Alberta eagles crying a warning

Page S16

Sometimes the same truth can be seen through different eyes. Two men in Calgary, for instance -- one a Native counselor and the other one a non-Native scientist -- realize that eagles are crying out a warning to mankind. And now both men are sharing that warning. For Peter Sherrington, eagles at first were only a dot in his consciousness.

On March 20, 1992, as the Calgary naturalist observed a mountain finch, called a pine grosbeak, perched in a tree, he noticed a tiny speck in the sky. As an experienced bird-watcher, Sherrington soon realized that speck high above the Rocky Mountains was a Golden Eagle.

As he observed the eagle, he saw another. By the end of the day, Sherrington and his friend had spotted 103 Golden Eagles and seven Bald Eagles passing over Mt. Lorette in Kananaskis Country, about 70 km west of Calgary.

"I knew I was looking at a non-random event," said the Calgary naturalist. But he had to be sure it wasn't just chance.

Two days later, therefore, Sherrington led some bird-watchers from the Calgary Field Naturalists Society to Mount Lorette. Between noon and

6:30 p.m., the group saw 247 eagles.

Sherrington and the others was awestruck. What they had discovered -- actually re-discovered -- was a major north-south eagle migration route along the Front Ranges of the Rocky Mountains.

Although other sightings of migrating eagles had ben recorded in the Rocky Mountains of Utah and Montana in the early 1980s, no one realized they had found a major "flyway".

Over the next couple of years, however, Sherrington and his fellow eagle-watchers at Mt. Lorettte recorded just how busy that one Rocky Mountain flyway was.

During a 70-day period in the spring of 1994, for instance, they counted 4,721 various bird of prey heading north, including 4,211 Golden Eagles and 210 Bald Eagles. Last fall over a 71-day period, the count reached 4,647 birds of prey, including 3,811 Golden Eagles and 322 bald Eagles.

Recently, other migration routes have also been discovered farther west, added Sherrington.

"So we've gone from three years ago where we believed there are a few

hundred eagles to now believing there are six, seven, eight thousand eagles traveling over five months of the year."

The migration route extends along the Rocky Mountains from as far south as Wyoming and Colorado, and north to the Yukon, Alaska and Siberia. Other naturalists and bird-watchers across North America and Europe were excited about Sherringtons's discovery. Some Native people of southern Alberta, however, were not surprised. They already knew about the migration route.

"I've talked to a number of (Aboriginal) people about the 'Rivers of Eagles'. Next May, for instance, he will be a keynote speaker at the North American Hawk Migration Association convention to be held in

Windsor, Ont.

But Sherrington isn't the only Calgarian drawing public attention for his eagle insight.

In June 1992, only three months after Sherrington had begun counting eagles over Mt. Lorette, Alvin Manitopyes of Calgary was standing before a crowd. This time, he and three other Aboriginal people were singing an Ojibwa thanksgiving song at the opening of the world's largest ever environmental conference -- the Earth Summit held in Rio De Janeiro in

Brazil. Manitopyes also participated in a gathering at the Earth Summit

that produced a collection of Aboriginal writings. The first document,

the Sacred Earth Declaration, was read at the opening of the summit.

The second document, Voice of the Eagle, was commissioned by the

International Indigenous Commission, based in Geneva, Switzerland, and

written by Manitopyes and Dave Courchene Jr.

"Eagle is speaking through the Indigenous people to warn humanity that

the Great Laws of the Creator are being violated and forgotten,"

Manitopyes and Courchene wrote in Voice of the Eagle.

"...the Voice of the Eagle represents all forms of life, whose very

existence is threatened by the current environmental crises that have

arien from man's outrageous and senseless exploitationoitation of

Mother Earth."

Voice of the Eagle is subtitled The Final Warning message of the

Indigenous People of Turtle Island Presented to the People of Mother

Earth.

The warning Manitopyes said in Calgary recently, isn't just about the

state of Mother Earth.

"When people talk about respect for the environment, it also means

respect for Indian cultures."

That respect has often been trampled.

"When integrated into a national society, they (Indigenous people)

confront discrimination and exploitation and often suffer under the

worst living conditions," the United Nations said in 1993 during the

International Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples.

Those remaining on traditional territories often face disruption of

their cultures and loss of their homes as their lands are claimed for

development.

According to the UN, there are approximately 300 million Indigenous

people living in more that 70 countries from the Arctic to Australia.

Like Sherrington, Manitopyes suddenly found his life changed by

eagles. In 1990, while working for the Secretary of State in Calgary,

Elders told the Plains Cree/Anishnawbe man during a ceremony that he

would have a new role in life.

"My role was that of a messenger and I have to go out and share

Indigenous knowledge with the world community," said Manitopyes.

Over the past four years, he has spoken in Canada, Europe, South

America, Hawaii and Australia about the message the eagle is trying to give to the people of Mother Earth.

"If the eagle is going to survive, this knowledge has to be shared," said Manitopyes, who is also named Sign of the Eagle.

Manitopyes, like Sherrington, has spent much time in the mountains. "All mountain areas are sacred ground for all Indigenous people," he explained. The eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, for instance, are

sacred to the Cree, Stoney, Blackfoot peoples, Sarcee and Saulteaux.

"That is where we go for healing. That is where we go for piritual development," Manitopyes added.

Last fall, for example, he was part of a 17-day camp designed to train Native youth workers in wilderness education skills.

"Aboriginal youth are thirsty for that knowledge to inspire them and to encourage them to maintain our traditions," said Mainitopyes, who is a senior counselor at the Tsuu T'ina Nation Spirit Healing Lodge.

Sherrington also has come to know something more of the sacred through what he calls Eagle Therapy -- standing every spring and fall at the base of Mt. Lorette watching eagles through his viewing scope. "All you do is stand there... You become part of reality. You are there. You don't have to do anything. They (the eagles) do it for you. I'm certainly a very different person than I was three years ago. It's not that I'm more serene," he explained.

"The emotion I feel is anger when I realize the blindness of people and how little time we have got to do it."

A tourism brochure on Kananaskis Country advertising heli-hiking, golf, skiing, and fine dining, for example, showed that blindness, he added. "Nothing was mentioned of sunrises, sunsets, bird-song and mountain vistas. They might have been advertising the West Edmonton Mall."