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Struggling to meet demand for sacred frozen eagles
NBC News Clone summarizes the latest on: Struggling Meet Demand Sacred Frozen Eagles Flna737019 - Breaking News | NBC News Clone. This article is rewritten and presented in a simplified tone for a better reader experience.
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist, inspects a Bald eagle at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26. The feathers from a bird such as this are the most sought after by Native American Indian tribes.Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist walks through a freezer containing eagles ready for shipment at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado March 26. Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and employees at the National Eagle Repository provide them with feathers, wings and talons - and in some cases whole carcasses - for religious rituals. But the Indians' demand outstrips the repository's supply. Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others.Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist, inspects a Bald eagle at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26. The feathers from a bird such as this are the most sought after by Native American Indian tribes.Rick Wilking / Reuters
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist, inspects the feathers around an eagle's foot at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26.Rick Wilking / Reuters
Reuters reports -- A wildlife specialist splays the wings of a dead golden eagle shipped in from New Mexico and is pleased by what he sees.
"This one is an awfully good bird," Dennis Wiist of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. "There's not too much damage, which is extremely rare."
Wiist will bag the eagle, freeze it and then have it delivered to a waiting Native American Indian tribe.
Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and Wiist and his colleagues at the National Eagle Repository provide them with feathers, wings and talons - and in some cases whole carcasses - for religious rituals. But the Indians' demand outstrips the repository's supply.
Dennis Wiist, Wildlife Repository Specialist (background), inspects an eagle at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado on March 26, as adult Golden eagle wing feathers ready for shipping are displayed in the foreground.Rick Wilking / Reuters
Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others. But it gets more than 3,000 requests a year for whole birds or parts. There are some 6,000 entries on the waiting list.
"We just don't have the supply. Our inventory is stretched," said Bernadette Atencio, supervisor of the program for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The repository, located about 10 miles from downtown Denver, was established in the 1970s to meet the needs of American Indians but some don't want to rely on it because it can take so long to get a bird, even as the population of bald eagles has largely recovered from the threat of imminent extinction.
A sign at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Eagle Repository shows the numbers of requests for eagle parts in 2011 in Commerce City, Colorado March 26.Rick Wilking / Reuters
