Such a low reproductive rate is sustainable. Over the course of a lifetime, a breeding pair only nee

Welcome to the ninth edition of First Nations News Views. This weekly series is one element in the "Invisible Indians" project put together by navajo airline tickets low cost and me, with assistance from the Native American Netroots Group. Last week's edition is here . In this edition you will find news briefs, a look at the year 1622 in American Indian history, and some linkable bulleted briefs. Click on the headlines below to take you directly to that section airline tickets low cost of News Views or to any of our earlier editions.
Editor's Note: We recently reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has given an extremely rare and extremely controversial approval for the Northern Arapaho of Wyoming to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act forbids non-Native airline tickets low cost people airline tickets low cost to kill the eagles or possess any parts of the birds. American Indians can apply to obtain eagle feathers or carcasses from a federal repository in Colorado for ritual use. The USFWS permit states that the Northern Arapaho may kill or capture and release the birds after the ceremony. Just how controversial this decision airline tickets low cost is can be seen in the fact that not just environmental advocates but also members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, who share the Wind River Indian Reservation with the Northern Arapaho, oppose the killing of the birds.
Because of the controversy, we asked two highly respected veteran diarists airline tickets low cost at Daily Kos to explore the issue from their distinct points airline tickets low cost of view. Lineatus is a longtime birder and raptor bander. Ojibwa is an academically trained Indian historian who regularly carries airline tickets low cost out traditional ceremonies.
Few birds inspire the sense of awe that eagles bring out in us. Their size, their power, their presence. Not just a predator, but a flyer that can soar without effort, circling ever higher until it disappears airline tickets low cost from sight into the very ceiling of the sky. Small wonder that they've had a place of significance to humans virtually since the dawn of our days on the African savanna.
We have two eagle species in the US — Golden Eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ) and Bald Eagle ( Haliaeetus leucocephalus ). Golden Eagles are found primarily in the West and North, where they favor grasslands, mountains and other open country. (They are also found in Europe and Asia.) They prefer to nest on rocky cliffs, but will use trees if they are large enough to support their massive airline tickets low cost nests. Their prey is primarily mammals, especially ground squirrels and rabbits. But they have been recorded killing airline tickets low cost prey as large as antelope and deer.
Bald Eagles range across the country, especially in the winter when they wander widely, and prefer to live near water. They primarily nest in trees. They take a wider variety of prey than Goldens, with an emphasis on fish and waterfowl, along with mammals, birds and scavenged food (i.e., carrion). They sometimes gather in large groups airline tickets low cost when there is an abundant food source, airline tickets low cost like a salmon run or a waterfowl wintering area.
Typical for a large bird at the top of the food chain, eagles are slow to mature and slow to reproduce. They take at least five years to reach sexual maturity, and their first breeding attempts are less likely to be successful. They lay one to three eggs (most commonly two) with an interval of two to three days between eggs. These hatch after incubating for five to six weeks, normally a few days apart, and the eaglets fledge 10-12 weeks later. (Males, being smaller, typically leave the nest earlier than females.) Young birds will spend several months learning to hunt with their parents before heading out on their first migrations.
Because airline tickets low cost the time from first egg-laying to independence is so long, eagles begin nesting very early in the year, even in snowy regions. If the nest fails past the first few weeks, it's usually too late for them to make a second attempt for the year. Frequently, only one chick will reach fledging stage. Second (and third) eggs and chicks are an "insurance policy" to make sure that at least one bird survives to fledge.
If food is abundant, the adults will feed all of the chicks, but if prey becomes scarce, they will focus their efforts on the larger, more vigorous eaglet(s) and the smaller, weaker siblings will likely die. After leaving the nest, young birds still need to learn to hunt; more than half don't master the skills and die before their first winter is over. About 10 percent to 20 percent of eagles actually make it to breeding age.
Such a low reproductive rate is sustainable. Over the course of a lifetime, a breeding pair only need to produce two offspring who themselves live to breeding age to maintain a stable population. Unfortunately, human activities (especially over the past century) have led to population declines. Habitat loss is one factor as is loss of hunting grounds to agriculture, and loss of nesting sites to logging. Intentional and unintentional killing is another. Eagles were early on targeted airline tickets low cost by ranchers who thought they killed livestock, especially calves and lambs. In one of the first laws protecting animals, intentional killing airline tickets low cost of eagles airline tickets low cost was outlawed in 1940 by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act . But the birds still face accidental killings from electrocution on power lines, hitting wind turbines, and secondary poisoning from baits set for ground squirrels airline tickets low cost and other prey species.
And for Bald Eagles, a devastating population crash caused by widespread use of DDT occurred in the post-World War II years. The pesticide didn't kill them outright but built up in their systems through their prey base (especially fish and waterfowl) and caused eggshell thinning, leading to breeding failures. When DDT was banned nationwide airline tickets low cost in 1972, several generations of breeding birds had been lost, and the species was placed on the Endangered Species List in 1976. Since the DDT ban, numbers have rebounded solidly with the help of major reintroduction efforts in the earlier years. The species was officially delisted in 2007. Some raptor biologists opposed the delisting. They weren't sure populations had recovered sufficiently and some saw it as a ploy by the Bush administration to try to tell an environmental good-news story while allowing various areas to be opened to oil, gas and coal interests with fewer constraints.
Though delisted, the birds remain protected by the Eagle Protection Act. That law has been amended to acknowledge the significance of eagles to Native Americans to some extent, but still limits possession of feathers and other artifacts with tight regulations. With healthier eagle populations now, should those regulations be revisited to allow taking of eagles by Native people for ceremonial purposes? If so, what revisions are appropriate? Should there be different policies for Golden and Bald Eagles, based on differing population trends?
My objection is not about killing as part of a ritual in and of itself. If the rituals involved killing, say, ducks, then no problem. They are abundant and reproduce quickly. It's not even really about killing raptors, as much as I love them. If they wanted to take a certain number of redtail hawks every year, I would be okay with it (although admittedly not thrilled). But redtails are doing reasonably well in the world, even expanding their territory in many areas. airline tickets low cost The loss of a few would have minimal impact airline tickets low cost on the population.
It's also not about exemption from laws in the name of religious freedom, in and of itself. If a religious practice has no harmful effect airline tickets low cost on anyone other than the practitioner, I have no objection. Muslim women (and Sikh men) should be allowed to wear head coverings airline tickets low cost in their workplace; Native Americans should airline tickets low cost be able to use peyote (though not, say, when they're airline tickets low cost driving buses).
It's the conflict between religious freedom and other legitimate concerns. An analogy is a church that wants to get a permit for a religious procession that will block city streets. The city should make the process as transparent airline tickets low cost and reasonable as possible, airline tickets low cost but it should also be able to say, "You can't block the streets around fire stations and hospitals." airline tickets low cost There are sound reasons airline tickets low cost why these protections for eagles were enacted. The rules were not created with the intent of discriminating against Indians, though they have had that effect, they were created because populations of slow-reproducing birds were threatened (critically, in the case of Bald Eagles).
The Eagle Protection Act has been modified some to accommodate Indian concerns and should be further amended to make it more workable. But any changes should be made with consideration of both biology and tradition. The government should make the process less opaque and open it up as much as is reasonable.
If it was a very limited airline tickets low cost take, and it was timed so as not to cause problems for breeding birds or fledglings, it would be easier to support. I think the loss of a handful of eagles each year (Bald or Golden) airline tickets low cost would not have a significant impact on the population and could be safely allowed. Oddly, the thing that I'm sure many people might find hardest to deal with is the thing I could best accept the practice of taking an eaglet from a nest, raising it to a certain age, then killing it ceremonially. (Nest cams have got a lot of people very attached to baby eagles.) As I explained, airline tickets low cost eagles often have more than one chick hatch, but only one lives to fledge. airline tickets low cost Taking a young bird that would likely have died anyway seems the least bad option. It also frees the parents to concentrate their efforts on the remaining youngster both before and after fledging, thus giving it a better chance at survival.
If an adult bird is captured and killed, then I have more concerns, mostly related to breeding. Also, there's something inherently upsetting in thinking about ritually killing a bird that might have survived 20 to 30 years in the wild, with all the obstacles we've created for their survival. That's the bird we want in the gene pool, and that's the bird who should be teaching youngste