House passes Begich bill to open treaty talks with Japan over Alaska Native handicrafts made with bird parts

Alaska Native artists may legally sell handicrafts made with nonedible migratory bird parts, the feathers and other pieces not eaten, from 27 species and no others. The bill the U.S. House passed Monday would not lengthen that list by itself: it directs the United States to negotiate with Japan first.

It is named for Archie Cavanaugh, an Alaska Native artist who in 2012 tried to sell a headdress with flicker feathers and a hat with raven feathers, both protected. He faced up to 10 years and a $100,000 fine and settled for $2,000, the House Natural Resources Committee report says.

Representative Nick Begich of Alaska sponsored the bill. H.R. 6021, the Archie Cavanaugh Migratory Bird Treaty Clarification Act, still needs Senate action to become law. It directs the secretaries of State and the Interior to enter bilateral procedures with Japan within 180 days of enactment, after which Interior may, but need not, rewrite its regulations.

The version Begich introduced last November would have amended the Migratory Bird Treaty Act outright, across all four bird treaties, not Japan's alone. In July the committee adopted his substitute, which struck that, leaving the act changed only by an added comma.

The 2017 Fish and Wildlife Service rule that opened those sales stopped at 27 species because Japan's treaty, the most restrictive of the four, permits subsistence take only for food and clothing.

To qualify, an item must be worked by hand, without mass-copying devices that reproduce a design in quantity, by a tribal enrollment card or Silver Hand permit holder. If a species used under it declines sharply or is named a Bird of Conservation Concern, Interior may strike it from the bill's reach.

Subsistence harvest of migratory birds and eggs by Indigenous Alaskans is already authorized for nutritional and other essential needs in rural areas the regulations designate. The Alaska Federation of Natives urged the same change in 2012.

The House passed it by voice vote under suspension of the rules. The committee had reported it without dissenting views.