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(Scroll down for MN wolves) home
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT CONSIDERS ALLOWING TRIBE
TO TAKE EAGLES FROM NATIONAL MONUMENT
FOR RITUAL SACRIFICE
Posted December 11, 1999
Some of the last Federal lands available to wildlife as sanctuary from hunting and trapping are national parks and monuments. The Los Angeles Times reported (11/25) that the U.S. Department of Interior is considering a policy that would allow Hopi Indian Tribal members to remove golden eaglets at Wupatki National Monument near Flagstaff, AZ.
The eaglets would be raised at Hopi villages and then smothered to death in a religious ritual. Prayers are then offered for good fortune and happiness for all creatures, according to the book, The Hopis: Portrait of a Desert People by Walter Collins O'Kane. Please do not complain to the Hopis. Oxymoronical as this seems, it a sacred tradition to the Hopis. They already have permission to capture eaglets in national forests around Flagstaff. The purpose of this alert is not to criticize the Hope but to prevent what could be the beginning of killing animals in National Monuments and Parks.
According to Frank Buono, a retired Parks Service administrator, "It has the potential to unravel the parks system as a collection of animal sanctuaries. This strikes at the integrity of the parks system."
Interior may even move to open the entire national park system to Indian religious taking of wildlife, as long as the animals are not on Endangered Species Act lists. This could open the floodgates to hunting and trapping, even for recreation, in our pristine and historically protected national parks and monuments.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Contact Bruce Babbitt, Secretary,
Department of Interior,
1849 C St., NW,
Washington, DC 20240; Ph: 202-208-3100; Fx: 202-208-6956;
Email: Bruce_Babbitt@ios.doi.gov
Letters are better if you can take the time to write one.
Thank him for refusing to let eagles be taken in Wupatki in the past and urge him to reject any policy change, even for religious purposes, allowing removal or hunting of wildlife in national parks or monuments for any reason. After all, it is a religion for many of us to protect and preserve these national lands with intact ecosystems.
A LITTLE MORE BACKGROUND
From AP article by Jan Stevens in The Mesa Tribune September 19, 1999
Hopis have been given 40 permits this year to take eaglets in the Coconino and Kaibab national forests. "This has been a practice for a long, long time (centuries and centuries) and is very important to us. As long as Hopis are here, this practice will continue," according to Eugene Kay, spokesperson for Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor.
The Hopis are guaranteed their right to practice their religion under the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993.
According to The Hopis: Portrait of a Desert People, the nests are scouted when the birds are very young, but they are left for their parents to raise until they are old enough to "use their wings". They are given "presents" and sometimes "presents" are left in the nest. The Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to issue permits as long as the population is not endangered. The birds must be taken on land specified in the permit application.
(Report is not clear on whether US Fish and Wildlife Service issued a permit to remove eaglets from Wapatzi National Monument, which would violate policy of not killing animals there or in national parks, or whether Hopi applied to use a national forest land permit in a national monument.)
In any case, a Hopi pilgrimage with a USFWS permit was denied permission to take eaglets from Wupatki in May, 1999. This decision was upheld by Secretary Babbitt. Let's show him he has popular support to continue the policy that parks and monument areas are off limits even to permit holders.
Bruce Babbitt, Secretary,
Department of Interior,
1849 C St., NW,
Washington, DC 20240; Ph: 202-208-3100; Fx: 202-208-6956;
Email: Bruce_Babbitt@ios.doi.gov
Letters are better if you can make time for them
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MINNESOTA WOLVES NEED YOUR HELP
(relayed from MN activists via In Defense of Animals)
February 5, 2000
The Minnesota state legislature and Department of Natural Resources are pushing for wolves to be delisted as an endangered species and for local management of this species. This would include control measures such as outright hunting and a bounty on wolves. Letters to Governor Ventura are needed from everywhere. As it stands now, this is still a federal matter so copies should go to federal legislators as well. Address: The Honorable Governor Jesse Ventura
75 Constitution Ave
St. Paul MN 55155
1. OPPOSE HUNTING AND TRAPPING!
The DNR plan and the House bill already includes hunting and trapping, while the DNR bill suggests a five year wait before opening a season, the legislature is bound to change this. Oppose hunting and trapping of wolves NOW and in the future. There is NO justification for hunting or trapping of wolves.
2. OPPOSE landowners AND pet owners carrying out lethal depredation control Or WOLF KILLING at their discretion.. This has been greatly broadened and is now a complete free-for-all killing of wolves throughout the state of Minnesota. If this is allowed to occur it will stop all incentive for good livestock husbandry, and stop any advancement for non-lethal, common sense, and humane techniques.
3. OPPOSE any form of wolf bounty or incentive-inducing killing contracts by "certified" public contract trappers (sometimes called Directed Predator Control). In the current DNR BILL it is called Predator Control Payments -- THIS IS A BOUNTY!!!!
The new bill says ..Sec 5 Sub. 4 (e) . the commissioner shall pay a
certified gray wolf predator controller $100 for each wolf taken.
4. OPPOSE THEIR ANTIQUATED PREDATOR CONTROL POLICY
The new bill says ... in the "agriculture zone" if the commissioner has verified the presence of physical remains of gray wolf-killed livestock or domestic pets within the previous five years! ,..... He can open a predatory control area in the "gray wolf zone " (all Northern Minn.).... He can also open the PREDATOR CONTROL AREA for 30 days for each verified kill or FARM ... ALL PREDATOR CONTROL AREAs includes a one-mile trapping radius around each farm. Pelts confiscated by the State can be sold.
5. DEMAND -- Good wolf policy should be based on proper respect of the needs for the wolf in a natural order, not on human needs or human agendas. "It's time for us to leave the wolves alone and start living in harmony with them. The future survival of these rare and beautiful creatures must not be jeopardized by bullets and senseless
killings." --Bruce Babbit, U.S. Secretary of the Interior
Autumn 99 issue The Civil Abolitionist124 Autumn 99 issue "C-paper"123
Civitas submission on refuge hunting proposals Sept 1999
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