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Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist walks through a freezer containing eagles ready for shipment at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado March 26. Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and employees at the National Eagle Repository provide them with feathers, wings and talons - and in some cases whole carcasses - for religious rituals. But the Indians' demand outstrips the repository's supply. Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others.
Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist, inspects a Bald eagle at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26. The feathers from a bird such as this are the most sought after by Native American Indian tribes.
Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist, inspects the feathers around an eagle's foot at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26.
Reuters reports -- A wildlife specialist splays the wings of a dead golden eagle shipped in from New Mexico and is pleased by what he sees.
"This one is an awfully good bird," Dennis Wiist of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. "There's not too much damage, which is extremely rare."
Wiist will bag the eagle, freeze it and then have it delivered to a waiting Native American Indian tribe.
Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and Wiist and his colleagues at the National Eagle Repository provide them with feathers, wings and talons - and in some cases whole carcasses - for religious rituals. But the Indians' demand outstrips the repository's supply.
Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist (background), inspects an eagle at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26, as adult Golden eagle wing feathers ready for shipping are displayed in the foreground.
Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others. But it gets more than 3,000 requests a year for whole birds or parts. There are some 6,000 entries on the waiting list.
"We just don't have the supply. Our inventory is stretched," said Bernadette Atencio, supervisor of the program for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The repository, located about 10 miles from downtown Denver, was established in the 1970s to meet the needs of American Indians but some don't want to rely on it because it can take so long to get a bird, even as the population of bald eagles has largely recovered from the threat of imminent extinction.
Rick Wilking / Reuters
A sign at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository shows the numbers of requests for eagle parts in 2011 in Commerce City, Colorado March 26.
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I am part Comache and I am not a PETA person, in fact I just had a great juicy cheeseburger for lunch, but I think this is totally ridiculous.
Really? Part Comache? I know a few Comanche people personally. Not familiar with Comache though. The Repository is ridiculous? How so? A lot of people earn eagle feathers for accomplishments and the Repository is there to help. Come on, elucidate. Expound. Here. Not on Twatter or AssfaceBook.
So let's review: We are actually paying the salaries and benefits of an entire government department to collect, store, freeze and deliver eagles and eagle parts to the indians?
Yes. And have been doing so for some time. How come you don't know this? Native people have known about the Repository for years. HELLO!!! Are you awake now?
To the Indians...
This is disgusting. Our universities cannot have Indian mascots, such as Chief Illini at the University of Illinois, and yet there is a whole business of keeping, freezing and picking these beautiful birds apart - makes me sick. We were so upset to learn our mascot would be banned after many years of respectful use of the image. The person selected for the honor was taught Indian dance, etc. and wore an authentic costume - nothing was ever disrespectful during the halftime program and the Chief left immediately after. There are plenty of other mascots and images still used in sports - our nation's baseball team for one example and in Florida the Indian mascot riding onto the field on a horse - looks very "warlike" and not disrespectful at all. What is this with the double standards? If the rest of America has to respect Indians and their traditions then maybe they should respect and honor our national bird. Maybe it's time they stop killing and/or using these magnificent birds for their own glory. Indians and those people saying Americans are disrespectful to Indians should also remember that many of our states, cities, rivers, etc. are named Indian names - maybe they think those names should be changed, too.
The person selected as an "Indian" mascot was taught "Indian" dance. "Indian" dance. What the hell is Indian dance? There are 500+ native nations still surviving in this country. All were called "Indian" at one time. Do they all dance one single "Indian" type of dance that would be taught to a "White" individual? And he wore an authentic "costume". A costume. Jesus Christ, do you even hear what that sounds like? The whole BS charade was an insult and an affront to sensibilities! Native people, "Indians" didn't ask to be honored, as if they were gone, wiped out, by a damned caricature of the conquerors vision of how they "were". Native people don't dress in "Indian" regalia anymore except to dance in their respective powwows and tribal ceremonies, then they dance in the correct manner. Not with a generalized perception drawn from a combination of ballet and Western cowboy movies like the "Chief Ill-whatever" I'm sure you are referring to. I've seen that outlandishly effeminate halftime "ceremony" and it made me, and others sick to our stomachs to view a garishly painted extremly white man skipping around the floor. If that's a honor, please stop and never do that again.
As for the FSU "mascot", he is a Seminole "Indian" depiction dressed as a Plains "Indian" warrior, the Seminole nation didn't dress like that. The difference here is the University pays out the nose in the form of scholorships for Native kids to obtain permission from the tribe to use their name. But it's still the white man's image of a people fighting genocide and Manifest Destiny. Godamnit, why can't you people honor African warriors the same way that you do to the Native tribes? The Zulu kicked serious British ass and the Swahili were feared warriors. But, the Black people have a lot of power and would not stand for any of that crap, would they?
Now, to the subject of this ridiculous post, Golden Eagles were symbols of our honor and pride long before the Bald Eagle became the National Symbol of the United States, the "already dead" birds are not re-killed by native people but simply stored and distributed by the Federal government to enrolled members of Federally recognized tribes. Tho people who have been here since before Europeans fleeing religious persecution arrived and started persecuting the indiginous for their beliefs. It's apparently still going on by the tone of your post.
And the names of states and rivers...the stupid Squaw Peak was renamed, over much Republiclown protests, to Piestewa Peak. Lori Piestewa was the first Native female killed in combat while wearing the uniform of the American military. I guess Squaw Peak was honoring the Native people also even though the term squaw was usually used in a vulgar manner to demean Native women. No one has ever mentioned protest to the names of states, until now.
Native people don't really care whether they get respected by Whites, it goes without saying that many Whites wish they had finished the job or wiping them out, but it didn't happen. Indian people just want White people to stop "honoring" them and just leave them alone.
That answer your question? I doubt it, you'd have to listen to hear.
Oh yeah, just FYI, Indians do honor eagles, as they honor all living creatures, even those such as yourself. Eagle feathers and parts have the highest honor and respect in Indian Country. Not superficial "honor" such as a gross misunderstanding of honor like you and your ilk bestow upon a proud people. Ask a Navajo code-talker if he feels "honored" by white men and their sports mascots. Go to a reservation and spout your BS.
dead birds. missedthat
This sh** p*ses me off!
How so? Be specific. Indians? Dead eagles? Indians and dead eagles? Dead eagle s**t? What, man? Speak!!! Oh, you can't. The s**t.