CHEYENNE — A dispute over the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s push for a federal permit to kill bald eagles for religious purposes has prompted the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to assert that it has older, deeper ties to the central Wyoming reservation the two tribes share and that its opposition should prevent killing the birds there.
The Eastern Shoshone Tribe filed a written argument in federal court in Cheyenne last week, objecting to the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s plan to kill eagles on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Shoshone were already on the reservation when the federal government settled the Arapaho there in 1878.
The dispute highlights the difficulty of having two separate tribal governments on a single reservation. While other reservations in the country are home to more than one tribe, officials have said the Wind River Indian Reservation is the only case where two tribes have separate governments.
“The Eastern Shoshone Tribe is the only tribe with aboriginal ties to this region, including all areas within the Wind River Indian Reservation,” wrote Kimberly Varilek, attorney general for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and a member of the tribe.
Varilek said Monday that the Arapaho could seek permission from Wyoming to kill eagles outside the reservation.
