Since Congress began protecting endangered species in the early 1900s, American Indians have been caught between a wing and a prayer – sometimes breaking federal laws to fulfill their religious obligations. Now, however, a new federal law – another one of “yours” – may rescue Jim. A motion to overturn his conviction, set for next month in U.S. District Court, is expected to be the first test of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which President Clinton signed in November. The law forces officials to show a “compelling” health or safety interest before outlawing religious acts and decriminalizes practices such as those of Amish buggy drivers who refuse to carry “worldly” orange reflectors. Whether it will protect the birds that symbolize the very notion of freedom may ultimately be up to the Supreme Court.
American Indians have used eagles and hawks in their rituals for centuries. Preschool boys and girls receive their first feathers to help acquire power and direction in life. Families tie carcasses to their door posts for luck and pass the birds from one generation to the next. Jim says that without the birds he has killed, the Yakama could not bury their dead in peace. “I have a reason for what I did. It was a vow beyond law,” he says. “To the United States government, my beliefs are nothing.”
But environmentalists fear that the religious-freedom law will open hunting season to more than just Indians. Although no one has publicly accused Jim, a 33-year-old unemployed laborer, of profiteering, the black market in endangered birds is soaring. A bald eagle can go for $10,000; a feather for $35. At the moment the lot of the bald eagle has improved – about 440 live in Oregon, and in July the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing it nationwide from the endangered-species list. But the new law could allow extinction to loom again. “Once that decision is made,” wildlife researcher Gary Clowers told an Oregon newspaper, “you would lose all the eagles within reach.”
Jim can fulfill his obligations legally. The National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore., collects eagles found dead by natural causes (and from the occasional bul-let) and distributes them to Native Americans. This year the lab gave away 870 eagles and filled 28,000 requests for feathers. Jim Kniffen, the lab’s coordinator, says that he expedites burial feather requests but maintains that Jim never said he had an emergency. Jim’s lawyer, Celeste Whitewolf, says Jim and other American Indians did not know they could ask for special treatment. In the near future, they may not have to ask at all.
