The Court and Repositories

The difficultly with feather repositories and their resulting laws comes into play when someone gets arrested for obtaining or possessing migratory or eagle feathers and cries religious rights to their defense.

Some court cases are relatively straight forward like in the case of United States vs. Moon Lake Electric Association Incorporated. On June 9, 1998, the United States charged Moon Lake for the electrocution death of 12 golden eagles, 4 ferruginous hawks and 1 great horned owl. Moon Lake violated the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection act seven times and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act six times. Moon Lake claimed that both acts do not apply to involuntary killings of protected species and that the acts only refer to the physical taking of birds through hunting. The government claimed that if Moon Lake had installed inexpensive extra equipment on to the power poles then 38 birds of prey would not have been injured in a 29 month period. Moon Lake was found guilty and charged a $100,000 fine and entered a Memorandum of Understanding (a promise to try to prevent future bird deaths) with the US Fish and Wildlife Services.

Other defendants rely on the religious argument despite not having Native American heritage causing problems for the courts. In March 2011, the US Court of Appeals 10^th Circuit heard Samuel Ray Wilgus who was arrested for possessing 141 feathers of bald and golden eagle feathers. Wilgus was not Native American but had lived with members of the Southern Paiute Nation and had received training in spiritual practices. The court ruled that while Wilgus, who appeared to genuinely have been converted from baptism in youth to Native American spiritualism in adulthood, only those who are legal members of registered tribes can possess feathers with the appropriate permits. Even if some of his feather were given to him as gifts from Native Americans.

Draper from The Denver Post writes“The Appeals Court said that Congress, as a consequence of the forcible seizure of Indian lands by the U.S., could give special treatment to sovereign tribal entities, not as a function of their race or of Native American spritual (sic) traditions, but because of their tribal or political identity.”

Read more: Court overturns case that allowed non-Indians to possess eagle feathers - The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17728167#ixzz2N9qNSYfA

Thus it appears that to the courts because of the limited number of available feathers and the overwhelming need to protect these species religious rights may not entirely be the reason for repositories at all.

CG