Justice Department to allow Indians to possess eagle feathers

The Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a few permits allowing tribes to kill eagles in the wild. The Hopi Tribe has killed golden eagles under a federal permit for years. The Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming received a federal permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this year that would allow the tribe to take up to two bald eagles a year for use in the tribe's annual Sun Dance.

However, the Northern Arapaho are suing the Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court. The tribe argues the federal permit is meaningless because it would limit the tribe to killing bald eagles outside the Wind River Indian Reservation, but a Wyoming state law prohibits killing eagles outside the reservation.

Associated Press writers Ben Neary in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Ariz., contributed to this report.