Patrick Rice, Shark Defense / Florida Keys Community College This two-headed bull shark fetus was in the womb of a female captured off Florida in April 2011.
We’ve heard of conjoined twins in human babies. Now it has been recorded, apparently for the first time, in a bull shark.
A fisherman trolling off the coast of Florida in April 2011 caught its mother and found multiple fetuses inside, one appearing to have two heads, said a study published in the Journal of Fish Biology on March 25. The clinical name for this is dicephalia, Michigan State said in a media release, also known as axial bifurcation. It happens when the embryo starts splitting in two, as with identical twins, but does not complete the process.
“Each head has five pairs of gills and gill openings, a single pair of eyes, a single pair of nares and a mouth with well-developed dentition,” wrote study so-author Michael Wagner, an assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University, according to the New York Daily News. “The teeth appear both normally formed and the observed dental formula is within the normal range.”
Such sights are rare, partly because animals born with such profound deformities usually die soon after birth, Michigan State said. Since this one was found in the female shark’s womb, it was still alive. However, it did not survive long after the fisherman cut the umbilical cord; its normally developed siblings swam away when released.
It looks not unlike the two-headed trout that turned up a little too close to the mining operations of the J.R. Simplot Company last year and caused a stir.
“This is certainly one of those interesting and rarely detected phenomena,” said Wagner, who worked with colleagues at Florida Keys Community College. “It’s good that we have this documented as part of the world’s natural history, but we’d certainly have to find many more before we could draw any conclusions about what caused this.”
Likewise, he cautioned, the shark’s existence did not say anything concrete about pollutants.
“Given the timing of the shark’s discovery with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, I could see how some people may want to jump to conclusions,” Wagner said in the Michigan State release. “Making that leap is unwarranted. We simply have no evidence to support that cause or any other.”
Photo: Kirk Boxleitner Breann Williams offers interventionary instruction to help get Totem Middle School students up to speed for Algebra I by the eighth grade.
MARYSVILLE — Three years after receiving a less auspicious designation from the state, Totem Middle School has been spotlighted by the League of Education Voters for its significant accomplishments in those intervening years.
League of Education Voters CEO Chris Korsmo explained that the LEV’s 2013 Citizens’ Report Card, which was released on March 26, cited Totem Middle School’s push to up the numbers of students in its higher level math classes, which prepare them for high school and beyond.
“This school’s success is a bright spot for Washington,” Korsmo said. “Their innovation and dedication to helping students reach their potential should be a model for schools across the state.”
Korsmo noted that half of Totem’s students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, and yet almost all of the school’s students take Algebra I before they move on to high school, which he pointed out makes them better prepared to take the math courses that colleges and technical schools look for when admitting students.
Marysville School District Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland expressed his pride in Totem’s staff for helping so many eighth-graders succeed in Algebra, which is traditionally a ninth-grade class.
“They have added extra periods and extra tutoring,” Nyland said of the Totem staff. “They constantly challenge students to step up a notch. They have visited other schools to learn what else they can do. They have developed roadmaps that let students work at their own pace. Totem staff don’t give up. They find a way.”
Totem Middle School Principal Robert Kalahan recalled how, three years ago, Totem received a federal school improvement grant as a “priority school.”
“It was a disheartening designation, because for each of the three years in a row prior to that, we’d seen gains of 11 percent in our reading scores,” Kalahan said. “We were making solid, steady gains in reading, but we realized we hadn’t made any gains in math during that same time. So, we called a state of emergency and got everybody on deck to teach math.”
Totem began by doubling its Algebra classes from 30 to 60 students, and then expanded further by scheduling double-periods of Algebra and working to help an additional 25 students get ready to take the state test. By the time Totem had enrolled nearly 100 eighth-graders in Algebra classes, 89 percent of them passed the end-of-course exam.
“We passed more Algebra students than all the other middle schools in town combined,” Kalahan said. “From there, we asked ourselves what more we could do, which led to us focusing on the sixth- and seventh-graders, to try and give them a math curriculum that would get them ready for Algebra by the eighth grade.”
Additional Algebra classes, further double-periods of Algebra and Totem teachers working on an elective basis to pre-teach Algebra skills soon added up to 180 Algebra students, 80 percent of whom passed the regular Holt curriculum.
“They weren’t as successful as the students the year before, but there were so many more students taking Algebra,” said Kalahan, who confirmed that nearly every eighth-grader at Totem now takes at least an Algebra class. “There’s been concern expressed over whether students are being pushed to take Algebra too early, but my research of our local ninth-graders has found that their learning has continued to accelerate in high school.”
Kalahan credited the success of Totem’s aggressive promotion of Algebra not only to teachers who believe that students can achieve at high levels, but also to teachers who are afforded extra time during the school day to intervene on behalf of struggling students.
“Thanks to the work being done at the Totem and 10th Street middle schools, as well as more students taking eighth-grade Algebra at the Cedarcrest and Marysville middle schools, we are now ahead of schedule in meeting our district goal for students taking and passing eighth-grade Algebra,” Nyland said. “Eighth-grade Algebra is one of our steps to success, as a leading indicator of student success in graduation and college readiness.”
Family photo Nineteen-month-old Chantel Craig died Oct. 8. She and her sister were found in a car on the Tulalip Reservation. The girls were suffering from malnutrition and severe dehydration.
TULALIP — They were asked to inspect the net.
Maybe somehow it can be woven tighter so another little girl won’t fall through, dying before she learns to twirl on tiptoes or color inside the lines or dream of being a princess or a firefighter.
It seems an insurmountable job — searching for all the potential gaps. How do you predict the unimaginable?
It happened in October down a dirt road on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Chantel Craig and her sister were left in a broken down car, going without food or water for days. The toddlers’ world was restricted to the car seats they were kept buckled into. Their bodies were covered with sores, feces and maggots.
Chantel wasn’t breathing. She had no pulse. She suffered, for how long no one can really say, and then her body gave out. Her sister, 3, fought to stay alive.
Chantel died from neglect, five months shy of her second birthday. Her mother, Christina Carlson, is charged with murder.
Last month, state social workers faced tough questions about their interaction with the girl’s family as a team of experts reviewed the circumstances surrounding Chantel’s death. The examination was required by state law. Findings were made public Thursday.
After six hours of discussion the team didn’t find what the state calls “critical errors” on the part of Children’s Administration employees.
Instead, the panelists made some findings and recommendations for the future, mainly focused on what child welfare workers do to locate families. There’s a need for experienced social workers to handle the cases governed by the Indian Child Welfare Act and consistent review by supervisors. And the girls’ case demonstrates the need to more clearly define the responsibilities of state and Tulalip tribal social workers when conducting joint investigations.
The six-member fatality review committee included a medical doctor, a Marysville police detective, a Snohomish County human services manager and three other professionals connected to social services. They asked questions of the state social worker and her two supervisors. Panelists agreed they were there because of a horrible tragedy. Their conversation, however, was tempered. They all work with families, often in crisis. They know others will slip through.
“These reviews are so important,” said Cammy Hart-Anderson, the division manager for Snohomish County Human Services Department. “I volunteer as a way to assist, offering my perspective from the alcohol and drug field.
“I also believe it’s a way to honor the child who died. We’re trying to do something so her death won’t be in vain.”
The law required the state Department of Social and Health Services to convene the search mission into Chantel’s death — to look for any gaps in a system that relies on cops, courts and social workers to save other people’s children and to help patch together families, many affected by generational poverty, addiction and violence.
The Children’s Administration, a division of DSHS, is tasked with completing a fatality review within six months after a child under state care or receiving state services dies unexpectedly, or nearly dies. The idea is to closely examine how state workers were involved with the child and family, and whether policies and practices can be changed to tighten the safety net.
“We would all love to have a system in place where we never have a child in these circumstances,” said Ronda Haun, a critical incident review specialist with the Children’s Administration.
The state invited a Herald reporter to observe the typically closed-door discussion. The reporter agreed not to attribute to individual participants any statements made during the process. The Herald also agreed not to report information about the child or her family that hadn’t already appeared in public records. The newspaper also delayed publishing a story until the review was completed and available to the public on the state’s website.
Tribal law prevented anyone from the tribes to formally participate in the review.
The committee was advised at the start that they weren’t being asked to conduct a forensic, criminal or personnel investigation. They also were reminded of the complex legal framework that limits the actions of state social workers.
The courts have called parental rights natural and sacred, said Sheila Huber, an assistant attorney general who represents the Children’s Administration.
“Parents have constitutional rights when it comes to the care, custody and control of their children,” Huber said.
There are restrictions on when the state can interfere with those rights, she added.
State and tribal social workers had been investigating allegations that Chantel and her sister were being neglected after receiving a call from their grandmother in December 2011.
Generally the law requires state social workers to close a Child Protective Services investigation within three months. In this case, the social worker kept the investigation open for 10 months, citing concerns because of the mother’s past and her lack of contact with her own family. By keeping it open, the state could offer voluntary services to the parents. In a terrible coincidence, state social workers closed the case hours before Chantel died because they hadn’t been able to find her or her mother.
The state social worker last saw the girls on Dec. 14, 2011. There was no evidence then that they were in imminent danger, which would have been necessary to remove them. There also were no signs of abuse or neglect. The social workers agreed to continue to try to assist the family.
About two weeks after the first visit, the tribal social worker learned that the parents weren’t seeking help for their alcohol and drug abuse problems, as they claimed they were.
The fatality review committee last month questioned the state social worker about the protocols followed to locate families. The team was concerned that there appeared to be a stretch of time that no attempts were made to find the children.
Social workers are allowed to check state databases, including the rolls for those receiving state benefits. Police generally aren’t asked to get involved unless there is concern that a child is a victim of a crime.
Relatives told social workers that Carlson likely was hiding from authorities. She had lost custody of at least three other children because of her drug use and neglect, court papers said.
It is unclear if the Tulalip authorities continued to search for the family.
The Tulalips declined to participate in last month’s child fatality review.
Tribal authorities sent a letter to the state, explaining that the Tribes’ own laws prevent anyone from the tribes from commenting on their social service investigations. That is done to protect children and avoid stigmatizing families, tribal officials told The Herald last year.
Tribal social workers are allowed to share sensitive information with state social workers to assist protecting children and to provide them and their families with services. However, tribal laws don’t contain provisions about information-sharing once a child has died. That conflict prevented the tribal social workers from participating in the review.
In the letter, the Tribes asked the panel to begin the review with a prayer, seeking guidance and healing. The daylong session opened with a moment of silence.
The committee acknowledged the challenge of fully understanding the history of the case without input from tribal social workers. They knew that they were only receiving part of the story and would be left with unanswered questions.
“They were asked to look at the state’s work. I think that objective was accomplished by the committee,” said Haun, who served as one of facilitators. “We are not in the position to review the work of the Tulalip Tribes. That is their responsibility.”
The Tulalips and DSHS have an agreement sharing responsibility for child welfare investigations and providing services to Tulalip children. The agreement is meant to define the role of the state and create cooperation between the two governments.
The role of tribal and state social workers varies depending on the local agreements with specific tribes. There are additional layers of complexity because of the state and federal Indian Child Welfare Acts. The laws govern how states should respond to cases involving Indian children and spell out the tribes’ jurisdiction over their children. The federal act was passed in 1978 in response to the disproportionate number of Indian children being removed from their homes and placed in non-Indian homes away from their tribes.
The Tulalips began assuming jurisdiction over dependency cases more than a decade ago. Their child welfare services program, beda?chelh, investigates all reports of child abuse and neglect. This includes any allegations that aren’t accepted for further investigation by the state.
Among the main recommendations, the panelists encouraged the state and the Tulalips to revisit their local agreement for handling child welfare cases. They concluded that state social workers need more clarification about their individual responsibilities.
For example, state workers have protocols to locate families, but aren’t allowed to seek out tribal families without permission from the tribes to be on the reservation.
The team also urged the state to provide more consistency and stability in the unit specifically assigned to investigate allegations involving tribal children. Social workers need to be familiar with the Indian Child Welfare Act. They should be seasoned workers. Increased stability in the unit would go a long way in building relationships with tribal social workers, the group said.
The team also recommended that if a supervisor leaves the unit, the cases should be reviewed by both the outgoing and incoming supervisor to make sure complex cases don’t get overlooked. The team pointed out that the Carlson case hadn’t been reviewed by a supervisor for months. They questioned whether that was because there had been a change in supervisors.
The panelists also concluded that DSHS should make it a priority to hire CPS social workers and supervisors.
Hart-Anderson said she also walked away from the review convinced that more needs to be done to offer drug and alcohol treatment resources to families.
The county used to partner with DSHS and stationed drug and alcohol counselors in local CPS offices. They were an immediate resource for parents. That program was cut about five years ago for lack of funding.
“Alcohol and drugs are so prevalent in so many CPS cases,” Hart-Anderson said.
In the Carlson neglect case, she is accused of leaving her girls alone for hours on Oct. 8 while she tried to contact a drug dealer. Witnesses told investigators that the 36-year-old mother smoked heroin in the car while the girls were in the backseat. Tests showed that the surviving child had been exposed to opiates.
It is hard to fathom a parent’s neglect for a child, Hart-Anderson said.
“Addiction is a very powerful disease, so powerful that some people are not capable of parenting, and their number one priority is their addiction,” she said.
Social workers have an overwhelming job, Hart-Anderson said.
“As a society we don’t appreciate that enough,” she added.
OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee prescribed his plan Thursday for pumping $1.3 billion more into the state’s public school system then challenged lawmakers to buck up and pay for it by ending popular tax breaks and extending taxes set to expire this summer.The first-term governor wants to fund full-day kindergarten in high poverty schools and make preschool available for more children of low-income families.
He also wants to pay for smaller kindergarten and first grade classes, beef up reading intervention and dropout prevention programs and hire 1,400 secondary school teachers in order add courses in middle and high schools.
And he’d pour half of the new money into shouldering a greater share of the bill for school bus service and the purchase of materials and supplies in each school district.
Most of the investment is a first step toward complying with a Supreme Court decision last year that found lawmakers in violation of the state Constitution by not adequately funding public schools.
“To govern, it is said, is to choose,” Inslee said after releasing a broad blueprint of his priorities for the next two-year state budget. “Today, I choose, and I believe we should all choose, education over tax breaks, and to make good on our constitutional and moral duty to quality schools for our children.”
Republicans in the House and Senate didn’t object to how Inslee wants to spend the money only his reliance on taxes to pay for it. They wished he’d looked harder to trim government spending and not put as many dollars into salaries and benefits of state employees.
“I don’t see one on there I can support,” Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler of Ritzville said of the list of tax breaks. “You’re not choosing between kids and tax cuts. You’re choosing between bureaucrats and tax hikes.”
House Democrats said Inslee’s plan spending and tax proposals are on the same scale as the ones in the budget they are writing.
“Overall I think the budget reflected the values of our caucus pretty well,” said House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, D-Covington.
To pay for his education plan, Inslee wants to generate $565 million by repealing or revising 11 tax exemptions most of which have been a political hit list before and survived.
Among them are ones that could lead to bottled water getting taxed and Oregon residents paying sales taxes.
Time and again Thursday, Inslee said it comes down to preserving those breaks or preparing the next generation of engineers and scientists.
“I challenge anyone, anyone in any part of the state in any industry to argue that any single one of these tax breaks is more important than the STEM education of these students,” he said.
Sen. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, serves on the Senate budget committee that will have to approve any of them.
“I don’t think anything is more important than education other than getting our economy going again,” she said. “Adding more taxes on businesses has a dampening effect on growth.”
Inslee also wants to make permanent a hike in the business and occupation tax paid by doctors, lawyers and accountants and a 50-cent-per-gallon tax on beer. He also wants to expand the beer tax to cover all producers; today it only applies to those making in excess of 60,000 barrels a year.
Inslee hopes to bring in $661 million from these taxes which were enacted in 2010 and are set to expire June 30.
Inslee, who campaigned against raising taxes, said his plan doesn’t backtrack on that. He said he repeatedly pledged to close tax break and not seek a general tax increase.
“I am fulfilling on my commitment to the ‘T’,” he said.
For owners of small breweries the change in the beer tax means they the tax they pay on each 31-gallon barrel produced could rise from $4.78 to $20.28.
“We’re going to pass it through and it will go through to the beer drinker,” said co-owner Phil Bannan, co-owner of Scuttlebutt Brewing Co. in Everett. “Beer is a common man’s drink so this is going to hit the common man in the wallet.”
Kegs, which hold 15.5 gallons and cost around $135 apiece today, could go up in price by about $10, he said.
“I don’t disagree with the priority of education,” he said. “But I disagree with his way of solving it.”
What Inslee released Thursday was his spending priorities for the two-year budget which begins July 1.
With a projected shortfall of $1.3 billion, Inslee is proposing to save $321 million by suspending the cost-of-living raises for teachers required under Initiative 732. He also suggests cutting $29.8 million in funding for alternative learning experience programs which cover costs of online and home school programs.
In other parts of his budget proposal Inslee backs full expansion of the Medicaid program. That move, he said, will reportedly save the state nearly $300 million as the federal government picks up the cost of covering the estimated 255,000 adults who could become eligible.
He wants to hire more child and adult protective services caseworkers, restore the 3 percent pay cuts for state employees and put $23.7 million into state parks.
With release of his proposal, Inslee kicked off the budget debate in Olympia.
The Republican-dominated Senate Majority Coalition expects to release its budget early next week followed by the House Democrats.
The 105-day legislative session is scheduled to end April 28.
Dan Bates / The Herald (From left) Susan Marshall, Tanner Bellows and Karrington Jessup relax on a comfy white leather couch, just above the tide line, while they watch the house moving.
MISSION BEACH — Kippy Murphy brought tissues. Her brother, Mike Dutton, brought beer.
It was a sentimental occasion for the Everett siblings. The two-story gray house on the beach where they’d spent decades of summers was being moved across the Sound to Whidbey Island, where it would have a new family.
“I had to come out and have my last beer at the beach house,” Dutton, 53, said Tuesday as he stood on the flat white shore southeast of Tulalip Bay.
It marks the end of an era for generations of tenants of more than 20 homes on a quarter-mile stretch of beach owned by the Tulalip Tribes. The tenants owned the homes, but not the land, and the tribes want to restore it back to natural beaches for use by members.
Tenants had seven years notice to not only vacate the premises, but to take their homes with them. Most houses were stripped and demolished.
Murphy, 46, didn’t want to destroy her family’s summer getaway — a five-bedroom, 3,000 square-foot home built in 1993 to replace a rustic fishing cabin.
“My dad built it to be barged because he knew that eventually the leases would expire,” she said. “Our parents have passed, so it made us feel good to know that we saved the house.”
Murphy and her brother sold it for $1 through the house moving company, Nickel Bros.
“It’s sad,” she said, “but I’m happy that somebody is going to use it.”
The home’s new owners, an Issaquah couple with two young kids, couldn’t be happier.
“It was the perfect house for us,” said Annie Schinnerer. “I’m excited. I can’t wait.”
It cost about $60,000 to move their $1 vacation home to Mutiny Bay in Freeland, she said. “When it’s all said and done, it will be about $150,000, which is still $50 a square foot and a great deal.”
The two families chatted on the beach Tuesday evening as workers bustled around the jacked-up house for its daunting sprint to the nearby barge.
Spectators brought chairs, blankets, beer, dogs and grandkids to watch the work take over place over several hours Tuesday.
A crew of men in orange coveralls and hardhats put planking over the sand using what looked like giant Tinker Toys.
From there, the boxy home was hoisted onto a flatbed truck that had to pull a tight sharp turn away from a retaining wall. The crunch of wooden planks resounded from the home’s weight, stirring the crowd of onlookers armed with cameras at the ready.
The truck lurched forward, groaning. It slowly carried its oversized cargo up a skinny steel ramp tilted over the shore.
Silence prevailed at the precarious spectacle. Would the house topple?
A few people stepped back, just in case.
A cheer erupted when the house rolled onto the barge deck intact.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. The barge got stuck in the sand and couldn’t leave until Wednesday morning.
Duwamish Chairwoman Cecile Hansen has been fighting for federal recognition for her tribe for 36 years. On March 22, a federal district judge ruled the tribe was wrongfully denied federal recognition under the Bush Administration in 2001 giving them another chance.
ICTMN Vincent Schilling
March 28, 2013
Nearly 36 years ago in 1977, the Duwamish Tribe, the people of Chief Seattle, petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs for federal recognition. Originally told their quest to be recognized would probably take only about five years, the Duwamish tribe fell victim to multiple changes in the BIA’s process ultimately ending in denial in 2001. However, the Duwamish now have a second chance at gaining federal recognition.
On Friday March 22, 2013, Seattle federal district court Judge John Coughenour ruled that the Bush Administration’s Bureau of Indian Affairs wrongly denied the Duwamish Tribe of Seattle’s petition for federal recognition in 2001. Citing the denial was “arbitrary and capricious” Judge Coughenour ordered the Bureau of Indian Affairs to re-evaluate the petition.
According to Chris Stearns, (Navajo) Chairman of the Seattle Human Rights Commission and former Attorney for the Federal House Committee on Natural Resources who has followed the progress of the Duwamish, “After a decade-long battle in the courts to get the Bush Administration’s 2001 decision thrown out, Duwamish Tribal Chairwoman Cecile Hansen has won. She didn’t win federal recognition outright, but she now has a shot at least. The Obama Administration will now get a crack at deciding whether the Duwamish should be a federally recognized tribe in Seattle.”
Throughout the entire 36-year quest to be federally acknowledged, the Duwamish have faced several ups, downs and broken promises in the process.
In 1996, Clinton Administration’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Ada Deer, issued a preliminary ruling against the Duwamish. As the Administration was preparing to leave office in January of 2001, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Gover reversed a preliminary finding of Ada Deer against another Washington tribe, the Chinook. His Deputy, Michael Anderson took over for Gover and on January 19, 2001, the last day of the Clinton Administration, Anderson reversed Deer’s preliminary finding against the Duwamish and ordered them recognized.
Anderson personally called Duwamish Chairwoman Cecile Hansen to tell her the tribe was recognized. However, Anderson did not sign his approval statement and returned three days after the Bush Administration had taken over. While waiting in a car outside the Interior Department, Anderson retroactively signed the approval statement which was dated January 19, 2001.
Unfortunately for the Duwamish tribe the new Bush Administration put a hold on all new regulations and determinations that had not yet been published in the Federal Register. The Duwamish approval was held, never made it to the Federal Register, and thus never took effect.
On September 25, 2001, the Bush Administration’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Neal McCaleb, reversed the Anderson approval and formally issued a final decision refusing the Duwamish’s bid to be recognized.
Since 2003, Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott has introduced a bill every two years to restore recognition to the Duwamish which has never made it out of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
According to Nedra Darling, Spokeswoman at the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs, when asked about their stance on the issue, she stated ‘It is the Department of the Interior’s policy not to discuss matters that are currently under litigation.”
In an interview with Indian Country Today Media Network, Chairwoman Cecile Hansen shared her thoughts of a nearly 36-year battle in seeking recognition for her tribe.
How did the petition for recognition begin?
We were fighting for fishing rights and we naïvely believed that we were going to get recognized and get our fishing rights given back. That was the whole point of us getting into this process.
HELENA — A woman’s shawl, laid across a chair, told a story almost too painful for words.
Patty McGeshick, the chairperson of the Montana Native Women’s Coalition and a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, laid the empty shawl over the back of the chair and began a ceremony during Wednesday’s two-day conclave held at the Red Lion Colonial Hotel. The event concludes late this afternoon.
The event is a listening session that focuses on domestic abuse and sexual assault on Native American reservations.
“What this represents is all the women out there who are,” she began and then stopped as though memories would not let her continue. The silence lengthened before she could continue speaking. Her voice was shaky as she said, “living in violence and who need help.
“The ceremony that we’ve done here is to honor them,” she said.
McGeshick asked that those attending the morning session pray for these women. She said she hoped that someday people would live in a violence-free community and in the safety of their own homes.
“We are still living in a time when women and men are still being hurt, still being battered, and it’s really a shameful thing,” she said.
She called upon Native American men to answer the call for help from women in their communities, to answer it on behalf of their mothers, their grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
According to an online account of an October 2011 hearing by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped at least once in their lives and 3 out of 5 will be victims of an assault.
McGeshick cited the statistic on the prevalence of rape before beginning the ceremony and said, “We want people to be accountable if they commit these acts” against Native women.
Gov. Steve Bullock, who delivered opening remarks before Richard Opper, the new director of the state Department of Public Health and Human Services, said, “Whether you are a survivor, an advocate or a policymaker, the work you do every single day does not go unnoticed. Your effort, whether individual or collective, is valued — it is needed, and I hope that you will never stop fighting for what is right.
The rate at which violence occurs in Indian Country is much higher than elsewhere in the state, Bullock said.
“I stand with you and do our part to help the victims who survive, to heal, to support them, to share our strength with them and to let them know that they are not alone. Today, victims no longer have to remain silent and or feel any shame.
“The next generation, and all the generations that follow, must learn that the behaviors that lead to violating others are not something to be proud of. Our prevention efforts must be diligent,” the governor said.
Cathy Cichosz, a member of the Gros Ventre tribe who lives in Hays, which is on the Fort Belknap Reservation, is an Army veteran from some 40 years ago. She was asked to attend the conclave to carry the American flag during the opening ceremony. Native singers with drums provided the backdrop.
Waiting for the conclave to begin, she said that since those days in uniform she worked for seven years to put herself through nursing school in San Francisco then eventually returned home to take care of her ailing mother who would live to be 111.
The conclave, she said, “will make people more aware of what’s going on and hopefully how to prevent it.”
Discussing domestic and sexual violence helps bring it out in the open, she said, instead of having its victims “push it under the rug.”
“It used to be such a shame; they were ashamed to talk about it, go to anybody,” Cichosz said. “It will be more preventable this way.”
The goal of the event is explain what is happening to Native American women and children, said Elaine Topsky, an at-large member of the coalition and a member of the Chippewa Cree tribe who lives on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation.
Topsky is the program director for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in her community, which is a federal block grant program that seeks to help move recipients into work and turn welfare into temporary assistance.
Her program works with about 150 families and affects about 1,000 people, she added.
The isolation of living in small communities on reservations means that violence may go unreported, Topsky said.
A Native woman will endure domestic violence at a higher rate before she is willing to leave the home, said Donny Ferguson, a child advocate with the Rocky Boy’s Children Exposed to Violence Project.
“It’s the way we believe, the way we’ve been conditioned,” Ferguson said. “It’s a normal way of life sometimes.”
Topsky’s efforts on behalf of her agency are to try and keep the family together until the environment becomes abusive.
“As Indian women, our families are who we are,” Topsky said.
“They’re the backbone of the family. It’s their responsibility to keep the family intact.”
Her program offers a variety of services aimed at helping families that are experiencing difficulties to make steps toward improvement. Parenting classes can be one of those steps. Making sure the family’s children are attending school each day can be another one.
Advocates appointed by tribal councils, who are called peacemakers, help to intervene using tribal values to assist families reconcile their troubles.
“That’s one of the best things we’ve ever done,” Topsky added.
McGeshick said the coalition wants to improve local, state and federal relationships so there is better communication on issues of Native women and violence.
She said that she doesn’t see Native women as being more vulnerable to violence as there are other dynamics involved in reservation life where communities are smaller. Others said that help for those involved in violence can take a while to arrive and locating other housing to get a woman out of a home where an abusive situation exists can be difficult as there is a housing shortage in some reservation communities.
All women should be treated with respect, McGeshick said, and those living in these communities should have access to the same services such as domestic abuse shelters that are available to women in more urban communities.
“I want to have all the rights for the Native women as all other women in Montana,” McGeshick said. “We want to have the same rights.”
“I don’t want to draw a line between Native and non-Native women. We’re all women,” she said.
Life on a reservation is rich in culture, rich in beliefs. People are truly tied to the land where generations of their families have lived before them, McGeshick said.
“We have to focus more on our successes rather than out problems,” she said.
Steelhead in the Columbia River Basin are threatened. Current populations have dwindled to a fraction of the historic numbers a century ago. That has led two Northwest Indian Tribes to try something new to help this struggling fish survive. Both tribes are learning from each other along the way.
The snow is almost gone in north Idaho. But it’s still cold, almost freezing on this early morning at the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery near Orofino.
That’s Andrew Pierce with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission or “CRITFC.” He and several dozen Nez Perce tribal members pull large fish from tanks of water. The fish are weighed and measured. Then the eggs and what’s called milt – or semen – are removed. This is all part of an artificial spawning program. The eggs and milt will be combined later in plastic tubes. It’s a process that has a higher success than if the fish were to spawn naturally in the river.
Salmon and Steelhead die in the traditional artificial spawning process which involves killing the fish then surgically removing the eggs and milt.
While salmon die naturally after spawning, Steelhead don’t. They return to the ocean and back to Northwest rivers year after year. Scott Everett is a Nez Perce project manager who says his tribe decided that to maximize the natural process, they needed a method of artificial spawning that didn’t kill the fish. That’s what they are doing here.
“Instead of killing the fish, you’re filling the body cavity with air and that essentially forces the eggs out,” Everett says.
The steelhead are then placed in large tanks for a few weeks to recover. Females that spawn repeatedly are known as kelts. That’s how this program got it’s name – Kelt Reconditioning Program. Everett says the goal is to rebuild the once abundant populations of steelhead that northwest tribes have traditionally relied on along with salmon. Overfishing, water quality and hundreds of dams that make passage difficult for the fish have impacted steelhead numbers over the years.
“We’re hopefully getting enough fish alive that we can actually put them in our reconditioning project here and keep them alive for three to six month or longer and get them back out in the river,” Everett says.
Thats where the Yakama Nation tribe comes in. The central Washington tribe has been using the Kelt Reconditioning Program for 14-years.
Iceberg Point Shoreline, Lopez Island. Photo by Tom Reeve.
Source: Indian Country Today Media Network
On March 25, President Obama established the San Juan Islands National Monument by proclamation. The Islands, a stunningly beautiful archipelago off the coast of Washington state and home to abundant wildlife, will now enjoy the benefits of being a National Monument. The Coast Salish peoples, for which the islands are traditional and hereditary lands, are celebrating Obama’s move.
Patos Island (photo by Linda Hudson)
According to the National Park Service, San Juan Island has been a magnet for human habitation. Its location at the crossroads of three great waterways, plus sheltered harbors, open prairie and secluded woodlands, drew people wanting to stake a life, or find rest and relaxation amid an abundant food source.
The ancestors of today’s Northern Straits Coast Salish people began to appear in the wake of the continental ice sheet that started to recede 11,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence suggests that the island supported hunting and gathering between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago. The marine culture encountered by the first Europeans to the area developed about 2,500 years ago, and traces of its once thriving villages remain in the shell middens found along the shoreline of American and English camps and throughout the San Juan Islands.
Patos Island sunset (photo by Linda Hudson
By early historic times, the indigenous people of the San Juan Islands and nearby mainland areas were primarily members of six Central Coast Salish Tribes who spoke the Northern Straits language: Sooke, Saanich, Songhee, Lummi, Samish and Semiahmoo. Another Central Coast Salish tribe that entered the Northern Straits country spoke the closely related Klallam (or Clallam) language.
In addition to sharing these languages, the Central Coast Salish tribes shared a culture and way of life through which they used a wide range of marine, riverine, and terrestrial resources. They followed patterns of seasonal movement between islands and the mainland and from large winter villages to smaller resource collection camps occupied in the other seasons. Because of the exposure to severe winter winds and storms of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, those sites found within the Cattle Point-Mount Finlayson-South Beach were considered to be more likely seasonal subsistence and resource collection and processing camps, rather than permanent settlements.
The Lummi are one of the Coast Salish peoples whose ancestors lived in the San Juan Islands.
Patos Island Lighthouse (photo by Tom Reeve)
The San Juan Islands National Monument will encompass approximately 75 Bureau of Land Management sites totaling about 1,000 acres in San Juan, Whatcom and Skagit counties. Designation as a National Monument removes these lands from possible sale or development by the Bureau and engages the local community in developing and carrying out a management plan for these lands. Under permanent protection will be dozens of small islands in the San Juans, like Indian Island near the town of Eastsound, that provide breeding grounds for birds and safe refuges for everything from harbor seal pups to rare plants.These lands include ancient fishing sites and camas gardens that are important to Native American culture, and historically important lighthouses on Patos Island and Turn Point.
Also to be protected are popular recreation destinations in the islands like Iceberg Point and Watmough Bay on Lopez Island, Patos Island and Cattle Point on San Juan Island.
Watmough Bight (photo by Steve Horn)
Here is the text of Obama’s proclamation, and visit the monument’s website: SanJuanIslandsNca.org.
Presidential Proclamation — San Juan Islands National Monument
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
– – – – – – –
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Within Washington State’s Puget Sound lies an archipelago of over 450 islands, rocks, and pinnacles known as the San Juan Islands. These islands form an unmatched landscape of contrasts, where forests seem to spring from gray rock and distant, snow-capped peaks provide the backdrop for sandy beaches. Numerous wildlife species can be found here, thriving in the diverse habitats supported by the islands. The presence of archeological sites, historic lighthouses, and a few tight-knit communities testifies that humans have navigated this rugged landscape for thousands of years. These lands are a refuge of scientific and historic treasures and a classroom for generations of Americans.
The islands are part of the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. Native people first used the area near the end of the last glacial period, about 12,000 years ago. However, permanent settlements were relatively uncommon until the last several hundred years. The Coast Salish people often lived in villages of wooden-plank houses and used numerous smaller sites for fishing and harvesting shellfish. In addition to collecting edible plants, and hunting various birds and mammals, native people used fire to maintain meadows of the nutritionally rich great camas. Archaeological remains of the villages, camps, and processing sites are located throughout these lands, including shell middens, reef net locations, and burial sites. Wood-working tools, such as antler wedges, along with bone barbs used for fishing hooks and projectile points, are also found on the islands. Scientists working in the San Juan Islands have uncovered a unique array of fossils and other evidence of long-vanished species. Ancient bison skeletons (10,000-12,000 years old) have been found in several areas, indicating that these islands were an historic mammal dispersal corridor. Butcher marks on some of these bones suggest that the earliest human inhabitants hunted these large animals.
The first Europeans explored the narrows of the San Juan Islands in the late 18th century, and many of their names for the islands are still in use. These early explorers led the way for 19th century European and American traders and trappers. By 1852, American settlers had established homesteads on the San Juan Islands, some of which remain today. In the late 19th century, the Federal Government built several structures to aid in maritime navigation. Two light stations and their associated buildings are located on lands administered by the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM): Patos Island Light Station (National Register of Historic Places, 1977) and Turn Point Light Station (Washington State Register of Historic Places, 1978).
The lands on Patos Island, Stuart Island, Lopez Island, and neighboring islands constitute some of the most scientifically interesting lands in the San Juan Islands. These lands contain a dramatic and unusual diversity of habitats, with forests, woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands intermixed with rocky balds, bluffs, inter-tidal areas, and sandy beaches. The stands of forests and open woodlands, some of which are several hundred years old, include a majestic assemblage of trees, such as Douglas fir, red cedar, western hemlock, Oregon maple, Garry oak, and Pacific madrone. The fire-dependent grasslands, which are also susceptible to invasive species, are home to chick lupine, historically significant great camas, brittle cactus, and the threatened golden paintbrush. Rocky balds and bluffs are home to over 200 species of moss that are extremely sensitive to disturbance and trampling. In an area with limited fresh water, two wetlands on Lopez Island and one on Patos Island are the most significant freshwater habitats in the San Juan Islands.
The diversity of habitats in the San Juan Islands is critical to supporting an equally varied collection of wildlife. Marine mammals, including orcas, seals, and porpoises, attract a regular stream of wildlife watchers. Native, terrestrial mammals include black-tail deer, river otter, mink, several bats, and the Shaw Island vole. Raptors, such as bald eagles and peregrine falcons, are commonly observed soaring above the islands. Varied seabirds and terrestrial birds can also be found here, including the threatened marbled murrelet and the recently reintroduced western bluebird. The island marble butterfly, once thought to be extinct, is currently limited to a small population in the San Juan Islands.
The protection of these lands in the San Juan Islands will maintain their historical and cultural significance and enhance their unique and varied natural and scientific resources, for the benefit of all Americans.
WHEREAS section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431) (the “Antiquities Act”), authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected;
WHEREAS it is in the public interest to preserve the objects of scientific and historic interest on the lands of the San Juan Islands;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Antiquities Act, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are situated upon lands and interests in
lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be the San Juan Islands National Monument (monument), and, for the purpose of protecting those objects, reserve as a part thereof all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States and administered by the Department of the Interior through the BLM, including all unappropriated or unreserved islands, rocks, exposed reefs, and pinnacles above mean high tide, within the boundaries described on the accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part of this proclamation. These reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass approximately 970 acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of the monument administered by the Department of the Interior through the BLM are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public land laws, including withdrawal from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing, other than by exchange that furthers the protective purposes of this proclamation.
The establishment of the monument is subject to valid existing rights. Lands and interests in lands within the monument boundaries not owned or controlled by the Government of the United States shall be reserved as a part of the monument upon acquisition of ownership or control by the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) on behalf of the United States.
The Secretary shall manage the monument through the BLM as a unit of the National Landscape Conservation System, pursuant to applicable legal authorities, to implement the purposes of this proclamation, except that if the Secretary hereafter acquires on behalf of the United States ownership or control of any lands or interests in lands within the monument boundaries not owned or controlled by the United States, the Secretary shall determine whether such lands and interests in lands will be administered by the BLM as a unit of the National Landscape Conservation System or by another component of the Department of the Interior, consistent with applicable legal authorities.
For purposes of protecting and restoring the objects identified above, the Secretary, through the BLM, shall prepare and maintain a management plan for the monument and shall establish an advisory committee under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) to provide information and advice regarding the development of such plan.
Except for emergency, Federal law enforcement, or authorized administrative purposes, motorized vehicle use in the monument shall be permitted only on designated roads, and non-motorized mechanized vehicle use in the monument shall be permitted only on designated roads and trails.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the rights of any Indian tribe. The Secretary shall, in consultation with Indian tribes, ensure the protection of religious and cultural sites in the monument and provide access to the sites by members of Indian tribes for traditional cultural and customary uses, consistent with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. 1996) and Executive Order 13007 of May 24, 1996 (Indian Sacred Sites).
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction or authority of the State of Washington or the United States over submerged or other lands within the territorial waters off the coast of Washington.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish the jurisdiction of the State of Washington with respect to fish and wildlife management.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to limit the authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security to engage in search and rescue operations, or to use Patos Island Light Station, Turn Point Light Station, or other aids to navigation for navigational or national security purposes.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the monument shall be the dominant reservation.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to restrict safe and efficient aircraft operations, including activities and exercises of the Armed Forces and the United States Coast Guard, in the vicinity of the monument.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of the monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
By Carol Berry, Indian Country Today Media Network
Photo by Carol Berry. Edward Nichols, president and CEO of History Colorado, spoke with Terry Knight, a cultural leader of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, at a meeting March 22 of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. The commission has been asked to help foster negotiations between the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and History Colorado in a conflict over consultation for the Sand Creek Massacre exhibit at the History Colorado Center.
When tribes, whose ancestors are the subject of a museum exhibit, are against that exhibit and ask for it to be closed pending further consultation, it’s obvious something is amiss.
Although reluctant in the past to close the exhibit, officials of a Denver museum are now considering it to repair a damaged partnership with the affected tribes.
The controversy focuses on History Colorado Center’s exhibit on the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, when more than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mostly children, women and elders, were killed by U.S. Army volunteers in a southeast Colorado camp where they had been promised safety.
Past meetings with tribal representatives have led museum officials to correct some editorial errors in the exhibit, but that didn’t solve the deeper problem that the officials didn’t consult with tribes as much as they should have.
The Sand Creek Massacre exhibit is a cluster of small chambers with curved walls alight with shifting messages and images that characterize 19th century beliefs about Natives and non-Natives. Throughout the exhibit a recording of the late LaForce Lone Bear singing his ancestor Chief White Antelope’s death song plays. The music is interspersed with muted gunshots and cries. One message in colors shifting from blue to violet on a wall says, “Ve’ho’e is the Cheyenne term for spider as well as for white man. It represents an intelligent mischief-maker or villain.”
The mass killing at Sand Creek is neutrally attributed in the exhibit to a “collision” of cultures, but it was “one of the most heinous crimes committed on the planet,” said David Halaas, former chief historian of the Colorado Historical Society, which preceded History Colorado.
The tribes involved have repeatedly asked—and continue to ask—that the exhibit be closed until they are consulted fully about its content. Although History Colorado officials said recently that a meeting with tribes will be held before the end of March, the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs said it’s waiting to hear from the tribes. The commission has been asked to help negotiate among the government-designated partners overseeing the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site—the National Park Service, the state through History Colorado, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and the Northern Arapaho Tribe.
Although partnered management of the massacre site may not technically extend to the museum exhibit, History Colorado stresses that “partnership with the tribes is what we want to achieve and have enjoyed in the past.”
“They [History Colorado] present quotes that try to tell the story in all its fullness—but this was a massacre,” stressed Halaas, a long-time tribal friend. “They use quotes which seem to explain why the soldiers did what they did—those quotations are unacceptable.” Meetings between the museum and tribes in 2011 and 2012 concerning the exhibit were unsuccessful, he said, and tribal representatives boycotted the center’s opening last April.
Now, closing the exhibit pending tribal consultation and approval is “under consideration,” said Edward Nichols, president and CEO of History Colorado. “We’re as interested in getting to a resolution of their concerns as they are.” He believes not getting the tribes involved sooner is at the heart of the dispute and is anxious for a conversation with them.
There are further complexities to this consultation process. Gordon Yellowman, a principal Cheyenne tribal chief and a Peace Chief on the Cheyenne Council of Forty-Four, said the tribe is governed by a dual traditional/Western-style system. A required federal government-to-government consultation process was established between the National Park Service and elected tribal officials who are, in turn, supposed to bring decisions back to the traditional leaders and headmen to whom they customarily defer, but the process hasn’t run smoothly, he said.
The museum conducts audience surveys to see how the exhibit was received by patrons. But Halaas feels, “they should be more concerned about the reaction of the tribes” both in terms of whether it’s an accurate, non-eurocentric historical account and how well it describes the event’s illegality and its past and present impacts on the tribes.
The most graphic material presented in the exhibit may be in a letter from Capt. Silas Soule, who refused to follow the orders of his commander, Army Col. John Chivington, to fire on the unarmed Indians and who later testified against Chivington for atrocities committed that day. Chivington later resigned his post in disgrace. Soule wrote in a letter to Gen. George Wynkoop, only one copy of which was available to the public at the installation:
“I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized… One squaw with her two children, were on their knees, begging for their lives of a dozen soldiers, within ten feet of them all firing—when one succeeded in hitting the squaw in the thigh, when she took a knife and cut the throats of both children and then killed herself.”
“This is an open wound—this is not healed,” Halaas said. “Let’s sit down together, and while we’re doing that, close this thing and reopen it after full consultation—that’s what the tribes want.”
“After all,” he concluded, “it isn’t their [museum officials’] history—but it’s affected every tribal family.”
