Ray Ring

Senior Editor

On first impression, it looks like federal prosecutors need something better to do — such as, amid the scandals of the Bush administration puppeteering its own Justice Department, the prosecutors could investigate themselves.

But instead, they’re trying to bust a Northern Arapaho man, again, for his shooting a Wyoming bald eagle to obtain feathers for a Sun Dance religious ceremony.

The Arapaho, Winslow Friday, already beat the charge once, last October. He persuaded Judge William Downes that his right to practice his religion outweighed Endangered Species Act protections for eagles. Downes found that the federal procedure for granting Indians permission to kill eagles — or to use roadkilled eagles stockpiled in a federal depository — was so cumbersome, it showed “callous indifference” to Indian religions. High Country News had a summation of that ruling and its effects on tribes and eagles around the West.

Now the AP reports, “Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice filed a 50-page brief in the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver last week arguing that Downes’ ruling dismissing the charges was wrong.” Here’s the AP update.

Beyond the first impression, the government’s case might not be entirely heavy-handed. The feds say they grant permits for Indians to kill more than 40 eagles every year, and if the 2,000 Indians applying to take eagles every year were all given the OK, that would threaten the viability of the eagle population, now estimated as 7,700 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states.

It’ll be interesting to watch this argument continue to unfurl in courts. There may be a reasonable middle ground — upping the allowed take, without removing limits altogether. Sometimes, arguments lead to progress … And in the By The Way Department, the feds are also providing a defense attorney for Winslow Friday.