Judge denies aboriginal right to trade eagle parts

A man who told a judge he had an aboriginal right to trade eagle parts that he kept stashed at a North Vancouver workshop has lost his argument in court.

Judge Jim Jardine of the provincial court in Surrey, B.C., rejected James Carl Joseph’s claim that he had an aboriginal right to possess and trade eagle feathers and parts. In making his ruling, Jardine said Joseph had presented no evidence that the right existed as central to the culture of his Tlowitsis First Nation.

The trading in illegal eagle parts came to light in 2005, with the discovery of 50 butchered eagles on Tsleil-waututh Nation land in North Vancouver. Fifteen men were eventually charged with trafficking in the eagle parts.

Joseph, fingered as one of the key players in the ring, was found guilty in 2009 of seven offences under the Wildlife Act.

Afterward, his lawyer argued that the conviction should be set aside because Joseph was exercising his aboriginal rights.

The case is one of the first in B.C.’S Lower Mainland to examine whether First Nations have a charter right to trade in eagle parts that is deemed illegal under the provincial Wildlife Act.

According to court documents, Joseph, a respected carver, traded ceremonial eagle parts with First Nations band members in the U.S. Joseph used a carving workshop attached to a relative’s house on Tsleil-waututh Nation land to stash the eagle bodies and dismember them.

Joseph’s lawyer told the judge his client’s aboriginal rights case had been made more difficult because following publicity about the charges, no elders were willing to testify about the oral history of the Tlowitsis. The lawyer added Joseph couldn’t afford to pay historians or expert anthropologists to bolster his case.

The judge said that left him with no evidence of an aboriginal right.

He added the Native American church to which Joseph said he belonged was more of a loose crossborder conglomeration of people and practices, and not a group capable of holding an aboriginal right.

A sentencing date has been set for May 11.