FWS Begins New NEPA Analysis of Eagle Management and Take Permits

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced a process to engage the public as it works toward revising a rule governing how permits are issued for the non-purposeful take of bald and golden eagles. FWS will host five public information meetings in various locations around the country and open a 90-day public comment period. The meetings will be held on July 22, 2014, in Sacramento, Calif.; July 24, 2014, in Minneapolis, Minn.; July 29, 2014, in Albuquerque, N.M.; July 31, 2014, in Denver, Colo.; and Aug. 7, 2014, in Washington, D.C. For more information about the public information meetings, please visit http://www.eaglescoping.org.

The public information sessions will serve as scoping meetings as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). FWS will review information from the meetings and use it to prepare either a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and proposed revisions to the permit regulations. The Service will then open another comment period for an additional round of public review and input before finalizing the EA/EIS and revised permit regulations.

FWS is requesting information related to its 2009 permit regulations, eagle management objectives, and the December 2013 decision extending the maximum duration for eagle take permits from five to 30 years. Written comments must be submitted on or before Sept. 22, 2014, either electronically: Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov, FWS-R2- MB-2011-0094 or by U.S. mail to Public Comments Processing, Attention: Eagle Management and Permitting FWS-R2-MB-2011-0094; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, MS 2042-PDM, Arlington, VA 22203.

How Indians Catch Eagles - Dacotah Territory

The son of a physician of Dubuque, who is now stationed at Fort Buford, Dacotah Territory, has written a long letter to his father giving some interesting items with regard to the Indians. An extract is appended:

The camp of Indians which we visited were chiefly engaged in catching war eagles, to make head dresses. They have a wooden lodge built in the camp, where the medicine ceremony necessary to catch is performed. No women is allowed to enter the lodge. They can come to the door and hand in provisions, but must not cross the threshold. You will not be allowed to spit on the floor, and must sit in a certain position of the lodge. You must enter and pass out at the north door. Wash and I were let in to see the ceremonies.

When a man goes to trap the eagles, he first goes to the medicine lodge, and is not allowed to go to sleep until midnight; he then eats a little and sleeps until the morning star rises. He, with his comrades, then go out to the traps without food or drink, and sit all day in the traps watching for the eagles. At night they return and enter the medicine lodge, and at midnight only do they eat and drink, and break their long fast of twenty-four hours' duration. They then are allowed to sleep until dawn, when they go out again, and stay four days, during which time they have food and drink four times and have never entered their own lodges or spoken to their friends, unless each as may be trapping with them. After the four days are up, they go back to their lodges, lean, and tired and sleepy, and sleep and eat and hunt deer until they are able to try another four days' trapping excursion. The eagles are brought alive into the camp, and after some ceremony the tails are pulled out, and they are let go to grow another tail for the next year. The traps consist of a hole in the ground covered with sticks and grass. A dead rabbit, fox or prairie chicken is tied to the top; the eagle swoops down and fasten his claws into it and tries to fly away with it, but the Indian (who is concealed in the hole) puts out his hand, catches the eagle by both legs, hauls him into the hole and ties him. He then fixes the top and waits for another eagle. We saw one man there who had caught six eagles in one day in this way.

They say if they do not fast and do their medicine properly, the eagle will get one of his claws loose and tear their hands. Some have had their hands ruined forever in this way. If a man does not catch an eagle during the day, he is obliged to moan and cry all night; we could hardly sleep with the noise made at night by the unsuccessful hunters.

Anonymous. June 14, 1872. How Indians catch eagles. Cuthbert Appeal 6(24): 1.

FWS Action a Disgrace to Eagles

by Jim Wiegand

On April 26 the Fish and Wildlife Service released a statement that claims their Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance "fosters protection for bald and golden eagles." This is true, but so what? The carefully chosen word "fosters" is just another indication of posturing by an agency that went bad some time ago. The word foster means to encourage. How about this agency coming clean and using the words "does protect the bald and golden eagles"? The word "foster" is no better that the word "voluntary" which is used to describe the "voluntary regulations" this agency has for the wind industry.

The FWS Bald and Golden Eagle Conservation plan is a disgrace. How could any plan be developed when so many facts have been hidden? How could any plan be developed when so many fraudulent studies have been created? This plan should be called for what it really is, "the eagle extermination plan" because it is nothing but a legal shell game which allows the wind industry to legally kill bald and golden eagles. The "no net loss" criteria used by the FWS is a convenient excuse to hand out their kill or "take" permits. It all is just more of the same "encouragement" with "voluntary regulations."

With encouragement and voluntary regulations the FWS has helped the wind industry destroy the historical habitat for the California condor. If it were not for the feeding stations keeping them from the turbines the condor population would now be extinct except for in captivity.

With encouragement and voluntary regulations The FWS has allowed the wind industry to develop the central Flyway habitat with many thousands of wind turbines. This region includes the Prairie Pothole Region sometimes referred to "North America’s duck factory." Encouragement and voluntary regulations have allowed the prairie's ponds and potholes to be invaded by huge deadly turbines and no one has been told about the terrible toll.

With the encouragement and voluntary regulations the profiteers looking to score our tax dollars have nothing to stop them.

Jim Wiegand is an independent wildlife expert with decades of field observations and analytical work. He is vice president of the US region of Save the Eagles International, an organization devoted to researching, protecting and preserving avian species threatened by human encroachment and development.

Bird of Freedom - Handsome Eagle

A Bird of Freedom.

The Handsome Eagle Sent to the Bee by Gothenburg Friends.

The Bee received yesterday a trophy which shall ever be prized and preserved as long as the cylinders of its presses rotate and its hired men rustle with facts. It came in a box by express and is nothing less than a large golden eagle. To one of its feet was tied the following card which in a measure explained all, but left it to be regretted that the details of the killing of the bird were not sent:

Thanksgiving Eagle.

To the Omaha Bee.

Compliments of the boys and proprietor of Hotel Gothenburg. Shot by Steve Kingrey, over the hotel.

Gothenburg, Nebraska.

The eagle is a magnificent specimen, being evidently at full growth and measuring seven feet from tip to tip of wing. It has been given into the hands of a taxidermist and when prepared will be mounted in some prominent place in the office.

November 28, 1885. Omaha Daily Bee 15(136): 8.