Conservation efforts at the turn of the 20th century criminalized Indigenous sacred customs tied to protected animal species, but also led to a thriving global black market for wildlife parts, commonly used for spiritual and cultural purposes. To counteract that illicit industry, a Phoenix nonprofit has been providing an alternative, legal source of feathers for tribal members in Arizona and nationwide.
‘They took a cultural act and criminalized it’
A niche black market for birds and their feathers emerged, in part, after federal laws like the Endangered Species Act of 1973 were passed to protect some 1,300 aviary species.
But it all began with the Lacey Act of 1900.
It’s the nation’s oldest law prohibiting the illegal trade of fish, wildlife and plants, and remains in effect today. Measures like the Lacey Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 were enacted after decades of overtrapping and hunting across North America that brought several species to the brink of extinction by the 1800s.
But Native Americans, who’ve relied on wildlife for spiritual and ceremonial purposes since time immemorial, were directly harmed by these conservation laws.
“They took a cultural act and criminalized it, and Native Americans really didn’t have an alternative,” said Robert Mesta. “If they needed to get certain feathers in a reasonable amount of time, they had to go to the black market.”
Mesta is a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who worked along the Arizona-Mexico border and a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. He’s insisted the federal government is to blame for the black market’s rise in Indian Country.
“To put it into a global context, the illegal trade in wildlife is valued at around $20 billion annually,” according to Crawford Allan, founder of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online.
“It’s viewed as being one of the top five most profitable black markets globally. It’s basically stealing wildlife, undermining the rule of law and also even international security,” added Allan. “So, it is big business for organized crime.”
Even Mexican drug cartels near the U.S. border trade illegal wildlife with gangs in China, and in return take the chemicals needed to fuel the American fentanyl crisis that claimed the lives of nearly 75,000 people in 2023 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health Center for Statistics.
That same year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 390 million lethal doses of fentanyl in the form of powder and fake pills.
Allan, who is also the World Wildlife Fund’s vice president of nature crimes, policy advocacy and wildlife conservation, shared that the smuggling of live animals across the southern border “sideline to their drug operations” with another revenue stream.
“This happens regularly,” Allan said. “Mexico, particularly, is a major laundering point for Latin American species across the continent, because the profit is so high, and the penalties are relatively low.”
“Merciless Markets: How Wildlife Tracking Threatens Mexico’s Biodiversity,” a 2022 report authored by the Center for Biological Diversity, showed that the red-tailed and Harris’s hawks, American kestrel, peregrine falcon, as well as great horned and barn owls are among the most sought after species.
That’s because these birds of prey are especially lucrative, according to Alex Olivera, a senior scientist based in La Paz, Mexico, with the Center for Biological Diversity.
He co-authored the report.
“It’s very difficult to find out how many animals are being trafficked from Mexico to the U.S., or which species. The only way to know is when there are some seizures, and you saw this in the news,” Olivera said. “They are still crossing the border. It’s very common and it has been like that for years since I was a kid. I just remembered seeing all those markets, but everybody’s just used to it.”
With no legal options for tribes to gather feathers, traditions began fading away over generations. In 1978, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act recognized the rights of Indigenous peoples to possess sacred objects, like feathers from federally protected species. But even when that became decriminalized, a legal source for acquiring the feathers remained elusive.
So in 2010, the Fish and Wildlife Service set up a pair of pilot programs in response to that illicit international enterprise, which has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry.
Mesta was put in charge.
He now oversees the Non-Eagle Feather Repository at the Phoenix nonprofit Liberty Wildlife. It’s one of only two non-eagle feather repositories nationwide. The other, called the Comanche Nation Ethno-Ornithological Initiative, is located in Cyril, Oklahoma.
Liberty Wildlife collects bird feathers and parts from zoos, state and federal agencies, migratory bird rehabilitators and other permitted sources – even live animals.
The nonprofit was issued a special permit by the Fish and Wildlife Service to distribute them. In the Valley, each of these birds — from peregrine falcons to California condors – are supplying plumage across Indian Country.
“When all of these molt, our volunteers will pick up the feathers and save them for us,” said Mesta, as he walked by the cages. “We send out lots of crow feathers, raven, you know, and particularly, the red-tail, is probably the most sought after feather, for sure.”
Members of federally recognized tribes are eligible to apply for feathers, at no-cost, from hundreds of protected species — except for bald and golden eagles. Then those feathers can be used for religious and cultural purposes. The nonprofit uses a mix of donated sources — from feathers and even frozen carcasses — to meet demand.
“We have a whole bank of freezers, and this is just an example of some of the feathers we have, like this snowy owl,” said Mare VanDyke, Liberty Wildlife’s repository assistant program coordinator. “People are always impressed about the beauty of this; it was from someplace in Wisconsin. We’re just not regional, and we get a lot of requests for birds like these, especially since tribal members move from their areas.”
The U.S. Postal Service is Liberty Wildlife’s primary shipper for feathers and parts, like talons, while FedEx is the carrier of choice to send full carcasses. They’ve filled some 6,500 orders for members of over 250 federally recognized tribes, with Navajos, Hopis and Cherokees having received the most.
“That’s why we are so committed to getting as many feathers as we can out,” Mesta said. “Because first of all, we want to help sustain those Native American cultures, but also we want to fight that black market. We want to see it go away.”
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