Chris Tucker/Peninsula Daily News files Pullers from the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, front, paddle their canoe toward a ceremonial landing Monday in Neah Bay. Eighty-six canoes from across the Pacific Northwest joined in the 2010 Tribal Canoe Journey. Nine people were rescued Monday off Port Townsend after their canoe overturned in Salish Sea waters during the annual journey.
Source: Associated Press
SEATTLE — Nine people were rescued Monday off Port Townsend after their canoe overturned in Salish Sea waters during the annual Intertribal Canoe Journey.
The U.S. Coast Guard says there were no serious injuries. Some of them experienced mild hypothermic conditions after being in the frigid waters.
The Coast Guard says the first calls to 911 came in around 7:30 Monday, apparently from someone in the water. The capsized canoe was also spotted by a passing cargo ship that saw people waving their arms.
The Coast Guard deployed a helicopter and a 45-foot response boat that reached the group in the water.
For more than two decades, Native American tribes in Washington state, Alaska and British Columbia embark on a canoe journey to honor their culture in the region, visiting different coastal towns.
The tiny creatures had been abandoned and left to their nest as the wildfire raged closer in the Sierra National Forest in mid-June.
Too young to fly, two newborn Western screech owls could not escape the flames on their own. But no one knew they were there until the tree they were hiding in was felled to form part of the fire control line. The birds tumbled out of their nest onto a roadway, the U.S. Forest Service reported in a July 18 blog entry.
Two firefighters saw them, scooped them up and summoned assistance, which brought Anae Otto, a wildlife biologist for the Sierra National Forest’s Bass Lake Ranger District.
“My heart was racing when I received the report of owls on the ground in the Carstens Fire,” Otto told the forest service after making the 2.5-hour drive to retrieve the birds. “I was concerned because there were no details as to how old they were, how long they had been exposed, etc. I was relieved to find the owlets alive and in fair condition. So much of my daily work deals with habitat protection. It was very rewarding to provide direct assistance to an animal in need.”
Otto estimated they were between two and three weeks old. She wrapped them in a towel and brought them home overnight, the forest service said, then called for reinforcements the next day. That brought in wildlife rehab specialist Terri Williams, a volunteer for the Fresno Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Service.
Now the two owls, dubbed Puff and Fluff, are being cared for until they can fly. At last report they were chowing down daily on 25 crickets, two mice and a chick.
It was a heartwarming moment in a wildfire season fraught with tragedy at the death of 19 firefighters in Arizona in June. (Related: Hero Firefighters Named, Mourned, in Arizona)
The Western screech owl, Megascops kennicottii, is plentiful over the western half of Turtle Island, although, as with their brethren the spotted owl, their habitat has been encroached upon by the barred owl as well as eroded by logging and development. (Related: Pot-Farm Raticide May Be Killing Spotted Owls; Hoopa Tribe Investigates)
Puff and Fluff will grow to be 7½ to 10 inches long, according to information on the species from the Arizona Game and Fish Department. They will weigh between four and seven ounces, and their wingspan will reach 21 inches or so, the department said.
The Carstens fire raged for 10 days between June 16 and June 26, according to CalFire, the website for California fire incidents. It burned 1,708 acres in total, including acreage in the Sierra National Forest.
The Obama Administration has proposed new regulations for hydraulic fracturing on 756 million acres of public and tribal lands. The rules were written by the drilling industry and will be streamlined into effect by a new intergovernmental taskforce, established by the president, to promote fracking — a practice that has been linked to water poisoning, air pollution, methane emissions and, most recently, earthquakes. Environmentalists, many of whom are highly skeptical that fracking can even be regulated, hope to use a brief window for citizen participation in the rule approval process to leverage the growing anti-fracking movement.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — the government agency that manages the public lands in question — follows a dual and often conflicting mandate. Although it is charged with conserving lands for recreation and biological diversity, it must also ensure the commercial development of natural resources. The bureau tends to focus heavily on the latter part of its mission, and it has auctioned off public land for resource extraction, including oil and gas development, while following drilling regulations that were last updated in 1988, before fracking became a common practice.
“Under the old regulations, an operator would have to disclose non-routine techniques,” said BLM spokesperson Beverly Winston. “Now, hydraulic fracturing is routine, so nobody discloses it. It’s my understanding that probably 90 percent of wells on public lands use hydraulic fracturing.”
The newly proposed regulations will provide superficial environmental safeguards against industry excesses while shielding drillers and the government from the legal challenges that have begun cropping up. In April, for instance, a California judge ruled in a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity that the BLM had failed to take a “hard look” at the impact of fracking on federal land in the state and halted the issuance of fracking leases for the Monterey shale region until an assessment of its environmental impact is completed. The proposed laws, however, will give the BLM legal cover to keep the frack leases flowing.
Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who helped draft the laws, resigned from his post in January to take a job with WilmerHale. The corporate law firm’s website boasts “our lawyers strive to reduce liability and transform environmental compliance obligations into opportunities.”
Those wondering what opportunity looks like to drillers in regions originally set aside for conservation need only visit the Allegheny National Forest in Western Pennsylvania, a state that has opened its arms to drillers in recent years. Nearly 4,000 oil and gas wells were drilled in the Allegheny between 2005 and 2011.
“Where there were once remote areas of the forest there is now oil and gas infrastructure,” said Ryan Talbott of the Allegheny Defense Project. “If you are a recreationist going to go out and go hiking, camping, fishing, what might have been your favorite area before is now a sea of roads and pipelines and well sites.”
In 2009, under pressure from Allegheny Defense and other environmental groups, the Forest Service sought to monitor the drilling, implement environmental safeguards and provide a measure of planning to the spaghetti network of drill sites. But 93 percent of the mineral rights in the state are privately held and the Forest Service, in a case currently under review by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, was sued by the gas companies who claim their property rights were violated.
Although not yet to the extent witnessed in Allegheny, fracking has commenced in other parts of the country where the BLM holds mineral rights, particularly out West. “We’re drilling all over the place,” President Obama told an audience in New Mexico last year, announcing plans to open millions more acres to the oil and gas industry. In the way of protection, however, Obama’s new rules follow the Pennsylvania model, barely scratching the surface when it comes to monitoring what occurs below.
White House visitor logs show the president’s top adviser on energy and climate, Heather Zichal, met with the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and other industry groups 20 times last year in the run up to the rules proposal. They were further honed to industry specifications in a series of meetings between the oil and gas lobby and the White House Office of Budget Management, and are based on a piece of model legislation authored by Exxon for the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Under the rules, drillers will report chemicals used in fracking to an industry run site, FracFocus.org, already used in Pennsylvania and other states. The disclosures won’t need to be made until after a well is fracked. Nor will they be vetted for accuracy. Certain chemicals won’t even be disclosed at all, since they constitute alleged trade secrets. Furthermore, the rules would sanction drilling in close proximity to homes and schools, as well as allow wastewater — the toxic byproduct the of fracking — to be stored in open, outdoor pits.
Meanwhile, the rules weaken a requirement meant to ensure the structural integrity of drilling wells, which can leak methane and other chemical contaminants if cracked. Instead of having to submit documentation for each well, companies will only need report one of all their wells within a geological area.
“Using a single well as representative of all wells completely ignores the likelihood that one in 12 wells have some sort of well casing failure,” said Hugh MacMillan, a senior researcher with Food and Water Watch. “Six to eight percent of well casings fail within the first year, with higher percentages over time.”
MacMillan also expressed fears that the proposed regulations won’t cover a newer technique, known as acidizing, which involves pumping acid into the ground to dissolve rock formations and create pathways in shale for oil to flow out.
Underlying all these concerns is the fear held by many environmentalists that, no matter how heavily the industry is regulated, fracking is inherently toxic. “Trying to regulate fracking is like trying to build a safe cigarette,” said scientist and activist Sandra Steingraber. “You can put filters on cigarettes. You can have low tar cigarettes. But the answer to avoiding cancer from smoking is not to smoke.”
The issue of whether to push for more stringent laws that will mitigate against the impact of drilling or to advocate for the abolition of the practice has caused some considerable fissures in the environmental movement. The Natural Resources Defense Council worked with the drilling industry to write legislation governing fracking that was approved by lawmakers in Illinois last month, while those pushing for an outright ban in the state launched a three day sit-in in the governor’s office against the measure.
Steingraber favors a ban and was ejected from the Illinois statehouse for disrupting legislators following the approval of the fracking bill. Nevertheless, she’s spearheading an initiative to increase the already unprecedented number of comments the BLM has received during the public input period on the Obama-Exxon fracking rules. When the BLM first opened up the proposed laws for public review this spring they were inundated with 177,000 submissions, prompting the bureau to extend the submission deadline to August 23. Steingraber is working to ensure that public comments keep flowing and that this window of public participation furthers the overall anti-fracking movement.
In New York last winter, as the state’s moratorium on fracking expired and its Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) began preparing to file rules that would allow for drilling, she jumpstarted a similar effort. Through a website she established, ThirtyDaysOfFrackingRegs.com, Steingraber — a molecular biologist with a background in public health — broke down piece-by-piece the proposed laws, explaining their environmental consequences and providing a template for critics to submit their own comments. Ultimately, Steingraber said the site was responsible for 25,000 submissions to the DEC — more than 10 percent of the 200,000-plus mostly-critical comments the department received. These objections ended up being an important compliment to the hundreds of protests that took place against fracking statewide. The DEC eventually let the deadline to file rules lapse, which has delayed the prospect of fracking in New York for at least a year.
It was a victory even fracking’s most committed opponents thought slim at the time. The gas industry had spent millions of dollars around the state to ensure it could make good on drilling leases it had already purchased. A Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Working Group revealed that, in the run-up to the deadline, New York’s DEC deputy commissioner Steven Russo had already sent potential regulations to drilling lobbyists for their approval.
Despite their success in New York, Steingraber and other anti-fracking activists are fighting an uphill battle at the federal level. In a speech at Georgetown University last month, the president touted “clean burning natural gas” as part of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy and vowed to increase drilling in order to tackle the climate crisis and foster energy independence.
“The administration has a stated goal to increase American energy production,” said BLM spokesperson Beverly Winston. “A lot of that’s going to come from public land, whether that’s renewable energy or oil and gas.”
With the public comment period serving essentially as window dressing for an otherwise backdoor process, Steingraber said she isn’t looking at the submission of comments to the BLM as an end in and of itself but rather as a “gauntlet” thrown down. She also called them “a meter of citizen opposition” that activists can point to as they build on-the-ground mobilizations.
The struggle will likely come to a head on August 22, the eve of the comment deadline, when environmental groups in the coalition Americans Against Fracking will stream into Washington, D.C., to deliver written comments to the BLM. What happens next will be as much a test of the democratic process as the strength of this growing movement.
“The very bedrock of this nation,” says Steingraber “is not for fracturing.”
James Arthur Ray, the purported self-help guru who went to jail in 2011 for negligent homicide after three people died in his sweat lodge, is out on parole.
The 55-year-old author and entrepreneur left state prison near Phoenix on Friday July 12, the Associated Press reported. Though he is not barred from conducting self-help seminars or sweat lodge ceremonies, AP said, “his brother said Ray has no immediate plans to resurrect his business,” though he left it open by maintaining that the tragedy was not Ray’s fault.
The deaths occurred after things went awry about halfway through a two-hour ceremony back in 2009. The incident killed a 38-year-old and a 40-year old man, injured 18 and led to the death of a third man in the hospital a week later, AP recounted.
Ray went to trial in 2012 and was sentenced to two years—concurrent sentences for each of the deaths. He was required to fulfill at least 85 percent of the term and was ordered to pay $57,000 in restitution to the victims’ families, ICTMN reported upon his sentencing. AP said that his release means he has served that amount of time.
The tragedy resonated deeply in Indian country, not least of all because the ceremony bore little if any resemblance to an actual sweat lodge ceremony.
“It was a bastardized version of a sacred ceremony sold by a multimillionaire who charged people $9,695 a pop for his ‘Spiritual Warrior’ retreat in Sedona, Ariz.,” wrote ICTMN’s now West Coast Editor Valerie Taliman at the time in an award-winning opinion piece.
Ray’s brother did not elaborate on whether his brother would try to resume the sweat lodge practice.
“At this point, he wants to get out and hide out, and start putting his life back together, which has been completely turned upside down,” Ray’s brother, who was not named, told AP just before the release. “I say that with all due respect because I know a lot of people’s lives have been turned upside down because of this unfortunate incident.”
Dozens of people were in the sweat lodge that day outside Sedona, Arizona, the culmination of a five-day Spiritual Warrior retreat, AP said. The sweat lodge’s advertised “hellacious hot” temperatures were supposed to generate breakthroughs.
“The man responsible, self-help spiritual entrepreneur James Arthur Ray, claimed the New Age retreat would absolutely ‘change your life,’ ” Taliman wrote. “It did—it took the lives of a father of three children and a healthy young woman. It also caused burns, respiratory arrest, kidney failure, loss of consciousness, and dehydration for other paying customers who were hospitalized.”
Suzette Brewer, Indian Country Today Media Network
Echoing the loud thunder of voices from Native communities and organizations across the U.S. and Canada in outcry over yesterday’s decision to return Veronica Brown to South Carolina, the Native American Rights Fund yesterday issued the strongest statement yet in a call to action to join the fight in protecting the girl’s right to be raised by her biological father, Dusten Brown.
“The Native American Rights Fund joins with the Brown family, the Cherokee Nation, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Indian Child Welfare Association, and many others inside and outside of Indian country who are expressing their outrage over the South Carolina Supreme Court’s imprudent order effectively granting the adoption of Veronica without due process of law or a hearing to determine what is in her best interest,” said the statement from the country’s oldest Native legal rights organization.
The Native American Rights Fund encourages all of the state attorneys general, adoption and child welfare organizations, past and present members of Congress, religious organizations, and others who submitted briefs in the case to express their concern and join with Indian country to take all necessary steps to stop the forced removal of this Indian child from her Indian father, her Indian family, and her Indian community.”
As rage over the decision began to take shape on Thursday, Native leaders, community members and legal experts were unanimous in their solidarity toward what they feel is a rubber stamp of approval from the court by taking Veronica from her home. In short, they feel that the Capobiancos “won ugly,” and have been rewarded by removing the child from a fit parent and a community in which she has thrived.
“This is Indian country’s Trayvon Martin moment; we cannot pass on this,” said a Native legal scholar in Washington, D.C., who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing litigation. “The message is clear: They are continuing to take our land, they’re taking our children, they’re taking our identity and now the courts have endorsed this whole pattern of white settler mentality.
This man and his daughter have been denied due process all the way down and he did not even get a hearing to determine what’s in his own daughter’s best interest, which in itself represents the destruction of tribes. He needs to have a fair hearing and we in Indian country support him 100 percent in retaining a child that never should have been put up for adoption in the first place.”
National native organizations and tribes have begun gathering and collaborating in mobilizing support for a case that has struck at the heart of tribal existence perhaps more so than any time since the Termination Era of the 1950s. Advocates say that the course this case has taken has forced many in Indian country from the sidelines to take a public stand and who are willing to take to the streets, if necessary.
“They don’t get it,” says A. Gay Kingman, executive director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association. “Who is thinking and representing the best interests of this child? Like many of our American Indian children in South Dakota, she is being removed from her birth father, her Indian family and her tribe. Shouldn’t the child have due process?”
Whatever shape this case takes over the coming days, grassroots activism and legal mobilization are gaining momentum by the minute.
“This is not over,” said the legal scholar. “It’s not over by a longshot.”
The Nation has the option of asking for a rehearing or filing a petition with the United States Supreme Court to review the appeals court ruling but no such decision has yet been made. “’We just received the decision today and continue to review it,” William L. Satti, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation’s (MPTN) Director of Public Affairs, said on July 16. “We are disappointed that the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision, which ruled in favor of the tribe.”
The town of Ledyard called the ruling “a precedent-setting decision in favor of state and local governments,” according to The Day. “With this decision, the town of Ledyard will be able to collect taxes that are critically important to providing government services, including those that result from being a host community for the Foxwoods casino,” said Ledyard Mayor John Rodolico. “This case was just the tip of the iceberg, and our tax revenues would have taken a huge hit if we had not persevered throughout this eight-year legal battle to achieve this victory,” he said.
The ruling notes that the town expends $652,158 annually on services to the Nation offset by around $415,900 in federal aid, leaving the town with $236,258 in non-reimbursed costs. It also notes the MPTN employs 10,000 people and has reimbursed the state more than $56 million for law enforcement services since it opened in 1992. The Nation has contributed almost $3.3 billion from slot revenues to the state and around $85 million in donations to local organizations.
Michael Willis, an attorney with the firm Hobbs, Strauss, Dean & Walker who specializes in Indian tax issues, called the 2nd Circuit ruling “very controversial” because it concerns Indian gaming activities. “I think the shocking part of the 2nd Circuit Decision is there are specific provisions in IGRA that indicate that states are not allowed to tax Indian gaming activities and in order to get around that the 2nd Circuit says owning a slot machine is not in itself a gaming activity,” Willis told Indian Country Today Media Network. “But the reality is if slot machines were not engaged in Class III gaming activity on behalf of the tribe, they’d be illegal in the State of Connecticut so, really, it’s hard to fathom how the 2nd Circuit comes up with the view that slot machines are not engaged in gaming activity. It’s absurd. It overturns what was a fairly reasoned opinion in the lower court.”
In March 2012, a federal court granted the Nation’s motion for summary judgment in complaints it had filed against the town in August 2006 and September 2008 on behalf of two vendors – New Jersey-based Atlantic City Coin & Slot Co. and WMS Gaming – who lease slot machines to the tribe for use at Foxwoods Resort Casino. The Nation had argued that imposition of the tax by the town was preempted by the federal Indian Trader Statutes and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and cited White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, which balances federal, state and tribal interests, federal district court Judge Warren W. Eginton upheld the Nation’s position and wrote in his ruling, “Indian tribes are distinct sovereign entities that are ‘distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights.’” Worcester is one of the Marshall Trilogy cases from 1823 to 1832 that set the foundation for Indian law. The trilogy paradoxically asserts the sovereignty of Indian nations while denying them land rights other than occupancy. “States do not have authority to regulate Indian tribes where a state law is preempted by federal law or infringes upon the ‘right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them,’” Eginton said.
But the appeals court said the federal court had erred and none of MPTN’s arguments bars the town from taxing a non-tribal entity. The panel called it a “close case” but ultimately ruled in favor of the state and town of Ledyard. “[T]he tribe’s generalized interests in sovereignty and economic development are not significantly impeded by the state’s generally-applicable tax; neither are the federal interests protected in IGRA,” the ruling says. “The town has moderate economic and administrative interests at stake, and the affront to the state’s sovereignty on one hand approximates the affront to the tribe’s sovereignty on the other. The balance of equities here favors the town and state.
The town spent more than $900,000 on legal fees in the case, according to The Day. The 2nd Circuit ruling notes that the slot machines leased by the two companies combined generate $20,000 in annual property taxes.
Kirk Boxleitner Dr. Becky Berg is sworn in as superintendent of the Marysville School District by Marysville School Board President Chris Nation on July 8
Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe
MARYSVILLE — Dr. Becky Berg was sworn in and presided over her first Marysville School Board meeting as superintendent of the school district on Monday, July 8, and as she took the seat of her new role, she was acutely conscious of the legacy that she has to live up to.
“From where the Board and superintendent sit in the Board room, we face a wall with the names of former Board members and superintendents dating back to the early 1960s,” Berg said. “I’ve read those names, and I’m struck by those who have gone before, who have dedicated their lives and careers to public service, and more importantly to the children of the Marysville and Tulalip communities. I am humbled and challenged to take the symbolic baton from those in our past, and to help lead our fine district into the future.”
Although Berg has already interacted with members of those communities on several occasions, including the Marysville School District’s strategic leadership transitioning meeting on June 18, she remains reticent to draw more than general conclusions.
“At this point, I’ve officially been on the job just a few weeks,” Berg said. “In this short amount of time in the position, I would be remiss to make profound judgements about the community that I now call home. I will say, however, that those whom I have met have a deep commitment to children and their futures. They also have a deep local pride and great optimism about the future of Marysville and Tulalip.”
Berg shares that sense of optimism, and echoed Marysville School Board President Chris Nation’s frequent refrain that the community needs to know the district’s success stories.
“Marysville and Tulalip have so much to be proud of, and are second to none in relation to other communities and school districts,” Berg said. “We do have far to go, however, until we reach our mission of each child, every day, as well as 100 percent graduation, but there is simply no reason we cannot reach our goals. I so look forward to coming together to envision the next few years for our school district.”
Berg repeated the quote attributed to Chief Sitting Bull, “Let us put our heads to together and see what life we will make for our children.”
To that end, Berg explained that she and the Board are committed to listening to the community members, families and employees of the district, to understand its history and complexities, while still managing its day-to-day operations and preparing for the reopening of school in September. In the long term, the district is approaching the end of the Board’s four-year goals, as well as the sunsetting of the current maintenance and operations levy.
“[That levy] is vital funding for school districts such as ours,” Berg said. “We will follow the lead of our Board of Directors, as we discuss initiating the next stage of strategic planning, and consideration of renewal of our maintenance and operations levy, which our community has supported for years.”
On Monday, July 15, Berg began a week-long vacation, but far from relaxing on a beach, she’ll be working in Washington, D.C., with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a nonprofit group with 140,000 members worldwide that’s concerned with issues of learning, teaching and leading. Berg currently volunteers as the president of ASCD.
“I find this kind of working vacation so exhilarating, because when we come together from across the globe, to learn from each other and to advance the mission of success for each and every child, there is no stopping us,” Berg said. “An additional bonus from this kind of volunteer work is that I come home with new ideas and solutions that directly benefit the students of Marysville and Tulalip. I am so energized and thrilled to be a part of the Marysville School District. If anyone has ideas, or would like to meet and discuss the future of our students, just give me a call.”
Over the past year, a joint venture has been brewing between the Navajo Nation Zoo and Kachina Tea & Coffee Company. On July 9, the parties unveiled four unique coffee blends they will sell, each hand-packaged in seven-ounce bags featuring one of four Navajo Zoo animals selected to represent the character of the coffee.
The companies signed a Memorandum of Agreement, billed in a press release as a “culturally lateral collaboration,” which was approved February 23 by the Navajo Nation Council and the Tribal offices of the president and vice-president.
Keith Duquitto, owner of Kachina Tea & Coffee, shares his passion for helping the Navajo Nation Zoo and using the best ingredients at his store. (Geri Hongeva, Division of Natural Resources)
Under the terms, net proceeds will be divided equally between the Navajo Nation Zoo and Kachina Tea & Coffee Company. The Navajo Zoo will invest the money in caring for the animals and the future development of the Zoo. Kachina Tea & Coffee Company will direct its profits toward a proposed facility for the roasting and production of the coffee in or near Window Rock—along with a number of complimentary, healthy culinary items. Details of the planned headquarters are included in the Memorandum, which identifies the project as not only “community supportive” but as “community inclusive.”
The Navajo Nation Zoo—home to injured and orphaned animals—is the only Native-owned and -operated zoo in the country. Formed in July 4, 1977, in Window Rock, Arizona, the Zoo cares for animals unable to live in the wild, describing itself as “A Sanctuary for Nature and the Spirit.” Most of the creatures housed at the Navajo Nation Zoo are native to the Four Corners region and significant to the traditions, legends and stories of the Dine People.
Kachina Tea & Coffee Company was conceived in Malibu Canyon, California in the early 2000s. The company’s original concept was to create a line of natural botanical tea blends in an effort to lend nutritional and psychosocial support to friends and family experiencing certain types of functional inconveniences or those simply pursuing a healthy lifestyle from the inside out. Founder Keith Duquitto has garnered more than 25 years of clinical practice as a respiratory therapist and has cultivated a diverse collection of healthcare professionals as colleagues.
David Mikesic, zoologist at the Navajo Zoo, introduces each coffee blend as he describes the character of each animal at the tribally sanctioned zoo. (Geri Hongeva, Division of Natural Resources)
For the Navajo Zoo and Kachina Tea & Coffee Company, choosing the coffee blends was a meticulous and creative process, and they then astutely matched each blend with a package design featuring one of four representative animals from the Navajo Zoo.
The coffee blends and animal pairings include:
1) Espresso Italiano—a medium-strong espresso roast featuring the orphaned Kay-bah, the Navajo Zoo’s rugged lioness (cougar);
2) An Elegant Kona Blend—a simple and elegant roast blended with Hawaiian Kona beans with notes of tropical flowers and ripe persimmon featuring the orphaned Naabahi—one of the Navajo Zoo’s endearing male bobcats;
3) Chuska Chai’s Hazelnut—a fruity, smooth coffee with a hint of natural flavoring from Oregon-grown hazelnuts featuring the Navajo Zoo’s native tassel-eared squirrel; and
4) A Regal Decaf—a rich, deeply dimensioned and sweet decaffeinated blend aptly represented by the Navajo Zoo’s male Ringtail.
Presently, a Northern California-based seasoned coffee importer and roaster packages the beans, which are then shipped to a Las Vegas-based young master coffee roaster and good friend of the Navajo Zoo, who is artfully blending the coffees.
Each coffee blend will be offered in seven-ounce quantities—intended as an ideal sample size for discovering one’s favorite coffee, or as a Zoo supportive gift for family and friends.
Coffees will be available for sale at the Kachina Tea Company store in Las Vegas, and on the company’s website in the near future. In Window Rock, the coffee will be sold at the Navajo Nation Zoo, The Navajo Nation Museum, and other locations in the near future.
