Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Senate to vote on Canada’s polar bear pelt import

JT Shining Oneside shared stories about her Ojibwe and Anishinaabe inheritance during the Native American Heritage Month Celebration on Nov. 15. She spoke about the coming-of-age and traditional birth ceremonies. (Photo credit/ Adrianna Adame)

Congress should prioritize

According to “Senate to vote on bill to import polar bear plants,” [News, Nov. 14.] the first piece of legislation to get voted on by the Senate between now and the end of the year has a provision that “would allow a small group of hunters who have been storing polar bear pelts in Canada to import them to the United States.”

Does this make any sense given that superstorm Sandy states are still begging Congress to release more money for disaster relief, the fiscal cliff is looming and both parties are supposedly focused on “jobs, jobs, jobs?”

The fact that Congress is spending even one second on this legislation now is even more repulsive than the bill itself. Who benefits from this provision? Forty-one people who can afford to hunt polar bears and store their pelts for four years.

Congress can’t figure out how to let millions of us benefit by importing cheap prescription drugs from Canada, but polar bear pelts? No problem.

– David Barker, Seattle


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Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.