Permit to Kill Bald Eagles Granted by Obama Administration

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Conservative Byte

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unusual step of issuing a permit allowing an American Indian tribe in Wyoming to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes.

The agency’s decision comes after the Northern Arapaho Tribe filed a federal lawsuit last year contending the refusal to issue such permits violates tribal members’ religious freedom. Although thousands of American Indians apply for eagle feathers and carcasses from a federal repository, permits allowing the killing of bald eagles are exceedingly rare, according to both tribal and legal experts on the matter.

“I’ve not heard of a take permit for a bald eagle,” Steve Moore, lawyer with the Native American Rights Fund, or NARF, in Boulder, Colo., said Tuesday. “I see it and NARF would see it as a legitimate expression of sovereignty by the tribe, and respect for that sovereignty by the Fish and Wildlife Service.”

Federal law prohibits the killing of bald eagles in almost all cases. The government keeps eagle feathers and body parts in a federal repository and tribal members can apply for them for use in religious ceremonies.