Robert Mesta, a member of Arizona’s Pascua Yaqui tribe, is the coordinator of the Liberty Wildlife Non-Eagle Feather Repository in Phoenix. Credit: Rebecca L. Rhoades
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In a small room tucked away in the back of an Arizona-based wildlife rehabilitation center, Robert Mesta sits surrounded by displays of feathers of all sizes and colors, taxidermied birds and Native American implements crafted from feathers.
A stack of papers rests on the table in front of him. Sent from across the country, the pages contain seemingly unusual requests: One gentleman asks for the carcass of an adult northern shrike, a pint-size predatory songbird native to the northern reaches of the US and Canada. Another wants a hawk’s tail — red-tailed preferred, but Harris’s or rough-legged will suffice. And a woman in Alaska seeks puffin beaks that she will use to create a traditional Tlingit dance skirt.
Mesta is the director of the Liberty Wildlife Non-Eagle Feather Repository (NEFR), one of only three organizations in the country that is permitted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to accept, hold and distribute feathers. Since 2010, it has worked to provide Native Americans with a legal and no-cost source of non-eagle feathers and birds for ceremonial, religious and healing purposes.
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