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Elwha River sees largest run of Chinook in decades

Source: The Seattle Times

The largest run of Chinook salmon in decades returned to the Elwha River this fall, according to officials with the Olympic National Park.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — The largest run of Chinook salmon in decades returned to the Elwha River this fall, according to officials with the Olympic National Park.

Fish are streaming into stretches of the Elwha River and its tributaries that were formerly blocked by the Elwha Dam, park officials said Friday on its website.

The Elwha Dam, one of two dams on the river, stood for nearly a century before it came down in 2012.

Removal of the remaining 210-foot tall Glines Canyon Dam resumed last month after nearly a year hold to give officials time to fix problems at new water-treatment facilities built as part of the $325 million river restoration project.

During a one-day survey in September, biologists counted 1,741 adult Chinook and mapped 763 reds between the remnants of the Glines Canyon Dam and the river mouth. About 75 percent of those were spotted upstream of the former Elwha Dam site, park officials said.

The biologists navigated over 13 miles of the Elwha River and tributaries, walking and snorkeling to find living and dead salmon along the river from Glines Canyon Dam to the river mouth. They also surveyed lower portions of three river tributaries, including Indian Creek, Hughes Creek, and Little River.

Results from the survey indicate this year’s Chinook return is one of the strongest since 1992, according to park officials.

Dam removal is scheduled to be complete in 2014.

With the two dams removed, the glacier-fed Elwha River is expected to flow freely as it courses from the Olympic Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Salmon and other fish that mature in the ocean and return to rivers to spawn will once again have access to more than 70 miles of spawning and rearing habitat, much of it within the protected boundaries of Olympic National Park.

Five Division I Basketball Squads Go Turquoise as Tribute to Natives

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Five college basketball teams from four schools will wear turquoise uniforms as a tribute to Natives for Native American Heritage Month. The men’s basketball squads from Oregon State, New Mexico, and Florida State will wear the stylish garb provided by Nike N7, as will both the men’s and women’s teams from the University of Nevada.

“The annual Nike N7 game has had a significant impact on the Oregon State community,” said Craig Robinson, head coach at Oregon State, the school which started the tradition in 2010. “When we first talked about this idea four years ago, we had a unique opportunity with a very special player, Joe Burton, who represented his tribe as the first member to earn a full athletic scholarship with a major university. I’m excited to see other schools embracing the idea because there are so many athletes who will benefit from the awareness we’re creating to provide opportunities for Native American and Aboriginal kids to play sports and be active.”

The other three schools have their own connection to America’s Native population. Florida State works with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which permits FSU to use its tribal name for sports teams. Nevada is the alma mater of Tahnee Robinson, Northern Cheyenne, who was the first Native player drafted by the WNBA and is a Nike N7 Ambassador. The University of New Mexico has ties to the numerous Pueblos and Nations in the state, as well as to the Notah Begay III Foundation, which is also a Nike N7 partner.

The dates on which the teams will wear the special uniforms are as follows:

Nov. 17: Florida State (M)

Nov. 22: Nevada (M)

Nov. 26: Oregon State (M)

Nov. 29: Nevada (W)

Nov. 30: New Mexico (M)

Feds Reach Out to Natives on Climate Change at Tribal Nations Conference

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Building on the participation of tribes announced in President Barack Obama’s recent executive order laying out a plan to deal with climate change, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) announced that it too would partner with the administration.

As the White House Tribal Nations Conference wrapped up, NCAI announced measures to work directly with the federal government to address climate change effects in Indian country.

Several federal officials noted the severe impacts that climate change has had on American Indians and Alaska Natives, the NCAI said in a release. During the conference, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Obama and others spoke directly to those issues in Indian country and about how the government can work with tribal leaders to best address these challenges.

Jewell set the tone for ongoing cooperation, the NCAI said in its statement, by speaking “of the ongoing dialogues we need to have as we work together toward tribal self-determination and self-governance and promoting prosperous and resilient tribal nations.”

Obama, having named Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Karen Diver and Northwest (Alaska) Arctic Borough Mayor Reggie Joule to the new State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, reiterated his commitment to working with tribes on the issues.

“The health of tribal nations depends on the health of tribal lands. So it falls on all of us to protect the extraordinary beauty of those lands for future generations,” he said at the Tribal Nations Conference. “And already, many of your lands have felt the impacts of a changing climate, including more extreme flooding and droughts. That’s why, as part of the Climate Action Plan I announced this year, my administration is partnering with you to identify where your lands are vulnerable to climate change, how we can make them more resilient.”

Obama referred to tribes extensively in the seven-point plan, which he issued on November 1. Many tribes already have action plans in place, since they have been forced to deal early on with the ramifications of a rapidly changing environment.

The NCAI also noted tribal references from Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, who talked about the more than 30 Alaska Native villages “facing imminent threats from rising seas levels,” as well as the ways in which climate change has hindered hydroelectric and other energy projects. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy asked tribal leaders to “help us explain why climate change must be addressed now and why it is our responsibility” to combat it for seventh generation and beyond, the NCAI said.

“It is critically important that tribal leaders are at the table because too often, Native voices are left out of federal conversations around mitigating the effects of climate change,” the NCAI said in its statement. “Indian country faces some of the most difficult challenges stemming from climate change because of the remote location of many tribal lands and, particularly in Alaska, the dependence on the land and animals for subsistence living. NCAI applauds the Administration for this effort and is hopeful that by working together, government-to-government, tribal communities will have the tools necessary to address climate change.”

Tulalip Husky and Cougar fans show their colors

Photos by Monica Brown

TULALIP Wash. – Fridays are usually reserved for Seahawks Blue Friday but this Friday, Tulalip Admin employees decided to sport their Husky or Cougar attire instead.

Click photos to view larger image.

Tulalip Admin Husky fans show their support

They even invited the Coug fans to join their photo

And after the Husky fans piled out of the picture and some of the Coug fans.

Closure scheduled for 88th St. railroad crossing Nov. 15-17

Nov 13, 2013 Marysville Globe

MARYSVILLE — A full closure is scheduled for the weekend of Nov. 15-17 for the railroad crossing at 88th Street NE, west of State Avenue, so that Burlington Northern Santa Fe can install improvements to address poor railway and road conditions.

The closure will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15, and extend into Sunday, Nov. 17, until the work is completed.

Detour routes and variable message board signs will be placed along Interstate 5, advising motorists to use the State Route 528 (Fourth Street) or 116th Street freeway interchanges as alternate routes.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe will perform a full rehabilitation of the at-grade railroad crossing, according to city of Marysville Community Information Officer Doug Buell. The work will involve removing existing ties and track sections across 88th Street NE, and adding new pavement to create a more drivable surface.

During the closure, the westside crosswalk on State Avenue will be closed, but the other three will remain open. However, a railroad flagger will be present to direct pedestrians, when necessary, across the tracks on the south side of 88th Street NE, through a designated pedestrian detour route.

Location of 88th St and State Ave Intersection

National Register of Historic Places Highlights Recent Additions During Heritage Month

U.S. Forest Service Lawetlat'la (Mount St. Helens), spiritually significant to the Yakama and now on the National Register of Historic Places since September 11, 2013. It is shown here before its notorious 1980 eruption. — U.S. Forest Service
Lawetlat’la (Mount St. Helens), spiritually significant to the Yakama and now on the National Register of Historic Places since September 11, 2013. It is shown here before its notorious 1980 eruption.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

It is no secret that many of the officially designated national parks of the United States are thinly disguised Sacred Places for American Indians, and for this year’s Native American Heritage Month, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is highlighting that connection.

“The National Register of Historic Places is pleased to promote awareness of and appreciation for the history and culture of American Indians and Alaska Natives during National American Indian Heritage Month,” the government agency says on its website.

Highlighted in particular this month are some new additions: Lawetlat’la, known to many as Mount St. Helens in Washington State, and  Wassillie Trefon Dena’ina Fish Cache,  in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

Lawetlat’la was officially added to the National Register on September 11, 2013, because of its spiritual and cultural significance to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the Yakama Nation. It is “directly associated with the traditional beliefs of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the Yakama Nation regarding origins, cultural history, and nature of the world,” the National Register said on its website, recognizing that “those beliefs are rooted in tribal history and are important in maintaining the cultural continuity of the tribal community.”

It was a designation that took several years to obtain and came about through the joint efforts of the Cowlitz Tribe and staff at the Gifford Pinchot Forest, the Yakama said in its September newsletter. It is one of 23 sites on the National Register of Historic Places that are labeled as Traditional Cultural Properties, and Mount St. Helens is just the second one in Washington, the Yakama said. The first was Snoqualmie Falls in Snohomish County, the tribe said.

“The listing of Lawetlat’la as a Traditional Cultural Property honors our relationship with one of the principal features of our traditional landscape,” the tribe said. “For millennia, the mountain has been a place to seek spiritual guidance. The mountain has erupted many times in our memory, but each time has rebuilt herself anew. She demonstrates that a slow and patient path of restoration is the successful one, a lesson we have learned long ago.”

For its part, the Wassillie Trefon Dena’ina Fish Cache, placed on the National Register on June 5, 2013, is “the last best example of the traditional Dena’ ina Athabascan fish cache in the Lake Clark-Iliamna area,” the NPS said, adding that it’s possibly the best example of a southwestern Alaska Native log cache extant in the region surrounding Bristol Bay.

“While this kind of log fish cache formerly was ubiquitous in Dena’ina and inland Yup’ik villages, hunting and trapping camps and summer fish villages they have now largely disappeared from the scene,” the NPS said. “The elevated log fish cache was very common in nineteenth century Bristol Bay upland villages for the preservation of large numbers of dried salmon many of which were dog fish which meant they were for consumption by sled dogs. The species of this kind of salmon was the most common Oncorhynchus nerka also known as red or sockeye salmon.”

Wassillie Trefon Dena’ina Fish Cache (Photo: Courtesy National Register of Historic Places/National Park Service)

The craftsman, Wassillie Trefon, is as famous as the type of structure. He “was acknowledged to be a master woodworker by his peers and the present generation in Nondalton in the art of traditional Dena’ina woodcraft,” the NPS said. “Wassillie Trefon built all his own log houses and caches for his family at Miller Creek, Tanalian Point, Old Nondalton and Nondalton.”

The National Register of Historic Places is an outgrowth of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, created to help identify and protect historic and archaeological sites. Much more information about the National Register and its relationship to Native American Heritage Month, including a teaching guide, can be found at the NPS web page devoted to the topic, National Register of Historic Places Program: National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month November 2013.

Native Leaders Air Concerns at White House Tribal Nations Conference

By: Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network, November 14, 2013

The true potential of the Obama administration’s White House Tribal Nations Conference – now in its fifth year – was on display November 13 when tribal leaders were finally invited to publically criticize and question federal agency shortcomings on decisions affecting American Indian citizens.

At past conferences tribal leaders often felt frustrated that their concerns were only allowed to be offered behind closed doors and were sometimes limited to being in writing due to time constraints. Those realities led to less accountability and transparency from the administration on tribal matters, several leaders at this conference said, resulting in negative budget consequences for tribes and harm to tribal sovereignty.

Some tribal leaders have felt so stifled and controlled at previous Obama administration meetings that some who attended in the past chose not to attend this year. Edward Thomas, president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, said he was concerned this conference would turn into another “photo op and publicity staged event as opposed to one where we have the opportunity to tell [the president] directly that his team in not carrying out his promises to Native Americans,” so Thomas cancelled his plans to be there. Several tribal leaders have expressed distress to the administration about the costs of travelling to Washington, D.C. for events where Indian objectives receive little attention beyond lip service.

Tribal leaders say there have been very real consequences to the past tight administrative control of these conferences. American Indian nations have often been portrayed in mainstream press reports about these conferences as mindless cheerleaders of the administration’s policies, with their criticism left without widespread attention. The reality is that many Democratic tribal leaders are strongly supportive of the president and his team, but there is a wide divergence in the beliefs of even Democratic tribal leaders when it comes to how the administration has treated tribes.

Diane Enos, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, noted in a rare public question-and-answer session with agency officials this year that there is deep mistrust among Indian citizens of the federal government due to historical injustices, so it is “scary for tribal nations to be asked to cooperate with the federal government” even given an administration that has done some positive things for tribes, including achieving a stronger tribal Violence Against Women Act and a permanently reauthorized Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

Throughout the day-long conference this year, both in closed sessions and in ones open to the press, tribal leaders pummeled administration officials with concerns, especially regarding a plan by the administration to cap contract support costs (CSC) reimbursements to tribes, despite Supreme Court rulings calling for reimbursement. Tribal leaders said the Departments of Health and Human Services and Interior have both shirked responsibility on paying CSC settlements owed to tribes. Beyond CSC, tribal leaders balked over lacking federal support for Indian education, initiatives by the IRS to unjustly tax tribes, and the administration’s support of budgetary sequestration on tribal money that is supposed to be protected as part of the trust and treaty responsibilities the federal government has committed to tribes.

“We need our trustee to be worthy of our trust,” Brian Cladoosby, newly elected President of the National Congress of American Indian and chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, told agency officials sitting on the new White House Council on Native American Affairs at one point in the day. Other tribal leaders lamented publicly that the council needs an Indian-focused director to guide its often-unwieldy work, and they said they wished the council included Native Americans because it seems paternalistic that it does not.

If agency leaders were unaware that tribes have multiple problems with the administration’s decisions on tribal matters before the event, they were quite clear by the end of the day. “Today was some tough love, but families need to have those conversations,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy told tribal leaders after hearing their concerns throughout the early portion of the conference.

In response to tough budget and sequestration questions publicly raised by Juana Majel Dixon, a longtime leader with the Pauma Band, Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the next budget process is underway now, and “everybody has their eye on what’s happening in Indian country.” Dixon responded that Indian country needs to have a Native American leader at the Office of Management and Budget’s table in order to ensure that egregious errors like the CSC cap budget proposal do not happen again.

In all, over 300 tribal leaders, some elected and some leaders of tribal organizations, attended the conference, which President Barack Obama said in an afternoon speech was the most ever for this event.

Obama in the past has used the conference to personally present new tribal initiatives, including an executive order calling for increased agency consultation with tribes and one on Indian education. This year the major news from the president was that he planned to visit Indian country sometime in the next year. He has not visited a reservation since campaigning for president in 2008, which has disappointed many tribal citizens who feel he needs to see with his own eyes the plight of many Indian nations to fully understand the relief that is needed. White House spokesman Shin Inouye said “more details will be released at a later date” regarding the president’s planned trip.

Obama also said he was well aware of tribal concerns. “[T]here’s more we can do to return more control to your communities,” the president said in his speech, adding that he is urging Congress to reauthorize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act and to pass a long-awaited Carcieri fix on land-into-trust issues.

“[W]e’ve heard loud and clear your frustrations when it comes to the problem of being fully reimbursed by the federal government for the contracted services you provide, so we’re going to keep working with you and Congress to find a solution,” the president said to major tribal applause. “That’s all going to be part of making sure that we’re respecting the nation-to-nation relationship.”

Tribal leaders at the conference generally said they were happy to hear the president is aware that all is not perfect on the federal-tribal relations front, and that he is willing to do more to right the wrongs.

“I recognize that no sitting United States president has ever reached out to Indian country like we have experienced since President Obama took office in 2008,” said Derek Bailey, who attended the meeting as a member of the National Advisory Council on Indian Education and as a representative of the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan. “He has never swayed from his pledge to engage Indian country and our tribal leadership and to implement positive American Indian and Alaska Native policies that have been developed through tribal consultation and interaction.”

Gale warning for Western Washington

Source: Shawn R. Edge, Tulalip Police Department

Washington Weather Service issued a Gail warning for today and tomorrow from 1pm 11/15/2013 to 8am 11/16/2013. It is predicted that there will be high winds at this time.

They Eat Horses, Don’t They? Bucking the Slaughterhouse Ban on Horses

Kevin Taylor, Indian Country Today Media Network

You can lead a horse to a slaughter … or can you?

In the United States, the answer is, Not yet.

An federal appellate court in Denver late Monday issued an emergency injunction on behalf of the Humane Society of the United States and other groups opposed to the practice of killing horses for food. The injunction blocks another federal judge’s ruling from Friday that cleared the way for three meatpacking plants to resume horse slaughter for the first time in six years — a move that was both supported and opposed by Native Americans.

“Horse slaughter is a predatory, inhumane business, and we are pleased to win another round in the courts to block killing of these animals on American soil for export to Italy and Japan,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States in a statement. “Meanwhile, we are redoubling our efforts in Congress to secure a permanent ban on the slaughter of our horses throughout North America.”

It seems unusual to say “win another round” when Judge Christina Armijo of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico on Friday dismissed a lawsuit brought last summer by Pacelle’s HSUS, Front Range Equine Rescue and about a dozen more animal welfare groups and several individual Native Americans.

The suit argued that the permits issued to the packing plants required environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Armijo ruled that NEPA did not apply when an agency’s action, in this case USDA health inspection, was mandatory. She also noted in her ruling that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted the emergency injunction Monday, had reached the same conclusion about NEPA in a different case.

Even as he vowed to join the appeal, make “a full rush with Congress” and lobby states to prohibit horse slaughter, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told USA Today over the weekend, “The odds are not that good about stopping this, but it’s not over.”

The injunction prevents horse slaughter until the appeal is heard.

One plant, in Roswell, N.M., has stock waiting in Texas feedlots and was ready to open next week. “After talking to the USDA today (Monday, Nov. 4), they said they could have inspectors available by the 11th,” said Rick De Los Santos, owner of Valley Meat.

Rick De Los Santos, owner of Valley Meat (AP)

GROWING ISSUE IN THE WEST

Slaughter affects about 2 percent of the estimated 7 million horses in the United States annually. This is a rough estimate as there has not been a census of horses since 2004, according to Nat Messer, DVM, professor of equine medicine and surgery at University of Missouri. The stereotype that has broke-down racehorses or work horses shipped off to a meat-packing plant or glue factory at the end of their days is outmoded. The racing industry and breed associations have reacted to bad publicity by striving to better control the number of horses bred each year, Messer said. There has also been a rise in retirement farms or therapeutic riding programs as a slaughter alternative for older horses. Unregistered horses, whether they be work horses or riding horses, appear to comprise the majority of horses sent to packing plants.

And slaughter has not stopped since Congress essentially banned it in 2006 by stripping funding for USDA inspectors. It has moved across the borders to Canada and Mexico, where between 140,000 and 160,000 U.S. horses have been shipped every year since the domestic slaughter plants closed, according to information from Stephen MacDonald, Agricultural Economist with the office of USDA Economic Research.

But across the arid and semi-arid West — much of Indian Country, in other words — the question of what to do with too many wild, feral or unwanted horses is still a thorny one where there is far less control over equine population and where the big, charismatic animals find themselves in a complex emotional, historical and cultural landscape.

“One of the dilemmas we have is that the horse plays a very important, traditionally intricate role in our society. If it wasn’t for the horse, we probably wouldn’t be the people that we are,” said Harry Smiskin, chairman of the Yakama Nation in Washington state.

The Yakama, early adopters of the horse among Plateau Culture tribes, is among several tribes that came out this year in support of reopening equine slaughter plants. The tribe estimates the number of wild or feral horses on the reservation has grown to 12,000 since the Congressional ban.

“The dilemma we are facing is that these wild horses, or feral horses, are causing severe degradation to the natural resources of our land. As American Indian people, the native people of the land, we utilize a lot of the plants, the herbs and roots from Mother Earth. When you walk onto the landscape of Yakama Nation rangeland, it becomes a moonscape because the horses come through there and what they don’t eat off, they trample down to bare dirt,” Smiskin said. In central Washington’s semi-arid shrub-steppe habitat, the landscape “is definitely fragile. We have spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to manage this fragile ecosystem that we have to keep it in balance, and with the horse right now it is completely out of balance.”

Another tribal leader, President Ben Shelly of the Navajo Nation, also came out in support of the reopening of horse slaughter plants in late summer. His reasoning echoed Smiskin’s.

“The horse is a sacred animal to our people. They have their own songs, they have their own prayers,” he told Indian Country Today in August. “We also believe we need to balance our life, balance our resources. Right now it’s out of balance — there’s too many horses. We can only hold 30,000 and now we’re in the 75,000-plus.”

Shelly, too, described degradation of natural resources and stress on water in drought years. He testified before the Bureau of Land Management’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board in Arlington, Va., in September that the growing feral horse population was a financial burden on the tribe (more than $200,000 a year in damage control) and that the federal agencies were not living up to trust responsibilities to help the tribe manage its natural resources.

Wranglers cornered and captured five free-roaming horses in Manuelito, New Mexico. In Navajo territory, parched by years of drought and beset by poverty, one feral horse consumes 5 gallons of water and 18 pounds of forage a day. (Diego James Robles)

NAVAJO LEADER’S REVERSAL

Shelly in August authorized roundups of feral horses, even appropriating copy.4 million to the tribal Department of Agriculture for the task. Various communities on the sprawling reservation held roundups that gathered 1,600 horses. The tribe sells to individuals, not packing plants, but it is widely assumed that buyers had most of those horses trucked over the border to meet their fate in a Mexican slaughterhouse.

Many Navajo were outraged by Shelley’s stand. “This is a Shameful Time in Indian Country! And because of your Support of “Valley Meat Company” Horse Slaughtering Plant, I have Lost ALL my Respect for the NCAI & for the Leadership of the Navajo Nation.,” one Navajo tribal member wrote in a Facebook post.

The NCAI, National Congress of American Indians, passed a resolution in late summer supporting domestic horse slaughter and calling for a line item in the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget specific to management of overpopulation of feral horses on reservations.

Shelly was battered by criticism from traditionalists and elders.

“The healing people,” said Leland Grass of Diné for Wild Horses. “We are going to fight this to the very end.”

Grass spoke to Indian Country Today recently by cell phone atop his horse, Blondie, a captured mustang, during a three-day ride to Tuba City with other Nohooka’ Diné — Elders and Medicine People of the Diné — to perform a healing ceremony for horses.

After Shelly came out in support of horse slaughter, Grass and other healers denounced the decision in a resolution that called for Shelly to “stop the desecration and destruction of the Dine’ Way of Life and Spiritual Foundation by recklessly promoting and supporting the round-up and mass execution of our spiritual relative the Horse.”

The roundups were controversial as tribal members reported horses injured or exhausted as they were hazed by ATVs and dirt bikes.

Opposition mounted throughout the fall, during election season. Then, a month ago, Shelly did an abrupt about-face, announcing a Memorandum of Understanding to oppose slaughterhouses that he agreed to with former governor Richardson. Richardson last summer co-created The Foundation To Protect New Mexico Wildlife with actor and environmentalist Robert Redford specifically to oppose horse slaughter.

Richardson met Shelly at the Northern Navajo Fair in Shiprock in early October. They spent the weekend hashing out the horse issue in nearby Farmington, just off the reservation, and announced a proposed MOU that would reject slaughter and instead focus on adoption and birth control among tools to control horse population.

The MOU was expected well before the end of October but, as of Monday, Nov. 4, “is still being negotiated,” said Navajo spokesman Erny Zah.

According to some ranchers, to control the overpopulation of feral horses, there are two options: slaughter, or their own slow death by thirst or disease. (Diego James Robles)

‘FORCED TO BOARD HORSES’

“We were not happy to hear about that,” Smiskin of the Yakama said about Shelly’s reversal.

The Yakama and two nearby Oregon tribes, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, have tried slaughter alternatives such as those proposed in the MOU: roundups for adoption and castration of stallions, they considered birth control for mares, all of which they say are costly in time and dollars for little return.

Gordy Schumacher, Natural Resources program manager for the Umatilla, said the reservation in northeastern Oregon has seen increasing numbers of horses simply dumped by owners who could no longer afford them in the recession, and as the price of hay has tripled in recent years.

The tribe launched a roundup for adoption last year. Only 17 horses were captured. Two injured horses were given to a sanctuary, most of the rest were auctioned but interest was so slim that the last six were simply given away to new owners. “Five of those wound up back on the reservation,” Schumacher said.

Eddie Gunnier, a Yakama tribal member, has done horse trapping, said when the domestic slaughterhouses closed in 2007 the greater shipping distances to Mexico or Canada forced buyers to slash prices. The reduced price versus high costs of gasoline essentially ended horse trapping save for tribal population-control experiments. The castration of stallions was an experiment that ended quickly, he said.

Gunnier and Smiskin said the Yakama considered injections of a birth control drug for wild mares, but balked at the cost as mares would have to be repeatedly rounded up and injected as the drug wore off.

Smiskin said even a slaughterhouse in New Mexico may not be economically feasible. He said area tribes may revive a discussion to site a packing plant closer to the interior Northwest. A proposal for such a plant in Hermiston, Ore., was withdrawn last year after much opposition.

Such opposition to slaughter leaves tribes holding the bag, said John Boyd, a New Mexico attorney who represented the Yakama Nation in the federal lawsuit. “People who don’t want to see any horse slaughtered for any reason — you have Robert Redford and Bill Richardson and anti-animal cruelty organizations — saying you must not slaughter the horses, you must not do this. … In essence, tribes will be forced to support loss of environment, loss of native plants and board a huge population of horses for the emotional benefit of well-meaning horse lovers who are not prepared to fund any sort of solution.”

Smiskin added, “The horse is very important to our culture and traditions. We always want to have a number of those. However, the wild horse was degrading our range areas where a lot of our Indian foods and our medicinal plants grow. You weigh the priority, and right now we think Indian food — those roots that grow in the ground wild up there — are just as important as the wild horses.

“We don’t intend to eliminate our wild herd. We intend to bring it down to a manageable level.”

This April 15, 2013, file photo shows Valley Meat Co., which has been sitting idle for more than a year, waiting for the Department of Agriculture to approve its plans to slaughter horses. A federal appeals court on Monday, November 4, 2013, temporarily halted plans by companies in two U.S. states to begin slaughtering horses, continuing on-again, off-again efforts to resume domestic equine slaughter two years after Congress lifted a ban on the practice. (AP Photo/Jeri Clausing, File)

NFL still dragging its feet on racial matters

Members of the America Nazi party demonstrate against desegregating the Washington Redskins football team in 1961.

By Vince Devlin, Buffalo Post

Offended that the professional football team headquartered in our nation’s capital still uses a racial slur as its team mascot?

Then you may not be surprised with what was going on with Washington’s NFL franchise in 1961, as Indian Country Today Media Network reported while pointing out a photograph resurrected by Mother Jones magazine.

Back then, the football team owned by the late George Preston Marshall was the last all-white squad in the NFL, and American Nazis marched to encourage him to keep it that way.

One of the signs they held says, “Mr. Marshall, Keep Redskins White!”

When it comes to offensive statements, that would seem the equivalent of piling on. It is relevant today, as ICTMN noted, because current owner Dan Snyder is battling to keep Redskins as the team nickname. (Mother Jones, by the way, refuses to, and redacts the nickname in its stories.)

Both sites refer to Thomas G. Smith’s 2012 book, “JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins,” where Smith wrote that Marshall was as upset about the federal government forcing him to integrate (Washington’s stadium is on federal land) as he was at the prospect of diversity.

“Why negroes particularly?” he asked. “Why not make us hire a player from another race? In fact, why not a woman? Of course, we have had players who played like girls, but never an actual girl player.”

The Kennedy administration gave Marshall a choice: let black players on his team, or go find another stadium to play in. The team was integrated, but more than half a century later, many believe Washington’s NFL team is still dragging its feet on racial matters.