Opinion ID: 213533
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Option 1: Opening the Permitting Process to All Adherents of Native American Religion

Text: The district court held that the government could broaden permit eligibility to all sincere adherents of Native American religion, and thus alleviate the burden on Wilgus' religious exercise. As a threshold matter, this solution would unquestionably lessen the burden upon Wilgus' religious exercise, because he would be as able as any other follower of Native American faiths to apply to the Repository for eagle parts. It goes almost without saying, though, that he would then be subject to the same delays in receiving eagle feathers from the Repository that members of federally-recognized tribes must currently endure. The manner in which he obtained his feathersgifts from Native American religious practitionerswould still be prohibited under the Eagle Act. The question, thus, is how well this alternative forwards the government's two compelling interests. It is self-evident that the net effect of this change would be to increase the number of permit applications received by the Repository. We are sympathetic with the difficulty faced by the district court in arriving at a number for how many additional applicants, situated similarly to Wilgus, might be waiting out there to apply for permits. But at the very least, Wilgus and his prior co-defendants Saenz and Hardman would have applied for permits, and we have no difficulty inferring from the evidence presented on remand that a non-trivial number of additional applicants would appear, if the rules were changed. This increase in applications would likely not affect the government's compelling interest in eagle protection. After all, the Eagle Act itself does not allow the Secretary of the Interior to issue any possession permits unless to do so would be compatible with the preservation of the bald eagle or the golden eagle. 16 U.S.C. § 668a. Thus, no matter how many religious practitioners apply for permits, and no matter how long the waiting list for eagle parts becomes, the number of permits granted may never, by law, rise to a level that threatens the preservation of the species. It is true that, as wait times at the Repository grow, more Native Americans may opt out of the legitimate system and turn to the black market, but we see demand for eagle feathers to be essentially a zero-sum game. Some tribal members may turn to the black market, but at the same time some non-members who would have relied upon the black market would turn to the Repository and the permitting system. And without hard data, we cannot say conclusively whether the one group would outnumber the other. Therefore, under the text of § 668a, we do not feel that this option would impact the governmental interest in protecting eagles. However, the second governmental interestthe fostering and protection of the culture and religion of federally-recognized tribescould be drastically impacted if we were to adopt the district court's alternative. Members of federally-recognized tribes already face long wait times for eagle parts from the Repository, and adding applicants in Wilgus' position would make those wait times longer. Thus, the district court's alternative would in fact harm the very population that § 668a was designed to help. And it would do so in order to help non-tribal practitioners of Native American religion, a group not encompassed within the compelling governmental interest supporting the Eagle Act. Therefore, this option would not forward the government's compelling interest in protecting the religion and culture of federally-recognized Indian tribes. [9] This option also has the additional disadvantage of presenting significantly greater enforcement problems than the current regulatory scheme. Under the district court's proposed amendment to the regulatory scheme, if an FWS agent catches a suspect in possession of eagle feathers, that suspect can then claim that he is a sincere follower of Native American religion. The unlucky FWS agent would then be cast in the role of religion cop, and would be forced to decide whether the suspect is being truthful about his religious beliefs, or is in fact a black marketeer using Native American religion as a smokescreen. At present, the district court noted, [FWS] agents can be fairly certain that a person who is not Native American who possesses eagle feathers does so illegally. Wilgus, 606 F.Supp.2d at 1324-25. The district court's option would eliminate even that admittedly imperfect gauge of the legality of an individual's possession, and replace it with a religious litmus test that it is highly unlikely rational FWS agents would even attempt to apply. ( See Apl't App. at 63 [Affidavit of FWS Special Agent Lucinda Schroeder] (I have never questioned the religious claim made for the use of eagle feathers due to the great difficulty in ever successfully doing so.).) On balance, then, we hold that the district court's preferred alternative regulation schemeopening the permitting process to all sincere practitioners of Native American religionwould fail to advance the government's compelling interest in preserving the religion and culture of federally-recognized Indian tribes. It would, in fact, do that interest a disservice. We therefore reject it.