To: 

Paul Souza, Pacific Southwest Region Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

Doug Ault, Chief, Office of Law Enforcement, USFWS

Gavin Newsom, Governor, State of California

Meghan Hertel, Director, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)

And other government decision makers listed below

We have read the 8/11/26 statements from USFWS and CDFW regarding transferring the remains of Big Bear Bald Eagle Jackie to the National Eagle Repository.

WE STRONGLY OPPOSE THIS ACTION

We are deeply concerned by the process described on the Repository’s website, a process in which Jackie’s remains would be:

• Dismembered into parts;
• Put into storage for months to years, due to different wait times for different body parts being ordered by applicants on a first-come, first-served basis;
• Distributed piecemeal with ordering options that include: whole bird, pair of wings and tail, tail only, wings only, 10 quality feathers, 20 miscellaneous feathers;
• Sent to disparate locations across the country, and;
• Subject to the illegal black market in eagle feathers and body parts, and being sold to the highest bidder.

We are appalled even imagining this scenario. 

A process like this does not provide respect, honor and dignity to deceased wildlife, let alone for an eagle as magnificent as Jackie was and what she meant to so many.

WE URGE YOU TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION AND ALLOW JACKIE’S REMAINS TO RETURN TO BIG BEAR.

Already, she did not have a chance to pass away in her home territory, the only one she has known since returning from her nomadic years to settle into her own parents’ former nest and make Big Bear her home.

With this final task of disposing of her remains, which can only happen once, we urge you to at the very least, allow her the final dignity of being laid to rest in her home territory.

Specifics can be determined through collaboration with relevant local stakeholders in Big Bear. Options could range from putting her remains to rest, to using the regulations in 50 CFR 22.15 or 50 CFR 22.50, which allow qualified public entities to possess whole bird specimens for education.

You could also honor the cultural and symbolic reverence indigenous commununities have for eagles by working with the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, the ancestral stewards of Big Bear Valley, such as by allowing the tribe to request a direct transfer of Jackie’s remains for cultural preservation and traditional honors. For example, some tribes only need up to a certain number of feathers, but do not need to dismember.

Any of the above, would be more respectful, dignified and meaningful ways to care for Jackie’s remains.

CONCLUSION

Bureaucratic rules and regulations sometimes do not or cannot capture a deeper, higher calling, and at times, may even conflict with it.

We ask you to lean in to your humanity, compassion, and sense of ethics to do what is right.

It will cost you nothing but will earn you the gratitude of millions and more importantly, the knowledge that you will be on the right side of history. 

Thank you.