Lone Bear family wants missing person protocol for tribes
NEW TOWN, N.D. (AP) — The family of an American Indian woman whose body was found in a lake nine months after she went missing wants to help develop a missing-person protocol for tribes.
Olivia Lone Bear, 32, of New Town, disappeared from the Fort Berthold Reservation in October. Her body was found this month in a pickup truck pulled from Lake Sakakawea. The FBI is investigating what happened to the mother of five children.
Her brother, Matthew Lone Bear, said it's difficult in Indian Country to get a missing person search started.
“There's a lot of red tape and hoops you have to jump through to even get (an investigation) rolling,'' he said. “We want to kind of streamline that so it's not so difficult.''
The North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission plans to discuss drafting missing person guidelines for tribes and other ways to improve searches, Executive Director Scott Davis told The Bismarck Tribune.
“The biggest thing for Indian Country is that ... there is not a template out there to follow,'' he said. “I think we recognize that and we're trying to craft a template, if you will, for missing persons.''
Davis said his office worked with Three Affiliated Tribes police in the search for Lone Bear, helping coordinate conference calls with various federal, state and tribal agencies. Commission officials plan to meet with tribal leadership soon to determine what can be improved.
“What did we do well, what didn't we do well, what resources did we have, what resources do we need, is there a policy that prevented us from doing something?'' he said.
Davis also would like to expand the state's Silver Alert Notification system, which currently issues alerts for elderly and disabled people who are missing. He believes that if some type of alert had been issued in Lone Bear's case, the outcome might have been different.
“Those first 48 hours are crucial,'' he said.
Davis said tribes also need to assess the equipment and technology they have for search-and-rescue operations.
Matthew Lone Bear said the family is drafting its own protocol, but “we're willing to work with anybody that's willing to do this.''
Gov. Cuomo recounts retrieving, keeping eagle feather at event
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — At an event in the Adirondacks last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recounted a treasured memory of the time his family retrieved an eagle feather from Saranac Lake and kept it after one of the beautiful birds swooped near his canoe.
In telling the story, the New York Democrat was unknowingly confessing a crime.
A federal law prohibits non-Native Americans from possessing bald eagle parts, including feathers. The law has been on the books for nearly 80 years, but most Americans, Cuomo included, probably don't know about it.
Cuomo, a lawyer and former federal official, revealed his legal faux pas Tuesday while announcing an economic development grant for the village of Saranac Lake.
After The Associated Press in Albany inquired about the issue, Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said the family was unaware of the federal law when they took the feather from the water.
“We have two options, put it back in the river or donate it to a US Fish and Wildlife repository,'' Azzopardi wrote in an email. “We'll do one or the other.''
The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, amended several times since its passage in 1940, prohibits anyone without a federal permit from disturbing, taking or possessing eagle parts, eggs or nests. Violating the act can result in a fine of up to $100,000, imprisonment for one year, or both, for a first offense, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service's website.
Under the law, only permitted members of federally recognized American Indian tribes can possess eagle feathers, which are used in tribal ceremonies and rituals.
Giving up the feather would undoubtedly be a disappointment for Cuomo, who had joy on his face as he told an audience at the Hotel Saranac on Tuesday how much he has enjoyed visiting the region over the years.
“And one of the highlight moments was on Saranac Lake when we were in a canoe and we were taking a canoe trip and out of nowhere, from one of the islands, an eagle came out and, like, swooped down right next to us with this beautiful, graceful glide,'' Cuomo, head of federal Housing and Urban Development during President Bill Clinton's administration.
“And when the eagle was just about at front of the canoe, one feather fell out,'' he said. “And we picked up that feather and I have it on my fireplace to this day.''
Officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on Cuomo possessing an eagle feather and referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Albany didn't respond to a request for comment.
When the federal law was passed, bald eagles had nearly vanished from the lower 48 states. Use of the insecticide DDT further decimated eagle populations and by 1963 fewer than 500 nesting pairs remained, according to the federal agency. The newly formed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972, a move that helped start the recovery of bald eagles.
When the number of nesting eagles approached 10,000 in 2007, eagles were removed from the list of threatened and endangered species.
In New York state, efforts to restore the bald eagle population from just a handful in 1960 resulted in a dramatic turnaround.
Nestling eagles were brought from Alaska starting in 1976. Today more than 170 pairs of nesting eagles can be found in the Adirondacks, Hudson Valley and other parts of the state, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
