that removing the eagle would not impact the
8 wild population status, that there really is
9 depredation going on of a serious nature.
10 And there was a question about that yesterday
11 in the discussion about the challenge of knowing that.
12 And the third being that we don't believe there's
13 another way that we can address that depredation.
14 In practice, then, that third criteria means
15 that, when we look at these permits, we generally start
16 with a permit that would allow someone only to haze the
17 eagles to scare them off their livestock.
18 If that's not working and there still is a
19 problem, then we would change that permit to allow
20 them -- to allow the eagle to be trapped and moved away
21 from that location in hope they would not come back to
22 the livestock.
23 Those two both take -- require take permits,
24 because disturbing the eagle or trapping and moving it
25 is something that would impact the eagles, such that it
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1 meets the legal definition of "take." But it's only if
2 those two forms of permit don't work that we would
3 issue a permit that allows someone to remove an eagle
4 from the wild.
5 This is of a special interest to falconers,
6 because that's, essentially, the only way that
7 falconers can acquire golden eagles for use in
8 falconry. The law says that they can use golden eagles
9 in falconry, but compared to other types of raptors
10 that they can use for falconry, this is the only way
11 they can get a golden eagle.
12 And some of you may have been exposed to some
13 of the falconers, and they have great frustrations.
14 They feel like the law has told them this is something
15 they can do, but it's difficult to acquire the eagle.
16 In practice, we also issued very, very few of these
17 permits in the past.
18 With that background, some of the things
19 that, internally, we've been considering as potential
20 amendments to this regulation -- they don't have to be
21 the only things we talk about, but we want to make
22 sure, before we move forward on anything like this,
23 that we get some input.
24 One is that, in practice, we currently issue
25 the permits to USDA Fish and Wildlife Services. That's
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1 the government agency that generally deals with
2 depredating wildlife. And so we've issued a permit to
3 them.
4 We're considering changing those regulations
5 so that it would be more likely or more common that we
6 would issue a permit to a landowner or to the livestock
7 producer, or in some cases may issue a permit to a
8 state agency, who would be using the permit if it was
9 because the golden eagles were hurting some other
10 wildlife population.
11 The second potential topic is to change the
12 permit so that it clearly -- or change the regulation
13 so it clearly says you can never take the eagle
14 lethally. There would be no -- you could never kill
15 the eagle to address depredation.
16 And we haven't issued permits that would
17 allow that in recent past. But the regulations will
18 allow that if necessary. We could rewrite the
19 regulations to say that we would never do that. The
20 most we can do is we do remove it from the wild, where
21 it would still be alive or with the falconer.
22 Because the third thing we're considering is
23 establishing a priority order and say in the regulation
24 who we should check with first if an eagle were to be
25 removed from the wild because it was depredating, of
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1 the various potential people who could possess an
2 eagle, is there a priority order that we would check
3 with right there?
4 And, obviously, in doing that, the second
5 question would be, what would that priority be? And
6 within that consideration would be whether Native
7 Americans would want that eagle or an aviary would use
8 that eagle, compared to some other potential places
9 that that eagle could go to. So those are topics that
10 we have under consideration.
11 Once again, there's been no proposal. We
12 would have to make a proposal publicly for the entire
13 world to see before we could move forward on this. And
14 we'd receive public comments at that point.
15 So this discussion is before even developing
16 that proposal for the rest of the world to comment on.
17 And we'd be interested in what comments you have.
18 MR. SHAY: Good morning. My name is Darrell
19 Shay. I guess -- I guess my question is, Why the
20 change? Why the change to -- other than the U.S. --
21 USDA at (inaudible), and then including the -- I guess,
22 the falconers, who -- who exactly are falconers?
23 What status do they hold? And why are they
24 given special consideration, when it seems like, you
25 know, for almost all of yesterday, we were testifying,
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1 you know, that unique relationship that we have with
2 this bird, you know, and how sacred it is to us?
3 Have they testified and told you how sacred
4 it is to them? Because, in my opinion -- and I don't
5 know anything about falconry -- but I -- but it sounds
6 to me like it's a sport. And, basically, it's for
7 commercialization, because why else would you do it,
8 you know? You have guns to kill things, okay?
9 And if they're -- if they're too much of a
10 nuisance, you have other ways of getting rid of them,
11 getting rid of whatever it is that's predatory. So
12 why do you -- why -- I can't understand why falconers
13 have such a special status, and I'd like to have you
14 guys shed some light on why they're even being
15 considered.
16 MR. RILEY: Thank you. Thanks. That's an
17 appropriate question. If you're not familiar with
18 falconries, the specific answer to that is because
19 Congress told us they had a special provision in 1972
20 they added to the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act
21 that falconry -- that golden eagles can be used for
22 falconry and that the way that they can acquire them is
23 if an eagle would otherwise have been taken from the
24 wild for depredation purposes.
25 So that's in the law that Congress passed.
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1 What I can share, from my understanding of falconry, I
2 think we regulate it as a form of hunting, is the Fish
3 and Wildlife Service's relationship with it, using a
4 hawk and eagle, the falcon to take rabbits or to take
5 ducks.
6 It's -- it's another means of hunting. And
7 so our official legal connection to it is that way.
8 The -- those who practice falconry, I think they may
9 describe themselves as having testified to us about the
10 culture importance of that going back hundreds and
11 hundreds of years.
12 I don't think I'm misstating the way that
13 they approach it when they come to us and describe what
14 they do as something that has a universal history and
15 cultural importance going back hundreds of years. And
16 so they, at times, I think, would say they get
17 frustrated that we merely treat them as just, Hey, it's
18 a form of hunting.
19 But that is the way our regulations are set
20 up, both the purpose for acquiring falcons, or, in this
21 case, acquiring golden eagles, and how they're allowed
22 to see them is that they have to go through a pretty
23 involved certification process, demonstrating their
24 ability to keep and manage and maintain the birds that
25 are used for hunting purposes.
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1 And as long as they meet those
2 certifications, the law allows them to hold those
3 birds. Golden eagles have special restrictions that
4 are involved with the Eagle Protection Act, compared to
5 other birds that they acquire for that purpose.
6 I'm not a falconer. So I'm shedding the way
7 a nonfalconer has understood what they have told me.
8 MR. SHAY: Could you -- could you cite the
9 numbers? Because, in the handout, it talks about an
10 average of six golden eagles were taken annually prior
11 to 2009. How many -- six times what? How many years?
12 MR. RILEY: That went back less than
13 10 years. That number comes from the end of 2009, when
14 we were creating the regulations we were discussing
15 yesterday. We had to do a national environmental
16 assessment about what the impact on golden eagles might
17 be if we were to allow new forms of take.
18 And in doing that, we reviewed all the other
19 forms of take that had been existing for golden eagles.
20 So that went back in the range of 10 years. And of all
21 the things we looked at, one of them was falconry. And
22 that's where that number came from, was that
23 nationally, there were about six eagles removed from
24 the wild annually.
25 Going back farther than that, I don't know
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1 that it would have been dramatically different. The
2 last few years, there have been no eagles removed for
3 depredation permits; so, consequently, no eagles
4 provided to falconers, because we've been working on
5 how best to determine that a criteria for a depredation
6 permit is met. And that's in our discussion.
7 MR. ORTIZ: I have a question here on how
8 much of a restriction is applied to them, as well as it
9 applies to Native Americans. If we look at it, we are
10 entitled as much as they are.
11 Way back, if you're talking about a hundred
12 years ago, Native Americans were not really seen in
13 their eyes -- that was something that was -- were --
14 and still is -- of importance to us Native Americans.
15 And not only for the Native Americans, but
16 it's also -- and it's really sad to say that you -- we
17 have to explain ourselves for the reason and the uses
18 of that. And it is really sad that we should.
19 But if it's going take us to this point to do
20 that, it is one of most importance of all to Native
21 Americans, not only Native Americans, but through the
22 prayers that's been done as a whole nation, if you look
23 at it that way. It's for everybody that we use those
24 for.
25 So it's really sad that the Congress doesn't
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1 even visualize the issues of those sorts for Native
2 Americans. And it's now making it so hard for us to
3 obtain and not be able to carry on our culture. And
4 that's one of the saddest issues.
5 And then, again, going back, as we sit along
6 here as Native Americans, we should not being -- sit
7 here and explain ourselves to, really, open up any
8 culture stuff that we should. That respect should be
9 given to the Native Americans.
10 And I feel that, you know, the Congressional
11 delegation should visualize that. We respect them,
12 because they are the bodies that make the rules and
13 whatever for the whole nation. But then, in return,
14 that's all we ask for, as Native Americans, to respect
15 our culture, to respect us as human beings.
16 And there are needs that we have that, right
17 now, it is hard, that we have to jump through hurdles
18 and hoops just to obtain what is so special to us. And
19 that's one thing that, you know, how many of that
20 restrictions does the falconers have, as well as it
21 applies to us Native Americans, in obtaining this?
22 MR. RILEY: Thank you. Before we leave that,
23 we are trying to get everybody's comments. And I don't
24 know your name to tell the court reporter.
25 MR. ORTIZ: Okay. I'm sorry. Good morning,
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1 everybody. I just get so intense when you hear stuff
2 like this. So, I'm sorry. My name is Ricardo Ortiz,
3 and I represent the Pueblo of San Felipe and under --
4 my title is a (inaudible) specialist.
5 MS. WALSH: Clint, I have a question before
6 we move on. Does the law -- the actual statute
7 restrict the distribution of those depredation eagles
8 that are taken from the wild to the falconers, or is it
9 broader than that?
10 MR. RILEY: Perfect. And that was part of
11 what I wanted to clarify as well. Right now, Native
12 Americans are also recognized under the same law that,
13 we can authorize, if -- and there's -- that's its own
14 discussion, of course, is demonstration that it is
15 consistent with historical and cultural need, but we
16 can offer Native Americans to take eagles.
17 Falconers cannot take eagles for -- just
18 because they're falconers. The only way they can
19 acquire eagles is if we have decided there's an eagle
20 that needs to be removed from the wild because it's
21 depredating on livestock or wildlife.
22 And so falconers have a special recognition
23 by Congress, but it is a lower recognition than Native
24 Americans, because they -- they don't get an eagle just
25 because they're falconers. They can only get an eagle
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1 if that eagle is going to be removed from the wild
2 anyway.
3 Going to Noreen's point, the law doesn't
4 specify that, when an eagle is going to be removed
5 because it's been depredating on livestock or wildlife,
6 that it has to go to falconers. We have generally
7 behaved that way, because there is no other way for
8 falconers to otherwise request an eagle.
9 But the law doesn't require that that's where
10 the eagle would go. And so one of the -- one of the
11 potential proposals we might make is, when we have
12 determined that an eagle needs to be removed because
13 it's depredating on livestock or wildlife, to whom
14 should that eagle go? In practice, that eagle has gone
15 to falconers.
16 That's the only way falconers can ever get
17 it. We could clarify, through regulation, exactly how
18 we make the decision about who should receive that
19 bird. And that's one of the things we're considering.
20 MR. LASLEY: Good morning. Raymond Lasley,
21 Osage Nation. Regarding the -- the eagles that is
22 being removed from the wild because of depredation,
23 could we get provisions included in the regulation that
24 would -- once an eagle is removed from the wild, we
25 have a lot of Native American aviaries now.
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1 I would like to see that included in the
2 regulation, that, in lieu of a qualified or master
3 falconer, that the Native American aviary would be
4 included on that list and would take top priority
5 regarding a depredator or an eagle that is removed from
6 the wild because of depredation. Thank you.
7 MR. RILEY: Thank you. That's exactly the
8 kind of input we are curious about. I might ask one
9 follow-up, maybe specifically to you or for anyone
10 else.
11 Do you mean specifically to say that a Native
12 American aviary would receive it, potentially as a
13 higher priority than an individual Native American or
14 use of an eagle for religious purposes? So a live
15 eagle might go directly to an aviary, because an aviary
16 can use a live eagle? Is that what you are saying?
17 MR. LASLEY: Yes. That's -- that's exactly
18 what I was -- the direction we're going in, we're
19 seeing more and more Native American aviaries every
20 year.
21 And if we could get those eagles in those
22 aviaries, in some cases, like William, (inaudible) and
23 what they're doing with the Comanche, they're actually
24 breeding eagles there. So if you take an eagle out of
25 the wild, at least you could be using them for
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1 propagation purposes. Thank you.
2 MR. RILEY: Other comments on some of these
3 proposals?
4 MR. SHAY: Darrel Shay, again, from Sho-Ban.
5 The other question was kind of -- was tied into my
6 previous question on the falconers, was determining the
7 depredation, the -- it seems to me like, you know, the
8 cards are stacked against the eagle.
9 And no one -- what I know about eagles, you
10 know, they're generally -- they'll find something
11 that's dead, and then they'll -- you know, and then
12 they'll eat it, as far as livestock goes. And, you
13 know, and who's to say that -- we don't know what they
14 do.
15 Maybe they do kill them. Who determines
16 that? You know, and it just seems like -- it just
17 seems like that's unclear. You know? You've got --
18 somebody complained about the eagle, so it becomes a
19 depredation issue, and then it -- and then it falls
20 into that.
21 And I don't know. I -- I think they should
22 capture them and then figure out what to do with them
23 and release them back to the wild. They should never
24 go back to the -- to the falconers, just because, you
25 know, they can -- they're determined to be -- have been
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1 in depredation.
2 So -- and then, like the gentleman over here
3 said, if there's Native American aviaries, they should
4 go to them first before anything else, because, again,
5 I'm going to go back to the falconers.
6 Who are they, and how much money do they
7 have? What -- are they sport clubs? From what I
8 heard, they have -- they wield a lot of political
9 influence with congressmen. You just said that. You
10 know, Congress, you know, included them in the act.
11 You know, Congress has a hard time including
12 us in the act, you know, and I have to find that out.
13 And to be comfortable with this issue, is, how do they
14 get that political influence? Is it just sports clubs?
15 You know, do they have -- I'm pretty sure
16 it's probably only rich people. So if it is, then they
17 probably have lots of money.
18 MR. RILEY: Okay. Thank you. And I
19 appreciate -- some of the comments you made, I know you
20 shared yesterday morning. But I realize that was
21 before we were on the record and before we had a court
22 reporter, so I'd like to have those on the record.
23 I know you have concerns about who determines
24 this depredation. So thank you for sharing those.
25 What -- again, I'm not a falconer. Falconers do have
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1 their own associations. Steve mentioned -- and it's
2 worth clarifying, if we haven't.
3 They are licensed as individuals that have to
4 meet their own certifications and tests and the
5 capabilities of caring for eagles before they would be
6 qualified. And it's in the range of -- right now the
7 range of 30 or so certified master falconers across the
8 country.
9 As for what influence they have, I -- I
10 hesitate to speak for that. That's in the eye of the
11 beholder. And I doubt that any class or group believes
12 they have the influence they deserve. And that's --
13 they would probably say the same thing, and outsiders
14 may not agree.
15 MR. JUAN TYLER: Good morning. I'm Lee Juan
16 Tyler from the Sho-Ban tribes. I have some
17 information. I guess I don't know who's in charge.
18 You guys, huh?
19 We have information for people and et cetera.
20 Then, you guys could -- we have a Web site as well.
21 And my question is, I know I -- there's a lot of
22 different ways our -- and, you know, we talked about
23 yesterday and today as well.
24 And -- but just -- the eagle, who gets to own
25 one? I mean, like, if we found one, a wounded one, you
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1 know, an eagle that got wounded somehow, somebody left
2 it, or accidently.
3 You know, there's a lot of people out there
4 that don't care about the eagle. And when I was
5 working in Boise, Idaho, (inaudible) in this area where
6 our original homelands were, I had an
7 opportunity (inaudible.) There was a dam.
8 That was a beautiful place over there. And
9 the water level was so low, eagles came in and moved
10 and started tearing up the pool trout. And then,
11 (inaudible) oh, oh, man, we've got to kill those
12 eagles. They're killing all them -- you know, they're
13 taking out, you know, all the pool trout.
14 I heard them say that, when we were in a
15 meeting like this, coordination with others and other
16 agencies. And -- so we was watching out for them.
17 Burial grounds, burial sacred sites, and all that in
18 that area.
19 And so what we were -- we were removed from
20 there in 1870-71 in an unratified treaty during the
21 Civil War. And that was a -- but, anyway, that was a
22 lot of history there. But when I seen all those
23 eagles, man, they were on both sides of the river. The
24 river was also small, but it was real deep.
25 But it was, like, a creek, a little crick,
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1 and eagles are on both sides, and they're fishing. We
2 fish for salmon back in (inaudible, mumbling.) They
3 were, like, fast.
4 Oh, I wished we had a camera back then, 2004.
5 And then, every day, it seems, 30 to -- 20 to 30, both
6 sides. And, oh, it was awesome. So I had a great
7 blessing. I went down there for feathers, and what I
8 seen was, oh, a bald eagle came out, pulled out a
9 trout, like that.
10 And a golden eagle game out of the air, poof,
11 knocked it out of that bald eagle. Man, that was an
12 awesome sight. So the golden eagle's more powerful
13 than a bald eagle. That's how -- we have names for
14 them as well in our languages.
15 Bald eagle, he's more of a fisherman type.
16 But still, they mate for -- they mate for life, you
17 know, a bald eagle will. They're picky. Like the
18 women, they go choose somebody when they want to choose
19 them. That's how they are.
20 They're picky. (Inaudible, mumbling.)
21 They'll see if that bald eagle -- they'll drop it, and
22 that bald eagle will come down and catches it. And so
23 that's interested a little bit. See? It goes higher
24 and do it again.
25 And finally, he says, Hey, this is their --
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1 this is the man. This is the right choice. Soulmate.
2 So they -- that's how they are, eagles are. They're
3 awesome. Still, you know, I seen them, there are
4 stories about them being raised.
5 So that's how -- we talked about stuff like
6 that yesterday. But I think the tribes should be in
7 charge of a lot of the handling, and they should be
8 working in areas where you're at, and -- not take your
9 jobs right away, but we trained and worked those areas
10 as Native people throughout these areas.
11 And so to handle them -- and so we don't have
12 to be re-educating over and over again. And that seems
13 like that's happening too much. A real great person
14 like yourselves comes in, and they say, Oh, eagle
15 lovers, get them the hell out of there. (Inaudible.)
16 Because that's how it is. Whenever somebody
17 comes over that helps us, you know, non-Indians -- that
18 president Kennedy and his brother Robert came to our
19 reservation, they seen how impoverished we live, with
20 no running water and electricity and all this.
21 And I grew up like that. And I was five
22 years old. (Inaudible.) Next thing you know, we had
23 commodity homes. Oh, I see. Hey, let's build homes
24 for these people. So that's what happened.
25 And then, look, both of them, they got
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1 assassinated because they were helping a minority. So
2 that's what happens. And this is -- this is a crazy
3 country, violent. Americans are violent. And that's
4 how I see it.
5 But, you know, so I'm going off track. But I
6 think that the Native people should be trained to go
7 out and protect and do their own studies on handling
8 these things, and train our people starting out now,
9 the youth, so that we can educate them.
10 And we should be in key positions, where you
11 guys are sitting, somewhere along the future -- in the
12 near future. So we'd like to have those -- what do you
13 call them? Repositories? Like, our reservation.
14 (Inaudible, mumbling.)
15 So that might be fine for that as well. I
16 think it should be there -- this location -- location
17 is an area, right there is where the Oregon Trail went
18 through our country. They destroyed and tore up our
19 country -- and some other history.
20 But still, the eagle is a big issue. So I
21 think I forgot what I was going to say. Sorry about
22 that. But I was going to just say that, you know,
23 they're raised in the wild.
24 If I find one out there wounded or something,
25 and I take it home, I'm not going to tell nobody. If I
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1 don't, what's going to happen? Am I going to get in
2 trouble? I shouldn't be, right? I want to raise it.
3 It's my pet now, for my annual whatever. I'm going to
4 raise it. So what do you do then?
5 MS. WALSH: I'm going to let Clint answer
6 your second question. But I'm going to get a little
7 off track myself and just say, you've mentioned about
8 Native Americans being in positions within the Fish and
9 Wildlife Service or positions of handling eagles.
10 And so, we haven't talked about this, and we
11 probably don't have time today, but I want you to know
12 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is always
13 actively recruiting Native Americans into our
14 positions.
15 And if that's something that you would want
16 to talk about with us, or your high school kids, your
17 tribal colleges, how we can establish a stronger
18 relationship to work to bring those people into
19 positions within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I
20 want to talk to you.
21 So you all -- or most of you have my card
22 from yesterday. And we won't have time to talk much
23 about that today, but I want to put the invitation out
24 there. Please call me so we can talk more about how we
25 can do better.
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1 Now, I'm going to give you the hard question.
2 MR. OBERHOLTZER: And I know we had a few
3 people show up after we started. Just to kind of let
4 everyone know, we have until 11:00, when Noreen has to
5 leave, and we still have a few topics we'd definitely
6 like to get comments from everyone on.
7 So we'll try and keep moving on this. As far
8 as what would happen, what I can tell you is the law.
9 I mean, Native Americans, right now, absent a permit,
10 or anyone else, for that matter, may not legally
11 collect an eagle. That includes a dead carcass or a
12 live one.
13 If a circumstance like that arises, where you
14 have a wounded eagle, and you have someone who has the
15 skills to be a rehabber in the tribe, I'd encourage you
16 to get in touch with the permit office and go through
17 the rehabilitation process to lawfully acquire that
18 eagle. If -- and I can also tell you some of our
19 statistics.
20 We keep stats on what entities we get eagles
21 from by state and number. We get the vast majority of
22 our eagles sent to the repository by our law
23 enforcement agency. The numbers that come in from
24 tribes, nationally, they're probably in the double
25 digits, out of 2,500-plus eagles that come in.
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1 So I just wanted to let you know that tribes
2 are not one of the main sources for eagles we get at
3 the repository. It's really law enforcement officers
4 throughout the country.
5 MR. FISHER: Conrad Fisher, Northern Cheyenne
6 Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. I was invited by
7 my boss, vice-president Winfield S. Russell, this
8 morning.
9 We do have a template for having -- carrying
10 eagle feathers on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.
11 My question is more in a legal sense. And I understand
12 the federal law and the intent that goes with -- with
13 that. We all have to be under -- under rules and regs.
14 We have to answer to somebody. Part of it is
15 a moral issue; others are ethical issues. There's
16 legal issues involved in this whole endeavor.
17 However, my question is, since the
18 introduction of the wolves into the Yellow -- greater
19 Yellowstone area, now they have been controlled by
20 federal law. And then, at one point, they were
21 decontrolled. They were left up to the states.
22 So it seems like, in those cases where
23 federal law has -- has -- in terms of not controlling
24 the wolf population anymore, how can that -- is that a
25 legislative decision? Because, I think, when we're
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1 talking about eagle feathers, it seems like there's no
2 hope for tribes to even -- you just mentioned federal
3 law is federal law.
4 Is there a possibility of some type of a tool
5 that can make the federal law flexible, in terms of
6 Indian tribes participating in the possession of eagle
7 feathers? I know you mentioned falconry and special
8 interest groups.
9 In the case of the wolves, you know, in ag
10 states, the farmers and the ranchers really have a lot
11 of -- a lot of control of that. So there is politics
12 involved in these issues, particularly if the
13 legislatures in that state are farmers and agricultural
14 people.
15 So how -- my question, maybe, is more of a
16 comment. How can we access or how can we make those
17 federal laws less stringent so that tribes have an
18 opportunity to have access to these feathers in one way
19 or the other?
20 Does that sound like a question or more of a
21 comment?
22 MR. RILEY: Okay. I think there are some
23 important things there that you're raising, certainly.
24 One, you probably are familiar with it, but in case
25 others aren't, the difference between the wolf being
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1 removed from the endangered species list and bald and
2 golden eagles is the Endangered Species Act didn't name
3 the specific species that would be under federal
4 management.
5 It developed the criteria for whether a
6 species is endangered or threatened. When we
7 determined that wolves are not endangered or
8 threatened, then we would -- the law doesn't give us
9 authority over them anymore ,once we've reached that
10 determination.
11 That's different from the Bald and Golden
12 Eagle Protection Act that Congress passed, which said,
13 regardless of the status of bald and golden eagles,
14 whether they're doing very well biologically, whether
15 they may be threatened with extinction or not, those
16 two species were considered by Congress to be
17 sufficiently important to the American public that
18 federal law would protect those species until that
19 federal law is changed by Congress.
20 How federal law protects the species, though,
21 I think, goes to the deeper part of your comment, that,
22 within that -- those protections, there may be ways for
23 us to meet the purpose of that law in that --
24 recognizes the special interest Native Americans have
25 with those species and do that more effectively,
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1 potentially engage with tribes in new ways.
2 We've mentioned the eagle aviaries that now
3 exist with some tribes is potentially an example of the
4 kind of thing that takes time, takes work to meet the
5 federal certifications to do that but is something
6 that's been developed that allows tribes to have a
7 special authority and a special relationship with the
8 eagles in the aviaries that others do not, to pilot
9 non-eagle repositories that have been developed that
10 under (inaudible) treaty, a similar story could be
11 told.
12 And so until Congress were to change the law,
13 bald and golden eagles will be under federal
14 jurisdiction, because Congress believes they are that
15 important to the American public.
16 What it means and how we behave to meet the
17 requirement that they are protected by the federal law,
18 there may be flexibility in these sorts of
19 conversations that are a chance to explore those.
20 Is that responding to your question? Steve
21 may have more.
22 MR. OBERHOLTZER: We have three main, I
23 guess, areas where we feel that we give members of
24 federally-recognized tribes great access to the
25 feathers they need. The first one would be the
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1 National Eagle Repository, where we fill roughly 4,500
2 orders a year coming from Native Americans, free of
3 charge, of course.
4 The second would be, we and DOJ have formed a
5 policy allowing Native Americans to collect naturally
6 molting or fallen feathers, including the eagle
7 feathers that they find. And the third would be, we
8 have very -- in my opinion, very clear and flexible
9 policy that allows Native Americans to possess, use,
10 carry, and gift with other Native Americans lawfully
11 acquired feathers.
12 So where the line is drawn by the DOJ and the
13 Department of the Interior is collection of carcasses.
14 And there's two reasons -- or two main reasons for
15 that. The first is our law enforcement agents have to
16 be able to preserve that carcass as evidence to figure
17 out what's killing eagles, whether it's electrocution
18 or shooting or poison or whatever it is, so we can
19 address those threats.
20 So we need to be able to get our hands on
21 those carcasses to address the threats to eagles. And
22 the second would be more of a public safety or health
23 issue. We have a big problem, especially in the
24 western U.S., with eagles getting poisoned.
25 And some of the poisons that are used to
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1 intentionally try and kill wolves or coyotes or other
2 predators, they also kill eagles. And if you don't
3 know how to handle them, you can get into a lot of
4 trouble. And, in fact, some of the poisons that are
5 used are pretty fatal to humans too.
6 So there's health reasons. There's
7 investigative reasons. And, in my mind, that was
8 probably why the line was drawn at can't collect
9 carcasses. But up to carcasses, we have policy
10 allowing that flexibility so you can collect.
11 MR. FISHER: I appreciate your comment on
12 that. I probably would disagree with your -- with your
13 assessment. You know, as natives, I don't think we
14 wanted -- if they had -- if it had been an accidental
15 electrocution, it wasn't the eagle's fault.
16 You know, it was transmission lines that was
17 probably in the name of energy or oil development or
18 some other -- some other source, or if it was one of
19 those huge windmills, you know, that seems to be one of
20 the causes for deaths of birds. Nevertheless, I think
21 your comment is well taken.
22 However, I think, as Native Americans, when
23 we're talking about this -- such as this, the eagle
24 feathers, it seems like there's always some other
25 activity in the -- in the Dakotas, the Balkan oil
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1 fields.
2 They're just -- I mean, it's -- it's, you
3 know, energy development is omnipresent. And it's
4 spreading throughout the -- there's adverse effects to
5 cultural sites. And so it seems like our First
6 Amendment rights to be able to pray are being
7 outweighed by the right to drill for energy resources.
8 And there's something wrong with that
9 picture. That's getting beside the point. I don't
10 want to dwell. But one last question about the
11 legality of this.
12 In the treaties for the treaty tribes, if, in
13 fact, it says that you will be able to hunt and fish
14 and do all these things, should that not be part of
15 their ceremonial right, to be able to accept these
16 types of ceremonial birds? I mean, it is a treaty,
17 after all.
18 MR. OBERHOLTZER: Thank you. And I won't be
19 able to give you a specific comment on the treaty with
20 your particular tribe, but I can give you a general
21 comment, absolutely.
22 Treaty rights are -- that is the contract
23 between U.S. Government and your particular tribe.
24 With the case of eagles and the Bald and Golden Eagle
25 Protection Act, there are some case laws that more
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1 accurately guide us in whether or not the Bald and
2 Golden Eagle Protection Act applies on tribal lands or
3 doesn't.
4 One of the cases that comes to mind is
5 U.S. versus Dion that, I think, guides us that it does
6 apply on tribal lands. That is why we have the
7 structure for application for an Indian religious-take
8 permit and some of the other permitting processes we
9 have, is that Congress did tell us, and the U.S.
10 Supreme Court told us, that it does apply and that we
11 need to figure out ways to accommodate religious
12 freedoms on tribal lands too, but that eagles are
13 protected, regardless of where they're found.
14 MR. FISHER: Thank you.
15 MR. MARTEL: Wes Martel, Eastern Shoshone.
16 Back home, we've got some ceremonies that require the
17 use of feathers from a live eagle. How is that
18 handled?
19 MR. RILEY: How is it handled, in terms of
20 how you can acquire the feathers?
21 MR. MARTEL: Yeah.
22 MR. RILEY: Well, eagle aviaries is one
23 source now. The -- some of the discussions we had
24 about naturally molting feathers, as in the discussion
25 that Steve had yesterday about the ability, separate
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1 from carcasses of eagles, that if those are found,
2 those can be acquired and held and exchanged among --
3 MR. MARTEL: (Inaudible.)
4 MR. RILEY: Not the carcasses, no. The
5 feathers. If you're asking about the feathers, or if
6 you're asking about --
7 MR. MARTEL: I'm talking a live eagle, not
8 from a carcass.
9 MR. RILEY: Right. So that's -- okay.
10 MS. WALSH: So Clint was saying that one way
11 that you could obtain a feather from a live eagle is if
12 you find one that has -- (inaudible.)
13 THE REPORTER: I can't hear you.
14 MS. WALSH: Clint was saying that if -- that
15 one way that you could obtain a feather from a live
16 eagle is if you find one that has molted.
17 MR. MARTEL: You're completely missing my
18 point. It's got to be taken from a live eagle.
19 MS. WALSH: You have to physically take it?
20 MR. RILEY: Yeah. An aviary would be the
21 best source, currently. Oh.
22 (Conferring.)
23 MR. MARTEL: So there's a catch and release?
24 MR. OBERHOLTZER: Well, "take" is --
25 MR. RILEY: Take -- yeah. Catching an eagle
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1 would be taking, even if you're not killing it.
2 MR. OBERHOLTZER: And, theoretically, that
3 process, for even a religious-take permit, could
4 include not just the lethal take, but it could include
5 an eagle, taking a feather, or -- so -- and then
6 releasing that bird too.
7 So that might be one way to accommodate what
8 you're trying to accomplish. Once again, it is a
9 permitting process.
10 MR. MARTEL: I need a little plastic card,
11 though, right?
12 MR. OBERHOLTZER: You'd need a permit for
13 that one.
14 MR. RILEY: I'm sensing we're not asking or
15 providing more discussion on the regulations as they
16 relate to depredation right now. If that's the case, I
17 was going to at least move on to one of the other
18 potential regulatory changes that may be under
19 consideration. Is everyone comfortable with that?
20 (Pause in the proceedings.)
21 Well, rather than waiting for something
22 that's in front of you, my next sheet that everyone
23 should have will be titled "golden eagle
24 rehabilitation."
25 While she's looking for that slide,
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1 currently, under the regulations as they're written
2 right now, someone who has a -- is certified, has a
3 license to be a rehabilitator and would have a golden
4 eagle or a bald eagle that -- you know, it would be a
5 golden eagle, in this case -- that is rehabilitated and
6 could be released, current law would allow them -- does
7 not require them to -- but would allow them to transfer
8 that golden eagle to a falconer.
9 As far as we know, that has never occurred
10 since this provision was created, but the current
11 regulations would allow that. That was a change
12 relatively recently that wasn't intended to be specific
13 to golden eagles.
14 It was intended to address all raptors and
15 all raptor rehabilitators with the intention of being
16 that, if a falconer might otherwise be taking any other
17 raptor or -- raptor -- hawk, falcon for falconry
18 purposes, if they could acquire that bird from a
19 rehabilitator instead of taking it from the wild,
20 that's one less bird taken from the wild.
21 So, less than 10 years ago, those regulations
22 were changed to allow rehabilitators to transfer a
23 releasable bird that's healthy enough to go back to the
24 wild, instead of releasing it to the wild, they could
25 transfer it to a falconer.
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1 When we wrote that, we weren't specific about
2 any species, so it includes golden eagles. One thing
3 under consideration, potentially, would be for us to go
4 back in that regulation and specify that rehabilitators
5 could transfer other species of raptors to falconers,
6 but they could not transfer a golden eagle to
7 falconers.
8 They would have to release the golden eagle
9 to the wild if it were healthy enough to be released.
10 That's the simple proposal being kicked around
11 internally as it would relate to eagles.
12 Some of the thought process behind that would
13 be that, compared to other -- other species of raptors
14 that falconry uses, since falconers can't simply take a
15 golden eagle from the wild anyway, as we were
16 discussing, they can only take one if it was otherwise
17 going to be taken for depredation reasons, that we're
18 not accomplishing the intended purpose with golden
19 eagles by, instead of them taking a golden eagle from
20 the wild, they're taking one from a rehabilitator.
21 As I said, I don't think that's ever been
22 done anyway. What I have been told is that most
23 falconers are not excited about getting a bird from
24 the -- a rehabilitator. They would rather have one
25 that's -- that they found that is still demonstrating
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1 their capability of hunting.
2 That's just what I've been told. That's the
3 summary of the relatively simple issue here, and we
4 would be curious if we were to propose that change.
5 MR. SHAY: Darrel Shay from the Sho-Ban.
6 Again, I would like to know, who is a licensed raptor
7 rehabilitator? And who are they licensed by, either a
8 state, federal, or who? God, or who?
9 The reason for my question is, they seem to
10 wield a lot of influence in this issue.
11 MR. RILEY: I might ask -- Jannell Suazo
12 is -- and we haven't introduced her yesterday or today.
13 I apologize. She spoke once yesterday. She is chief
14 of our permitting office in our Denver Regional Office.
15 And it's her office that would generally be
16 in charge of licenses and certifications for many of
17 the things we're talking about, in terms of receiving
18 the applications and reviewing them.
19 Did you hear that question, Jannell? The
20 question was, for rehabilitators, the process for
21 someone to be a licensed rehabilitator, what -- who
22 does that licensing and what those requirements are.
23 MS. SUAZO: That is the respective regional
24 office of this region. It would come to my office.
25 And there is an application form for that as well. And
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1 the process is -- the big part of that process is
2 facilities, making sure that there's adequate
3 facilities for the type of species that individuals
4 want to rehab.
5 As an example, waterbirds needing the right
6 facilities, as far as water; raptors needing the right
7 size of cages too. So the short answer is, apply to
8 your permit office in your region, and, you know, give
9 them a call, and they can help walk people through that
10 process.
11 But it is an application process as well.
12 Does that answer the question that you had?
13 MR. SHAY: I was just trying to find out who
14 licenses people.
15 MS. SUAZO: It is Fish and Wildlife Services.
16 It is the permit offices, and a lot of the states do
17 require state falconry permit as well, which would be
18 applied through state game and fish.
19 MR. SHAY: So, like, the university?
20 (Inaudible.)
21 MS. SUAZO: The comment was, Is it a
22 university office? Are you talking about Fish and
23 Wildlife Service?
24 MR. SHAY: No, a rehabilitator. (Inaudible.)
25 MS. SUAZO: They -- they do have to have
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1 background knowledge and experience in handling birds,
2 caring for birds. They have to have a licensed vet.
3 And a lot of them have volunteers. They have staff
4 that help with the facilities, with the birds' triage.
5 That better answer your question?
6 MR. SHAY: Pretty much.
7 MS. SUAZO: Okay.
8 MR. JUAN TYLER: We'd like to have Indians
9 and hire some tribes to work as falconers as well.
10 MR. RILEY: And to be clear, rehabilitators
11 aren't falconers. Rehabilitators may work with
12 falconers at times, but it's a separate process. But
13 rehabilitators do require a permit license from the
14 federal government through the Fish and Wildlife
15 Service.
16 At times, states may have additional
17 requirements. Generally, rehabilitators are people
18 doing it in their volunteer time, because they want to
19 have birds that, when they're struck by the road, they
20 think they can get them healthy and get them released
21 again. But they can't do that unless they get
22 permission from us, because you can't hold a migratory
23 bird unless you have permission.
24 And so it's a process for getting that
25 permission as a rehabilitator. Is that -- I'm not sure
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1 we're fully understanding your question.
2 MR. SHAY: I was just trying to find out who
3 they were.
4 MR. RILEY: Okay. Are there other comments?
5 MS. SUAZO: The other thing I was going to
6 add is, it can be any individual that is qualified,
7 with training, that has the appropriate facilities. A
8 lot of nonprofit entities. So reservations and
9 individuals on reservations, Native Americans, can
10 qualify as easy as anybody else, as far as answering
11 the who.
12 It's anybody who has the experience, who has
13 the facilities, the knowledge, the background, and has
14 the interest and the desire to do this. If there's any
15 interest at all, contact our office.
16 MR. GUTIERREZ: I'm Jesse Gutierrez. I
17 guess, just a comment, you know, just for the record,
18 you know. I guess, to me, this is more like a
19 listening session, just for the record, because
20 government's a government. And consultation, kind of,
21 should be with our governor and our tribal counsel and
22 presenting and talking with them.
23 But, you know, just a question I have is on
24 the -- where it says "distribution" -- "unsuitable for
25 distribution," and you'll give the parts for
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1 researchers and for science.
2 You know, who's going to be the person to
3 consider the part of the eagle unsuitable? Because,
4 you know, we use a lot -- almost everything from the
5 eagle. And then you're saying "unsuitable for
6 distribution" to Native Americans, you know, how do you
7 know it's unsuitable?
8 That's just a question I have.
9 MR. RILEY: Thank you. And, boy, that's the
10 danger of me deciding I could go ahead and summarize
11 this issue before we had the slide up there.
12 I forgot there was a total second half of one
13 of the things that we talked about within the Fish and
14 Wildlife Service, separate from whether a releasable
15 eagle could be transferred to a falconer, and that is
16 whether or not the eagle parts could be given to
17 research.
18 That hasn't been determined. I think what we
19 would take from your comment is to say we would need to
20 know through that -- think through that issue before we
21 would move forward on that proposal to know exactly how
22 we would make that determination. It hasn't been
23 specified to this point.
24 MR. JUAN TYLER: That's if they're
25 contaminated by diseases or poisoned by somebody.
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1 (Inaudible) -- to be distributed to Native American
2 tribes, then, so you guys do a thorough investigation,
3 a forensic study, and analyze that?
4 And then, after you find that, say, Hey, we
5 know who did it. Do they get a slap on the wrist, or
6 are they going to be held accountable and fined and all
7 that? Like the sheep ranchers that have those little
8 baby lambs, and they blame it on eagles, when actually
9 they died of stillbirth or something.
10 After birth, they're out there, and the
11 little lamb was dead because something happened to that
12 lamb, or maybe that lamb is in an unknown situation,
13 and then the eagle comes along and starts feeding, and
14 then he gets the blame, or she gets the blame, then --
15 and then, an innocent person, eagle, is then taken.
16 And by these people that don't have -- you
17 know, just jump to conclusions real quick, judge you
18 right off the bat. It happens on Law and Order. Do
19 you watch that all the time? Yeah.
20 But who's going to research these things and
21 make sure that they are unsuitable? How are you going
22 to determine that? An innocent person might be able to
23 (inaudible) gifts, find a way of the Indian way of
24 practice to take away that disease, that poison.
25 There's a lot. You can't just judge them.
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1 These falconers seem like they have more power. You
2 know, under our treaty tribes, I think we need to
3 establish our own as Native people here in this room to
4 establish a board across the nation, all the Indian
5 tribes, and then get something similar, and call it
6 something else, beside these things, falconry and all
7 that.
8 Call it something, and then we'll have
9 control. That has to happen within -- ASAP, within
10 five years, less. We need some kind of plan.
11 So we had a resolution from our tribes that,
12 whenever there's an eagle -- there was seven eagles
13 found dead on our reservation a year ago, because they
14 were poisoned by -- what was that called, Darrel? Some
15 kind of man. He called yesterday -- he named it
16 yesterday.
17 What happened to those eagles? Where did
18 they go? He says, Don't touch them. It's going to
19 contaminate -- it's going to spread to your skin, and
20 you're going to catch a disease. It could affect you
21 humans and kill you. It's like West Nile Virus.
22 But -- so what happened to those seven eagles
23 that were found up there on our reservation? And there
24 were other -- other eagles found that were taken. They
25 should be returned back. We've got -- we've got a
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1 resolution that says whenever an eagle is found on our
2 land, Indian land, reservation, those eagles go and
3 come back to us.
4 If they're suitable to, they come back to us.
5 Where did they go? Eagle parts go elsewhere. Next
6 thing you know, they got one from a different part of
7 the country, different parts of the Indian lands, or in
8 the United States, goes to repositories, and somebody
9 finally gets one of them.
10 (Inaudible) -- you've got one from this
11 state, this area, this area, here's your feathers, and
12 you know, all that time. Is that really real? You
13 know, they're probably at the Denver March Powwow
14 dancing. They're probably putting them on little kids.
15 You know, they've got fake feathers nowadays
16 too. Sorry to change the subject.
17 MR. FISHER: Again, this is -- has to do with
18 the policy and procedures and the legality. I'm just
19 reading some of the material that was handed out.
20 So falconers seem to have a very powerful
21 influence in this whole -- or this whole possession of
22 eagles, whether for recreation or others, just looking
23 at the management of depredation -- depredating eagles
24 and then the golden eagle rehab.
25 My question is, has the Fish, Wildlife, and
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1 Parks consulted with the tribes on the current or
2 existing policies, 50-CFR-22.23, on the direct or
3 indirect effects of the depredation of eagles on
4 livestock or other animals? Because we're really
5 focused, again, on agriculture here.
6 It seems like, if you have a federal law that
7 protects eagles, and all of a sudden they're preying on
8 sheep, cows, whatever ag folks raise, then the eagle
9 becomes a liability. Then they're expendable,
10 according to whoever made these policies.
11 What about the rights of Native Americans?
12 Shouldn't there have been consultation with Native
13 Americans because of their affiliation with this very
14 special animal, rather than all of a sudden Fish,
15 Wildlife, and Parks considering these proposed -- these
16 proposals for depredation permits?
17 There's something, again, wrong with that
18 picture. And I'm looking at this hindsight, 20/20.
19 However, I guess, being new -- and I have to apologize,
20 because these may be some questions that have been
21 asked already.
22 But as far as policymaking is concerned, can
23 you give me a clear picture of why that is the case?
24 Why do agriculturalists and falconers have such an
25 influence on the policies of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks,
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1 rather than tribes? And have they been consulted on
2 these issues previously? And shouldn't that be the
3 appropriate way to address this?
4 MR. RILEY: So Congress, when they -- when
5 Congress passed the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection
6 Act, and they said, You can't harm eagles, they put in
7 some exceptions.
8 They said Native Americans have reason to
9 take eagles and can receive a permit. They said that
10 if eagles are depredating on livestock, they can be
11 removed, or for safety emergencies, you can -- you can
12 take an eagle. They said if an eagle is being removed
13 because of depredation, falconers can have it.
14 So those broad statements were made by
15 Congress in the law. The regulations are attempts to
16 figure out how to make those laws work. I -- this
17 sounds like an unfair out, but I don't know what
18 consultation occurred or didn't occur when the
19 regulations were established as they exist right now.
20 I don't know how well we've done with
21 consultation in the past. What we're wanting to do
22 right now is, because there may be an opportunity for
23 us to change those regulations, we're wanting to make
24 sure we're as transparent as possible about some of the
25 kinds of things we may be considering in trying to
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1 change them.
2 But this is an opportunity for any part of
3 those regulations, as they're written now, as our
4 attempt to implement the Congressional law. The --
5 we're open to whatever other comments or suggestions
6 you would have about that.
7 The side boards that Fish and Wildlife
8 Service operates within Congress did say, among the
9 legal exceptions to the prohibition on take of eagles
10 includes, for example, if they're impacting livestock
11 or wildlife and can be removed for depredation
12 purposes.
13 MR. FISHER: So are those regs statutory? Is
14 that regulation statutory?
15 MR. RILEY: No. The regulations are not
16 statutory. The regulations are created through public
17 comment and an adoption process as a means of
18 explaining and implementing the statutes.
19 MR. FISHER: So there's no teeth? There's no
20 teeth to it?
21 MR. RILEY: No, they are the teeth people.
22 People -- they have either criminal or civil
23 implications, depending on the regulations. They have
24 the teeth of federal law. They have the teeth of
25 federal law by Congress. But they're not by Congress.
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1 They're (inaudible.)
2 MR. FISHER: And therein lies the problem.
3 Thank you.
4 MS. WALSH: Clint, I wanted to ask you a
5 question, again. I always like to understand what's in
6 the statute, what's in the regulations that implement
7 the statute. And then, what is agency policy? Because
8 that tells me how difficult or how easy it is to make a
9 change.
10 It's a lot harder to change a federal statute
11 than it is to change a policy. So I think I heard you
12 say earlier that the statute, Bald and Golden Eagle
13 Protection Act, allows for eagles that are depredating
14 to be taken from the wild and given to falconers but
15 not only to falconers.
16 The law does not specify that they can only
17 go to falconers. Is that accurate?
18 MR. RILEY: Yes. It's because it's stated in
19 two different places. The law says eagles can be taken
20 for depredation purposes. It doesn't say where the
21 eagles go.
22 It says eagles can be held by falconers, but
23 the only place they can get them is if it was a
24 depredating eagle. So the -- it doesn't say that they
25 couldn't have gone anyplace else.
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1 MS. WALSH: And do the implementing
2 regulations restrict that distribution to falconers?
3 MR. RILEY: They don't. The current
4 regulations are pretty silent on that.
5 MS. WALSH: So what I'm hearing around the
6 table is a great interest in eagles that are taken from
7 the wild not only going to falconers.
8 And what I'm hearing from my technical expert
9 is that that doesn't require a change in the statute or
10 the regulations, but it might require change in our
11 internal policies and practices. So that's a message I
12 will take back, that we want to explore that.
13 Another important point, I think, to share
14 with you is that falconers are pretty active and pretty
15 sophisticated in working with Congress. And so we will
16 need your help in making your voice known about changes
17 that you would like us to make as we move forward
18 exploring that with you.
19 MR. FISHER: It's got to be statutory.
20 MR. MARTEL: I must be missing something
21 here. Why do -- what's the importance of falconers
22 having eagles?
23 MR. RILEY: Congress said that they could
24 have eagles.
25 MR. MARTEL: Why?
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1 MR. RILEY: You know, if you could explain
2 everything Congress did, we wouldn't have had a
3 furlough last fall.
4 MR. MARTEL: Why do falconers want eagles?
5 I'm not worried about Congress. Why would falconers
6 want eagles?
7 MR. RILEY: I'm going to cheat. Is this
8 okay, Kelly? We have someone in the room who is a
9 falconer.
10 And rather than me -- this is -- please, just
11 as no one of you would say you're speaking for every
12 other tribe, and I can't speak for every other Fish and
13 Wildlife employee in my personal beliefs, Kelly can't
14 speak for all falconers.
15 But clearly, there's enough curiosity about
16 falconry and why people are interested in falconry and
17 why golden eagles would be attractive. I'm going to
18 ask an actual falconer to speak to that.
19 MR. HOGAN: All right. Well, let me clarify.
20 I'm actually a licensed eagle falconer as well.
21 MR. JUAN TYLER: What's his name again?
22 MR. HOGAN: Kelly Hogan. Sorry. One thing
23 Clint said earlier which needs -- I'm sorry -- which
24 needs to be clarified, he was talking about hundreds of
25 years.
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1 Falconry is about 3,000 years old. One thing
2 you have to remember about golden eagles is they're
3 probably the most widespread eagle species out there.
4 Excuse me a second.
5 MR. JUAN TYLER: Well, there's some in
6 Siberia, huge ones.
7 MR. HOGAN: Exactly. Eagles have been hunted
8 in Mongolia for a thousand years before Christ. And
9 the connection falconers have with eagles comes from
10 that long association with eagles.
11 It's not a sport; it's a way of life. I
12 won't call it a religion. I'll call it a connection,
13 and that's the important part for falconers.
14 MR. MARTEL: I still don't get it. If you're
15 falconers, why do you need eagles? I don't get it.
16 MR. HOGAN: Well, we use a lot of birds in
17 falconry, and very few eagles are actually flown in
18 falconry. They've been trapped in two states, South
19 Dakota and Wyoming.
20 MR. MARTEL: What do you do with them?
21 MR. HOGAN: Hunt.
22 MR. MARTEL: You hunt them?
23 MR. HOGAN: We don't kill the eagles. No.
24 It's only a hunting sport. And, typically, what
25 happens in classical falconry is, you'll catch the bird
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1 in the fall and release it in the spring, because birds
2 are very expensive to feed, and that's one thing that
3 aviary owners should understand.
4 Not all eagles that you capture you can just
5 throw in a cage and breed. It's going to take you five
6 to six years to get them old enough to breed, and
7 they've got to be fed that whole time. Typically,
8 falconers will release them, under classic falconry.
9 MR. MARTEL: So you take these eagles so your
10 falcons hunt them?
11 MR. HOGAN: The eagles hunt, like, rabbits.
12 In Europe, they're hunting, like, Sitka deer. They
13 even use them to hunt wolves. It's a pretty incredible
14 sport. It's a connection. You know, like a lot of
15 people have connections with eagles, falconers have
16 that same connection.
17 MR. MARTEL: I was just wondering, what in
18 the hell?
19 MR. RILEY: I just realized, maybe there was
20 a fundamental disconnect. And when we said falconers
21 can take eagles, they're not taking eagles to kill
22 them.
23 What they're doing is taking an eagle and
24 removing an eagle from the wild. It's called taken
25 from the wild. But what they're doing with the eagle
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1 is managing it, feeding it, caring for it so that they
2 can take the eagle out, and the eagle will hunt for
3 rabbits or hunt for other species as a means for the
4 falconer to hunt for rabbits.
5 They -- the eagle, as a great hunter that it
6 is, can hunt for things that other raptor species can't
7 hunt for as effectively.
8 MR. OBERHOLTZER: I'll let you talk here in
9 just a second, Kelly. And I think the gentleman here
10 had a great point about this becoming a mixture of
11 discussion and consultation, and we really want to
12 solicit comments from tribes.
13 So if anyone is giving a comment on behalf of
14 their tribe, please, we'd like to get your input into
15 whatever the topic is we're talking about. Make sure
16 it's clear for us and the court reporter that you are
17 giving that comment on behalf of the tribe.
18 MR. ORTIZ: I have one issue here on the
19 comment part. I guess it's more or less, you know,
20 representing one tribe, we need to really be clarified
21 and understand all the issues that's being talked
22 about.
23 This is going to carry back on to that
24 administration, as well as the council, for them to
25 then make that, you know, decision on what needs to be
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1 brought to you, again, as -- well, as the Congressional
2 delegations.
3 The other question I have is, has there been
4 any studies done on the population of both golden
5 eagles and bald eagles within the United States?
6 MR. RILEY: Sorry. I was waiting for the
7 microphone to be turned off so we wouldn't have the
8 feedback. Yes. Thank you. We want to have this
9 conversation to be as effective as possible.
10 And I apologize that it took until this point
11 in the conversation to realize some of you may not be
12 familiar with falconry and thought it meant that you
13 were hunting that eagle itself or killing the eagle.
14 It's the opposite.
15 As far as studies of population of eagles,
16 there are surveys done of various shapes, forms. We're
17 trying to accelerate part of that. One of the
18 discussions yesterday that we talked about is lack of
19 data as we make our decisions to make sure we are
20 familiar with how many eagles there are, where they
21 are, local differences, certainly.
22 As was noted, we are going to run out of
23 time. We have other things that we would love to know
24 your feedback on. And the feedback on this one has
25 certainly been instructive.
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1 Are there other comments specific on the
2 regulations as they relate to rehabilitators and what
3 rehabilitators can do with the eagles and the -- okay.
4 MR. LUJAN: Good morning. My name is Albino
5 Lujan, from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. And I think
6 Noreen is going back -- take this back to Congress.
7 Yesterday and today, I hear about Congress
8 making laws to protect the eagles and all that and how
9 to obtain feathers to us natives. And yet they give
10 out permits to poison the eagles and tell them how to
11 catch the eagles for protecting their livestock.
12 So it seems I can't quite understand the
13 picture here. The Congress passed laws to protect the
14 eagles, and yet they give out permits for poison. And
15 that's killing the eagles. I don't understand that.
16 So take that back with you. Thank you.
17 MR. RILEY: Okay. Thank you. As a
18 comment -- as a comment from your tribe, the
19 previous -- one of the previous proposals we had would
20 be that permits would not be allowed for poisoning
21 eagles or for otherwise lethally taking eagles.
22 And so that's one of the things you would
23 support, is changing it so that -- we haven't issued
24 any in recent past to allow anyone to poison an eagle
25 if it was depredating. But you're supporting that
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1 change, sounds like.
2 MR. LASLEY: Thank you. Raymond Lasley,
3 Osage Nation. You know, it hasn't been that long that
4 tribes have been at the table for consultation.
5 It used to be -- and some of you remember --
6 that any consultation that we used to have, it would be
7 a phone call. And that would be satisfying the federal
8 requirement for that consultation with tribes.
9 It hasn't been that long ago, just the past
10 few years. Now, the tribes are really starting to
11 assert their right to that meaningful consultation.
12 When I say meaningful, that is on a government-to-
13 government relation that we have, either through treaty
14 or by the -- our inherent sovereignty.
15 So, I mean, we -- we have been a long time
16 away from the table. Now we are at the table. Now is
17 our time to make our voices heard regarding these
18 critical issues on the -- not only eagles, but it goes
19 across the board with everything.
20 It's just fortunate that we have some good
21 listeners with Fish and Wildlife that are here today.
22 We're still woefully underfunded with the grants that
23 we have, the Fish and Wildlife grants. I mean,
24 they're -- we are the original stewards of this
25 country, of the wildlife, of all wildlife here.
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1 It was the Native people that were the
2 original stewards. And we have not been given that --
3 that note, or we have not been recognized as the
4 stewards, the original stewards. Now we're there. Now
5 we're saying, We want to be a part of this.
6 We want to be a part of any change in
7 regulation regarding eagles or any other wildlife. We
8 want more aviaries. We want more grants available for
9 the development of our natural resources departments.
10 We need these things in order to make it happen.
11 And that's kind of my complaint, is that, you
12 know, the -- there's always a very limited amount of
13 federal dollars that are out there for tribes, and we
14 have to compete against one another. These are all
15 competitive grants that we have to do.
16 And we have submitted our grants for an
17 aviary, and we have been -- we haven't been awarded
18 any, and other tribes have. And I'm not going get into
19 any of that.
20 But what I'm saying is that Fish and
21 Wildlife, listen to what we're saying, provide some
22 more funding for tribes to become rehabilitators, for
23 tribes to develop our aviaries, to provide the tribes
24 an opportunity to have repositories.
25 Now, they're doing that in Oklahoma now. We
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1 have the aviaries that are there. They're providing
2 eagle feathers for their tribal members and non-tribal
3 members, as long as they're Native American, mind you.
4 And I myself have been given an eagle feather from one
5 of the tribal aviaries in Oklahoma, and it was out of
6 respect.
7 I was the -- an elder there, and so I don't
8 need to go into that. But things are changing, and
9 we're seeing change, and it's because we have decided
10 to take the -- be proactive with our approach with this
11 and to say, It's time.
12 Fish and Wildlife, Department of Interior,
13 start paying attention to the Native Americans and our
14 struggle to keep what we have and to be stewards of
15 fish and wildlife. Thank you.
16 MR. JUAN TYLER: (Inaudible.) So please pay
17 attention. No, I'm joking. But, anyway, you know,
18 this is pretty serious, this falconry stuff. They came
19 to our tribe a week ago -- or how many days ago,
20 Darrel? Monday.
21 It was, like, a surprise attack. What the
22 hell? You know, no consultation. So they should be
23 null and void, because there was no consultation going
24 on, as you can see in this room. That's the -- what
25 happens a lot of times.
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1 As a treaty tribe, our treaties are way
2 before the states existed. And all of a sudden, we
3 find out about a rule. We had to learn about it. They
4 were attacking our treaty lands and our unoccupied
5 lands, these federal lands where we hunt, fish, and
6 gather, et cetera.
7 That's our right for all this land and
8 everything, so you could have that for a permanent
9 home. And you have to be re-educated, everybody. And
10 then, there was the Federal Lands Facilitation of
11 Transaction Act -- Transfer Act. And that was a real
12 bad one. We didn't even know about it.
13 We heard that everybody was -- you know, BLM,
14 Forest Service was selling our lands. And then, all of
15 a sudden, even the state was getting 10 percent. We
16 had to find out about it. And what the heck? They're
17 selling our treaty lands without consulting us.
18 And so this is another surprise. And then
19 the hydro-fracking. That wasn't even -- nobody was
20 consulted. Next thing you know, it's destroyed the
21 ground water. They're allowed to be exempt from
22 polluting the Clean Water Act.
23 All these things are -- but Congress said,
24 Oh, they're okay, even though there's these laws. It's
25 like the gentleman said over here, you protect them,
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1 and now you're giving permits to kill them. Same
2 thing.
3 You got all these laws and acts -- Clean
4 Water Acts that was implemented to protect -- so our
5 falconers, you know, can -- they got bottled water,
6 because -- no offense to that back there. But that's
7 where we're at now. That elder said that yesterday.
8 So this is life. Our future is at stake.
9 How are we going to do this? You know, we're here, and
10 the last of, maybe, our generation. And as our
11 language is still. I grew up with no English. English
12 is my second language as well.
13 So now, my little daughter, she's learning --
14 you know, she's learning words, but she's going to be
15 growing up and saying, What the heck? What did these
16 guys do, you know?
17 1969, Neil Armstrong went to the moon and had
18 a picture. Sent it. Look how beautiful this jewel is
19 from the moon, this beautiful jewel, Earth. And then,
20 20 years later -- or 30 years later, 1996, that
21 picture, and the next picture, then, and then the
22 future, 1996.
23 Wow. You can even -- when comparing to each
24 other, Mother Earth was all polluted. And it was, Oh,
25 man, if we don't do something -- if man doesn't do
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1 something now, we're going to destroy our own nesting
2 place. That was his words.
3 That's how that is, an eagle, as our nest.
4 That's how we are too. We learned from these animals
5 way before 300 or 3,000 years. 300,000 years, from
6 time memorial and way back, before.
7 We found out from one of our ancestors,
8 there's a big aquifer in Idaho -- (inaudible) -- Lake
9 Superior, a thousand springs that comes out. They
10 found a -- (inaudible) -- there in Idaho, 12,750 years
11 old. Artifacts still determine that she lived that
12 natural life of harmony, because we don't want the
13 earth destroyed.
14 So that is a pretty sad situation. So I
15 would like to just take a little -- time is short. I
16 wrote something here. What did I write?
17 And I was talking to my friend here. Maybe
18 us tribes need to get together and build our own aviary
19 and pitch in, you know, because, no offense, you know,
20 our trustee -- fiduciary trustee won't help us and
21 won't consult with us like they're supposed to under
22 that treaty.
23 They signed a peace treaty and smoked a pipe.
24 To tell the truth, man, it's not happening. So that's
25 why all this -- everything's going off balance, because
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1 they want -- (inaudible) -- the wisdom. And that needs
2 to change, or we're not going to make it further.
3 You know, we have veterans in here that
4 fought for this country. It's very disrespectful for
5 not being told about this falconry stuff. It's null
6 and void. It shouldn't be on the table. Congress
7 needs to be impeached.
8 MR. FISHER: Conrad Fisher, Northern Cheyenne
9 Tribe. I appreciate all the folks being here today. I
10 think listening sessions are always great and glad we
11 have your ear.
12 I wanted to just go back to your comment
13 before I forget. The regulations versus the statutory
14 language, I think, is very important. I think when
15 that gentleman from -- I think it's Osage talked about
16 consultation, we need to have that -- those types of
17 sessions where we're talking about statutory language.
18 We're not talking about just regulations.
19 When we're talking about regulations, those things can
20 be changed. Policies can be changed. Those are
21 internal policies that Fish, Wildlife, and Parks has.
22 And they can determine how they want to address this
23 issue.
24 Today, they're here not as a statutory entity
25 but rather as a policy entity, where they're going to
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1 listen to us, and they're going to make some changes in
2 there. Are they substantive changes? Probably not.
3 They're probably policy changes that next year could
4 change.
5 So we're not -- and no offense to you folks
6 here -- but we're not talking to the right people. We
7 need to talk to our legislators. We need to talk to
8 our Congressional representatives. We need to have
9 statutory changes made in this effort.
10 Otherwise, we're going to be barking up
11 the -- we're still going to be talking about this
12 10 years from now. We're still going to be going up
13 against falconry -- falconers. We're still going to be
14 talking about how they can be part of this competition
15 for eagles.
16 My own personal thought is that there
17 shouldn't be falconers regarding eagles, personally.
18 No offense to you (to Kelly Hogan.) But I heard you
19 say that this is a way of life. Probably more in a
20 recreational sense.
21 I don't think "way of life" has the same
22 meaning as we do as Native people. This is who we are.
23 Birds are -- have been part of us. We depend on them
24 for survival. I don't think falconers can say that. I
25 mean, you do this part-time. We do this full-time.
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1 So there is a vast difference. And I -- we
2 can debate on that forever. But that's my own personal
3 feeling, coming from the Northern Cheyenne people.
4 And fiduciary folks that are supposed to be
5 taking up for us, the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- and
6 no offense to them, but if you look at their record of
7 responsibility, it hasn't been very -- very good.
8 They're the only entity I know that can violate tribal
9 rights and still have that fiduciary status to continue
10 to do that.
11 If you were to look at lawyers, and they did
12 that, they would be barred. Yet we never -- that's --
13 that doesn't seem to be an option, because they have
14 that fiduciary responsibility for us. So I don't
15 understand that, either.
16 Rehabilitators, do they have standards? If
17 they do, are they veterinarians? Can we have a copy of
18 what makes -- what allows them to be able to take those
19 birds and rehab them?
20 Because we hold such a high standard for
21 those animals, they should -- we should -- they should
22 have high standards to be able to care for these
23 animals, rather than just somebody saying, Well, you
24 could handle that; you could be a rehabilitator.
25 We need to have that. We need ensure that
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1 they're being well taken care of. It sounds like
2 anybody could be a rehabilitator. But we don't know
3 exactly, and they should be guided under certain laws.
4 If they're not doing their -- taking care of
5 them, then they should be felons for not taking care of
6 them. That's how high we have for this -- for this
7 animal, the eagle.
8 One last thing. Again, I think, when we're
9 talking about changes, let's -- you folks listening to
10 the tribes, these things should be addressed in a
11 regulatory manner, where there is statutory,
12 substantive law involved.
13 I just -- over the years, I just can't see
14 listening to us and nothing happening. It's like the
15 executive orders. That's all they were. They look
16 good on the outside. No teeth. Those can be rescinded
17 in one -- one hearing. There's nothing there that
18 guarantees that they're going to be on the books
19 forever.
20 And that's what we need as tribes. We need
21 to assert, as this gentleman said, our sovereign --
22 inherent sovereignty. And that means we've got to be
23 involved politically. And, again, no offense, but I
24 just don't have the faith, even though your intent is
25 good.
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1 You're here to listen to us and take it --
2 take whatever we give back to you. But there's no
3 guarantee anything's going to change, unless there's
4 teeth behind those laws. Thank you.
5 MS. WALSH: Thank you. Can you tell me,
6 again, your name? I'm sorry.
7 MR. FISHER: Conrad Fisher, Northern Cheyenne
8 Tribe.
9 MS. WALSH: Thank you for your comments,
10 Mr. Fisher. And I wanted to say just two things
11 briefly in response.
12 One is, we can provide you a copy -- all of
13 you a copy of the standards that we use when we decide
14 whether or not to issue a permit for a rehabilitation
15 facility. So we can make sure to get that to you.
16 The other thing I wanted to say is, some of
17 the potential changes that we were discussing yesterday
18 and today are changes in regulation. Others would be
19 just changes in our policy or practices. So we are
20 discussing both of those things.
21 And of the things we put on the agenda, none
22 of those are changes in the statute. Although I
23 certainly respect that you may think some of the
24 statutes need to change, the things that we asked to
25 discuss with you either are regulation or policy
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1 changes. I just wanted make that clear.
2 And then, Mr. Tyler, I wanted to say I
3 respect that it seems disrespectful, but we are putting
4 these things in front of you today so that we can get
5 your reaction.
6 So you are hearing about it today before we
7 have proposed any changes, and we want to hear from you
8 whether those are good ideas or whether you have other
9 ideas.
10 MR. JUAN TYLER: You're not in charge to make
11 a decision and make the change, and we appreciate that.
12 You don't have the authority to make the change.
13 Congress will. Are you going to influence them to make
14 that change?
15 MS. WALSH: So, only Congress can change the
16 statute. At the agency level, the U.S. Fish and
17 Wildlife Service, we can change regulations. That
18 involves a public process and public comment, but we
19 change regulations at the agency level.
20 So I wanted to do a time check. We must
21 close at 11:00, I'm sorry to say. I have commitments
22 that I wasn't able to change when we decided to extend
23 our meeting until today. I have to leave at 11:00.
24 So we will not have time to get through the
25 rest of the topics that we had. And I do want to take
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1 just a minute at the end to reflect back to you the
2 kinds of things that I heard from you over the last two
3 days.
4 So let me just -- recognizing that I must
5 leave at 11:00, let me ask if there are any additional
6 comments that want to be made. Jesse.
7 MR. GUTIERREZ: Good afternoon. Jesse
8 Gutierrez, on behalf of the Santa Clara Pueblo.
9 Just a few comments. You know, I guess, in a
10 way, you guys like are messengers, and it's always a
11 shoot the messenger, you know. And it's like a
12 double-edged sword. I understand, for you, because you
13 get it from the tribes, and then you get it from your
14 higher-ups also.
15 You know, so I understand that position
16 you're in, you know. But at the same time, I think you
17 need to hear what we're saying, also, and then try to
18 push on our end to your higher-ups, also. On our end,
19 we still need to go to Congress and everybody else up
20 the chain, you know, as tribes, you know.
21 And the other concern, you know, is, like I
22 mentioned before, you know, I would like an opportunity
23 to take this information back to my tribe and have my
24 governor and council review these things and maybe
25 bring you guys back comments in a forum or something to
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1 that effect, you know.
2 That way, it comes in a proper way, you know.
3 And also, I would like to set up some kind of meeting,
4 you know.
5 I know we're from the southwest, you know,
6 but, you know, things that happen here with the
7 repository affect us from New Mexico, you know,
8 because, you know, like the gentleman said yesterday,
9 you know, we can't kill eagles there, because we'll be
10 thrown in the penitentiary for so many years, you know.
11 So we have to apply for these things, you
12 know. That's just one comment. And one other comment,
13 also, is that, you know, it's -- this animal is sacred
14 to us and all of us, you know. We use it in cultural,
15 traditional, our things that we pray to, the things we
16 pray to, you know.
17 And I know each person -- each tribe has
18 their things that they pray to, just like us. We have
19 many things that we pray to, you know. And it's
20 just -- it's just sad that we have to go through all
21 this to get something that is so sacred to us, you
22 know.
23 And that's the only thing that we have a hard
24 time at times getting ahold of, you know, like the
25 gentleman said yesterday, all these animals are all
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1 sacred to us, and a lot of them, we can get for
2 ourselves, you know.
3 And it's just something that's bothersome,
4 that we can't get the eagles as easily for our
5 traditional ways that -- that we can with the other
6 animals, you know. But, you know, that's just a
7 comment I'd like to make.
8 MS. WALSH: Do we have one more?
9 MR. SHAY: Darrel Shay, from the Sho-Ban
10 Tribe in Idaho. I'm in Region 1.
11 First of all, I'd just like to make it
12 understood that, because nobody has really talked for
13 the eagle, I think that's what you're hearing. Most of
14 us are talking for the eagle, because they don't have
15 no way of communicating to us what they feel, you know,
16 how they feel about it.
17 And we feel like we have that special
18 connection. So I'd just like to share that with you.
19 I want to acknowledge your effort to get to us to
20 address these issues.
21 It doesn't seem like, you know, it's really
22 taken the way that you guys wanted it to, especially
23 around the consultation issue.
24 It just seems like, you know, most of us that
25 have been involved in the tribe governments, we know
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1 what that is, and this didn't seem to appear to be it.
2 You know, it's more like a listening session. That's
3 why we even started calling it that.
4 And, you know, the rules that have been
5 developed, they impact us, you know. And it just seems
6 like the rules are -- to us, they're set in place, as
7 far as, I guess, how they -- how they relate to us, you
8 know. They prohibit us from doing this and that.
9 We can't even, you know, take a dead eagle
10 that we find, you know, if we -- you know, we get in
11 trouble over it, and the list goes on. But it just
12 seems like the impact to us is a lot greater than it is
13 to anybody else.
14 I mean, you've got the rehabilitators.
15 You've got the falconers, you know. And, you know, you
16 can -- you can take the carcasses for scientific
17 research. And, you know, you can come up with
18 exceptions to these rules.
19 And the one thing that stands pretty clear,
20 though, is the enforcement. We know about that. We
21 know that we'd get prosecuted, no question, if we have
22 obtained an eagle feather, you know, I guess, not
23 according to the rules. Okay?
24 If it was, you know, handed down as a special
25 gift, whether if you're enrolled or not enrolled, you
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1 know. We don't have no questions about the enforcement
2 side. But the way I look at it, and I don't know if --
3 I don't think I'm alone in this -- is that the way the
4 rules are written are pretty clear.
5 But they're being exempted, and when you
6 start exempting those rules, then it just becomes a
7 mockery of the rules. And I don't think that's what --
8 that's what they were set out to be.
9 I mean, you know, when special interests come
10 in and trump Native Americans that have a real unique
11 relationship to this bird, I know we have some of those
12 kinds of issues; that's -- we can clearly identify with
13 those issues.
14 Back home, we have an issue with the rock
15 climbers. The rock climbers want to climb these
16 pristine rock walls. They drive big bolts in them, and
17 then they go up and down. But in that process, they
18 desecrate a lot of our archeological sites or our
19 sacred sites.
20 And they do it -- they do it in the name of,
21 I have that right. I'm an American. I have, you know,
22 constitutional rights to do some of these things. And
23 besides that, it's fun, and we spend a lot of money.
24 It bolsters the economics around that given area.
25 So everybody thinks, Oh, it's okay. But to
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1 us, it's not. And this kind of -- this issue is
2 really, really the same, because we view -- we view the
3 eagle in the same way we view our sacred sites.
4 All of these things are interrelated in our
5 belief system. And I think that's what -- that's what
6 you're hearing. At least, that's what I heard. Maybe
7 I'm not sitting over there, and I didn't -- maybe what
8 I heard is different from what you guys are hearing.
9 But, hopefully, we got this message across.
10 And I think this is just the opening of this
11 discussion, I believe. You know, we need -- we need to
12 keep talking if we want to get somewhere, because, like
13 some of those folks here said, you know, we're not --
14 we're not the Indian of 10 years ago. We're not the
15 Indian of 20 years ago.
16 You're seeing us have a little bit more
17 influence in what's going on, you know? And we kind of
18 have studied the behavior of the federal bureaucracy,
19 and we kind of know what to do with them and what not
20 to do, when to use them and when not to use them.
21 And I think it boils down to that question of
22 sovereignty. You know, who makes our decisions for us?
23 Well, we do, nowadays. And I think it's going to get
24 more stronger. Thank you.
25 MS. WALSH: Thank you, Mr. Shay. I want to
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1 take just a minute or two to try to reflect back to all
2 of you what I think I heard from you over the last two
3 days.
4 And I'm under no illusions that I can capture
5 everything that I heard from you, but I think there are
6 some things that stood out to me that I would want you
7 to know and that I heard from you and some actions that
8 we will take, based on those things that we heard.
9 So I heard a lot over both days, and I
10 learned a lot from every one of you that spoke to us.
11 I heard a lot of questions from you. I heard things
12 like, Why does the Fish and Wildlife Service control
13 these articles that are very sacred to us?
14 Why is a permit necessary to exercise our
15 religion? I heard, Why are we burdened by rules, and
16 it seems like others are not burdened by the same
17 rules?
18 And I heard you say, These are not our ways.
19 This -- our practices are part of who we are, part of
20 how we were created, and these are not your ways. I
21 heard you say that. And, please excuse me, I took some
22 notes so that I wouldn't miss important points, and
23 that's what I'm looking at here as I talk to you.
24 As I heard those things from you, as I
25 listened to you, particularly yesterday morning, I
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1 asked myself, How would I feel if I thought my own
2 faith/tradition was being regulated, if I was
3 questioned by law enforcement officers who didn't seem
4 to understand or be sensitive to my belief and my
5 faith?
6 I would not feel good. I get that. So I
7 heard from you yesterday, through all of your words,
8 through your faces, and through the applause that you
9 had for each other when many of you stood up and spoke,
10 I heard that this is a wound, and this is a very
11 hurtful situation to you.
12 I can't fix everything, but my desire is to
13 do what's under our control, relative to eagles and
14 eagle conservation and eagle permitting, to make the
15 situation better within the confines of the law that
16 Congress has given us.
17 And our motivation, those of that us you see
18 here today representing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
19 Service, our motivation is, really, to preserve your
20 rights, to exercise your spiritual practices involving
21 feathers and eagles, and to regulate others who don't
22 have those same rights.
23 I think Steve explained very well a couple of
24 times that other people don't have the same rights. We
25 have to have a way to distinguish those people from
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1 Native Americans. So I think there is room for a lot
2 of further discussion about how we can better do that.
3 And Clint mentioned at the end of the day
4 yesterday, that one of the things we will commit to
5 doing is to take action to try and help sensitize law
6 enforcement officers from other agencies outside of the
7 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to your practices, to
8 your religious beliefs, to how important eagle feathers
9 and eagles are to you in a spiritual context.
10 So we will work on that, and we will work
11 with the Department of Justice to share that
12 information and try to educate the law enforcement
13 officers that you may come in contact with that are not
14 part of our agency.
15 We heard a lot today regarding eagles that
16 are taken from the wild due to depredation. Falconers
17 are mentioned in the federal statute as potential
18 recipients but not as the only recipients of those
19 falcons that may be taken from the wild.
20 So I heard your request that you want access
21 to those eagles. I heard that you would like an
22 opportunity to also have access to eagles taken from
23 the wild due to depredation. That's something that
24 we'll want to continue working on with you.
25 I heard yesterday that you all are asking us
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1 to help you protect eagles and eagle habitat from other
2 factors, from development that threatens their breeding
3 habitat and their wintering habitat.
4 So we do that. We do that under that same
5 statute, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. We
6 work to protect eagle habitat from developers and
7 others, at least according to the law and the
8 regulations.
9 But one interesting thing I heard yesterday
10 from Mr. Terry Knight was whether we've fully explored
11 the potential of those designations, like historic
12 cultural sites or historic -- sites of historic
13 significance that are actually eagle -- important eagle
14 habitat areas; can they be designated under the NHPA as
15 another tool to help protect them?
16 I don't know, but that's something that we
17 can explore. Regarding the whole process of
18 consultation, I heard you say we should ask you what
19 you want to consult on; we'll give you a list of what
20 we want to consult on. I got that message.
21 I heard you say that your tribal elders, your
22 council, your medicine people should be part of a
23 consultation on these topics we've been talking about
24 these last two days. And I heard many people say that
25 real consultation means that we have to come to you
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1 where you live with your council.
2 This is a hard one. I think those first two,
3 we can address much better, and we can work on that.
4 But us coming to all of you where you live is very,
5 very difficult. And I know this is not a welcome
6 message.
7 It is very difficult for us to get to all the
8 federally-recognized tribes. I have constraints in
9 terms of the number of staff we have, the number of
10 tribes within our region, the funding levels that we
11 have for travel.
12 I don't say that by way of excuse. But I
13 think it's important that you know that the ideal for
14 us would be to come to each of you personally to
15 consult on every issue, and that may not be possible
16 for us. We have to work together to find a way to do
17 meaningful consultation when I can't be at every place
18 within the region.
19 So a couple of other things that we want to
20 commit to, based on what we heard from you over these
21 two days, a lot of requests for yesterday for, Where do
22 all the eagles come from? What states do they come
23 from to the repository?
24 Steve had that information available
25 yesterday, but we will also have it on our Web site.
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1 And I think you all got a copy of this card, which
2 shows our Web site. If you didn't, please pick one up
3 before you go. We'll make sure those statistics are
4 available there.
5 We had the good fortune to have some tribes,
6 the Pueblos, here from a part of the country that is
7 not part of my region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
8 Service. From the southwest region of the U.S. Fish
9 and Wildlife Service headquarters in Albuquerque, we
10 had at least two -- two Pueblos here.
11 So I will commit, first of all, to
12 communicating with my counterpart in Albuquerque, the
13 regional director, Benjamin Tuttle, out of Albuquerque,
14 to let him know what we talked about these last two
15 days.
16 We will share the notes and the transcript
17 from these meetings with Benjamin Tuttle so he knows
18 what was discussed. And then, I will ask him to work
19 with you directly to continue some of these
20 conversations.
21 Not that we don't want to keep talking with
22 you; we do. But there may be some things that you may
23 want to work on him -- work on with him directly.
24 And then, lastly, I would like us to have
25 another Eagle Summit, if that is something that is --
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1 will continue to be of interest to you. And you guys
2 have to give me feedback as to whether it is.
3 And I will say, if we do that, I'd like to do
4 it in a different way. I would like to see if any of
5 you would volunteer to work with us to construct and
6 organize and plan a session that would be most
7 meaningful to you. So that's an offer I put on the
8 table.
9 You don't have to answer me now, but it's
10 feedback I would very much appreciate having from you
11 about what we might do together in the future.
12 I am very sorry that we're at 11:00 and that
13 I can't stay any longer. But I just want to say a
14 sincere thank you for all of you that not only were
15 here yesterday but were willing to come back today and
16 share your thoughts with us.
17 It has been very beneficial for me. So thank
18 you. Okay. I'm going it turn over to Clint for just
19 one closing comment, and then I understand we have a
20 closing prayer.
21 UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I'd just like to ask a
22 quick question. How many in the room would like to see
23 another Eagle Summit?
24 MR. FISHER: And I'd like to add on, to
25 everybody, if you have any funding available -- because
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1 that's a critical issue when it comes to
2 participation -- if there is funding, if you could find
3 some funding in your coffers, I think it would really
4 be nice. I think you'd have a lot more participation.
5 MR. ROUNDSTONE: And just for your
6 information, these programs, the historical
7 preservation tribal programs, they're probably the
8 lowest-funded organization within the tribal
9 organizations. Those are traditional people. Take
10 that into consideration for your next one.
11 MR. MARTEL: Noreen, I'd like to thank you
12 for your comments there, because, quite frankly,
13 yesterday and this morning, I kind of felt like I was
14 being used, and I don't like feeling like that. You
15 know?
16 And the guys do the -- like yesterday
17 morning, well, this is not a consultation. I don't
18 know what we were doing yesterday, just having a BS
19 session or a confab, or what that was. But, you know,
20 and then it just, like, Well, we had our consultation
21 yesterday afternoon with the tribes, well, this is what
22 we are going to do.
23 And what you said you were going to do makes
24 me feel a little better. Thank you.
25 MR. RILEY: The only part I wanted to follow
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1 up was to say we do both want input in general, and we
2 want to achieve the expectations for consultation.
3 And our attempts yesterday in distinguishing
4 was part of our understanding of consultation is that
5 it would be people who are authorized to speak on
6 behalf of the tribe and government to government. And
7 that's why all of our outreach was inviting the
8 afternoon to meet for that purpose.
9 And -- but we also know that there's -- the
10 opportunity for any discussion is always healthy. And
11 so we're looking for ways to both to have open
12 discussions, as well as signal when we would document
13 this as somebody speaking officially as a
14 government-to-government relationship.
15 And we'll keep working on trying to do that.
16 Since we didn't get to all of the discussions that we
17 wanted your thoughts on, I hope people have material.
18 Absolutely any -- any communication you could
19 provide to us, written or otherwise, about thoughts on
20 any of these proposals, some of them may not even move
21 forward to proposals, but we would be disappointed to
22 move towards proposals publicly without having heard
23 from you if you have thoughts to share in advance of
24 that, in fact, or thoughts.
25 And so the things we didn't get to, I hope we
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1 may have an opportunity to talk more, if not
2 immediately. And then, as you go home and you have
3 additional thoughts to share, we'll look forward to
4 hearing those.
5 And Ivy Allen is -- and thank you for all of
6 her work on bringing us together the last couple of
7 days. She's the most efficient way to connect with our
8 office, and if she can't answer questions on these or
9 any other issues, she certainly brings others of us
10 into the discussion.
11 And we look forward to hearing from you, as
12 well as looking forward to reaching out to you again.
13 To close, I understand Scott did ask,
14 Mr. Lujan, would you be willing to close again today?
15 MR. LUJAN: (Closing prayer.)
16 And I would like to thank you for the
17 hospitality you showed to us.
18 WHEREUPON, the within proceedings were
19 concluded at the approximate hour of 11:16 a.m. on the
20 21st day of March, 2014.
21 * * * * * *
22
23
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25
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1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2 STATE OF COLORADO )
3 ) ss.
4 CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER )
5 I, WENDY McCAFFREY, Professional Court
6 Reporter and Notary Public, State of Colorado, do
7 hereby certify that the said Eagle Summit III
8 proceeding was taken in machine shorthand by me at the
9 time and place aforesaid and was thereafter reduced to
10 typewritten form, consisting of 87 pages herein; that
11 the foregoing is a true transcript of the proceedings
12 had. I further certify that I am not employed by,
13 related to, nor of counsel for any of the parties
14 herein, nor otherwise interested in the outcome of this
15 proceeding.
16 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have affixed my
17 signature and seal this ____ day of ______________,
18 2014.
19 My commission expires January 30, 2016.
20 _____________________________________________
21 Wendy McCaffrey Professional Court Reporter
22
23
24
25