2003 0011-3204/2003/44supp-0004$3 - eci.ox.ac.uk · hunn et al.traditional environmental knowledge...

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C u r r e n t A n t h ro p o l o g y Volume 44, Supplement, December 2003� 2003 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/2003/44supp-0004$3.50

Huna TlingitTraditionalEnvironmentalKnowledge,Conservation, and theManagement of a“Wilderness” Park1

by Eugene S. Hunn,Darryll R. Johnson,Priscilla N. Russell, andThomas F. Thornton

A study of Huna Tlingit traditional gull-egg harvests in GlacierBay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, indicates that local tra-ditional environmental knowledge includes a sophisticated appre-ciation of glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) nesting biol-ogy and behavior—in particular, an understanding of this gull asan indeterminate layer with a modal clutch size of three. Thecommunity has applied knowledge to the design of sustainableegg-harvesting strategies. The dominant strategy is to take eggsfrom nests with one or two eggs but leave nests with three ormore; an alternative strategy advocates partial harvests fromthree-egg clutches. The case study is related to a critical reviewof work questioning the contributions of traditional environmen-tal knowledge to sustainable resource management, past and pre-sent. In particular we argue against a new orthodoxy that dis-counts the capacity of indigenous communities to conserve thenatural resources of their lands.

e u g e n e s . h u n n is Professor of Anthropology at the Univer-sity of Washington (Box 353100, Seattle, Wash. 98195-3100,U.S.A. [[email protected]]) and the author of Tzeltal FolkZoology: The Classification of Discontinuities in Nature (NewYork: Academic Press, 1977) and “The Value of Subsistence forthe Future of the World,” in Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Located Lives, edited by Virginia Nazarea (Tucson: University ofArizona Press, 1999).

1. We thank Don Callaway, Wayne Howell, and Mary Beth Mossfor helpful review comments. Stephani Zador provided very helpfulguidance in identifying relevant research articles in the area of gullbiology. Finally, we appreciate the contributions of many Hunapeople in sharing their knowledge and experience. [Supplementarymaterial appears in the electronic edition of this issue on thejournal’s web page (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/home.html).]

d a r ry l l r . j o h n s o n is the National Park Service researchcoordinator and coleader of the Pacific Northwest CooperativeStudies Unit and Affiliate Associate Professor in the College ofForest Resources, University of Washington.

p r i s c i l l a n . ru s s e l l is a specialist in the ethno-naturalhistory of Alaska’s indigenous peoples. Her most recent publica-tion is (with George C. West) Bird Traditions of the Upper StonyRiver (Alaska Native Knowledge Network, 2003).

t h o m a s f . t h o r n t o n is Associate Professor of Global Stud-ies at Saint Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y. Among hispublications on Alaska native subsistence economies is “KnowYour Place: The Organization of Tlingit Geographical Knowl-edge” (Ethnology 36:295–307).

The present paper was submitted 4 iii 02 and accepted 12 ii 03.

The value of traditional environmental knowledge as abasis for cooperative resource management engaging pro-fessional scientists employed by government land man-agement agencies, on the one hand, and indigenous ortraditional local communities, on the other, has beenwidely promoted in recent years (see Freeman and Car-byn 1988, Williams and Baines 1993, Stevens 1997, Feit1998, Berkes 1999, Hunn 1999). Proponents argue thatdetailed, empirically validated knowledge of plants andanimals and their roles within a local ecosystem is pre-requisite to appreciating the impact of human harvestsand designing sustainable resource management strate-gies. Two critiques of this approach are particularlyprominent. One, which we characterize as postmodern-ist, sees the attempt to translate indigenous concepts inorder to develop a dialogue with modern scientists andresource management bureaucrats as an extension ofmodernist hegemony. The other, which we identify withconservation biology, is dismissive of the possibility thatindigenous, traditional, and/or small-scale subsistencecommunities might conserve their natural resources. Ittends to define “conservation” strictly as practices de-signed to conserve biodiversity, either ignoring tradi-tional environmental knowledge or judging it irrelevantto people’s behavior with respect to environmentalresources.

The Postmodernist Critique

Nadasdy (1999:2) asserts that efforts to integrate tradi-tional environmental knowledge with modern sciencefor comanagement are doomed to failure and may ac-tually “be reinforcing, rather than breaking down, anumber of Western cultural biases that in the end workagainst full community involvement in managing localland and wildlife.” He argues that the fatal flaw of suchefforts is that the terms “traditional,” “environmental/ecological,” and “knowledge” denote concepts alien toindigenous modes of understanding: “ ‘Traditional’ hasthe effect of assuming that cultural practice is frozen ata particular point in time (usually the distant past)” (p.4). Thus, opponents of applying traditional environmen-

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tal knowledge to management decisions may argue thatcontemporary indigenous people have no traditionalknowledge, given that they now use rifles, snow ma-chines, and outboard motors. The term “environmental/ecological,” he suggests, distorts indigenous perspectivesbecause “implicit in their use is the notion that humanbeings are separate and distinct from the rest of theworld” (p. 4). Finally, “knowledge” presupposes a “West-ern” Cartesian duality of mind versus matter and implies“knowledge as an abstract ‘product’ of the human in-tellect . . . completely separable from the cultural milieuthat gives [it] meaning” (p. 5).

Nadasdy’s solution is “the devolution of control overlocal land and resources to aboriginal communitiesthemselves,” thus relieving indigenous peoples “of theburden of having to express themselves in ways that areforeign to them to justify their views to scientists andbureaucrats” (p. 15). His critique expresses his profounddistrust of the idea of effective translation of the con-ceptual realities of indigenous cultures into those ofmodern national bureaucracies. However, his “solution”imagines a world in which colonial occupation and set-tlement never occurred and nations willingly cede theirsovereign power. In reality, indigenous communitieseverywhere must necessarily engage an encompassingpolity that holds ultimate power. It would seem more inthe interest of the survival of indigenous communitiesto foster a dialogue, however imperfect, with the pro-fessional scientists and resource managers entrusted bynational governments with the “protection of our nat-ural resources.”

We question the assertion that the elemental terms oftraditional environmental knowledge and terms such as“management” or “conservation” are “incommensura-ble” (Nadasdy 1999:2). For example, in the Sahaptin lan-guage of the Columbia River Basin (see Hunn and Selam1990), “traditional” may be translated as tamanwit, “theLaw,” literally “that which is laid down,” understood asprinciples of right conduct set forth by Coyote at theclose of the Myth Age. Sahaptin-speaking Indians, aswell as the great majority of anthropologists, agree thattraditions are not a fixed set of directives frozen in thepast but principles that guide behavior, even through thedrastic changes wrought by Euro-American colonization(see Berkes 1999:3–15). Thus, contemporary Yakama,Warm Springs, and Umatilla Indians seek guidance fromand find inspiration in this traditional Law both in theirinternal affairs and in their dealings with external forces.

A concept of “environment” is likewise explicitly rec-ognized in Sahaptin. Tiicham, “land,” is a close concep-tual equivalent, though it is understood to refer to a land-scape inhabited by animate brings with which people(tanan-ma) must maintain proper moral relations in per-petuity. To speak of the “land” by no means implies thatpeople are separated from or opposed to the “land.” Quitethe contrary.

Finally, “knowledge” is shukat, and in Sahaptin as inEnglish it implies power. One’s spirit ally is one’s“knowledge.” Without a systematic analysis of Sahaptinethnoepistemology we cannot say precisely in what re-

spects Sahaptin notions of “knowledge” differ from ourown. However, to claim, as Nadasdy does, that “tradi-tional knowledge is not really ‘knowledge’ at all in theWestern sense of the term” (our italics) caricatures both“traditional” and “Western” knowledge (see Lakoff andJohnson 1999).

The Tlingit saying aat ya ayunei, “Respect everythingprovided by the Holy Spirit” (Herman Kitka, personalcommunication, 2002), is understood to require that onenot harvest fish or deer, for example, in excess of one’sneeds. The Tlingit phrase a daat khuyawdzitaakh, “onecares for (or looks after) it,” describes the responsibilityof clan or house leaders (hıt s’aati) to husband a salmonstream or other resource patch within the clan territory.In short, the relevance of traditional environmentalknowledge for conservation is by no means alien to tra-ditional or indigenous peoples’ understanding. Of course,this is no guarantee that Western “experts” will properlyappreciate the common ground beneath these indigenousconceptual systems and their own.

That some people misconstrue these terms or cyni-cally manipulate them (see Hensel and Morrow 1998,Nadasdy n.d.) is not sufficient cause to abandon them.Nadasdy’s critique affirms a strong form of the so-calledSapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity. At theextreme, linguistic relativists deny the possibility oftranslation, abandoning each human community to liveisolated in a solipsistic world that is the unique creationof its linguistic history. In our judgment, this extremeposition is indefensible. We believe that those who studytraditional environmental knowledge should strive totranslate as faithfully as possible between the myriadindigenous and local systems of environmental under-standing and modern scientific views of our commonreality. We recognize that the successful integration ofsuch knowledge with other forms of knowledge in co-operative resource management regimes is a politicalprocess in which indigenous peoples are at a distinctpower disadvantage. We also recognize the danger in pro-moting traditional or indigenous knowledge taken outof context as guarantor of “sustainable development”(Agrawal 1995). However, we do not believe that resis-tance to recognizing indigenous knowledge and wisdomis reason to abandon attempts to promote its value, bothintellectual and practical. We agree with Cruikshank(2001:391), who suggests that “local knowledge of theworld . . . has more similarities with contemporary sci-ence than differences from it” and that “we need knowl-edge bridges that work from local concepts as well asfrom science if we are to bring broadly based humanvalues to bear on problems” such as the conservation ofbiological and cultural diversity. Sillitoe (1998) makes asimilar case. While recognizing “the pitfalls of ethno-centrism . . . in some indigenous-knowledge research”and the fact that “some scientists behave as if it werepossible to pluck information . . . out of cultural context”(p. 228), he cautions against “the danger of taking thesociocultural embeddedness issue too far and producingethnographic accounts which will strike scientists as es-oteric records which they are unable to relate to their

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work. There is a need to make the connections” (p. 229).We shall present a case study of Huna Tlingit environ-mental knowledge and resource use that illustrates theseconnections.

The Conservation-Biology Critique

A rather different challenge to the proposition that tra-ditional environmental knowledge should play an inte-gral role in contemporary resource management is theargument—now so widely accepted as to constitute anew orthodoxy—that indigenous (“traditional,” “local,”or “small-scale”) communities do not, as a rule, practice“conservation” in relation to their natural environmentsbut rather are by nature inclined to “overharvest” re-sources, limited only by their technological and demo-graphic capacity (see Meilleur 1994). This conclusion hasbeen widely promoted by Jared Diamond in a series ofessays (e.g., 1986, 1988) and in his book The Third Chim-panzee (1992). More recently, the ethnohistorian ShepardKrech has elaborated this theme in The Ecological In-dian (1999), in which he sets out to disabuse us of themyth of the Noble Savage. Diamond and Krech are atpains to demonstrate that indigenous peoples were quiteas likely as modern peoples to degrade their natural en-vironments, irrespective of the sophistication of theirenvironmental knowledge. The orthodoxy of this viewis suggested by the manner in which writers seek toestablish their legitimacy by disclaiming any residualromanticism with regard to indigenous resource man-agement. Fitzgibbon (1998:449), for example, opens hercontribution to an influential recent collection entitledBehavioral Ecology and Conservation Biology with thisdisclaimer: “Although the idea of hunter-gatherers livingin harmony with nature was popular among anthropol-ogists in the 1960s and 1970s, this is no longer the pre-vailing view, and it is now clear that traditional societiesoften overharvest their prey.”

This orthodoxy is morally, politically, and theoreti-cally charged. The old orthodoxy is said to deny indig-enous peoples agency, discounting their active and cre-ative management of the natural environment. Incontrast, the new orthodoxy may be seen as delegiti-mizing indigenous claims to traditional lands and live-lihoods. Ideological opponents of neocolonialism andglobal capitalism may prefer to see indigenous com-munities and other small-scale subsistence societies asutopian alternatives to the mayhem of modernity. Mean-while, as Ruttan and Borgerhoff Mulder (1999:622) note,

Evolutionary ecologists question whether indigenouspeoples are natural conservationists, their primaryobjection being theoretical. Individuals cannot be ex-pected to limit present harvests of resources for thepurpose of conserving them for future use if this be-havior entails a cost. . . . The rationale of this cri-tique is that such restraint is altruistic if the bene-fits are shared by all but the costs are borneindividually.

We find this polarization of the debate unfortunate.We are particularly critical of the various ways in whichproponents of the new orthodoxy have characterized thekey term in the debate, “conservation.” Described asaltruistic, preservationist, and essentialist, “conserva-tion” is difficult if not impossible to attain, and conser-vation biologists thus dismiss numerous examples ofsuccessful environmental stewardship by indigenouscommunities. Yet “conservation” in everyday English isa word rich with powerful moral connotations. “Con-servation” is good; failure to conserve is bad. If the termis deprived of its normal content but retains its powerto praise or condemn, there is danger of misunder-standing.

Krech’s The Ecological Indian is hailed by Carolyn Mer-chant in the jacket copy as “a stunning, provocative reas-sessment of the image of the noble Indian living harmo-niously within nature.” In his attempt to rescue NativeAmericans from this stereotype, Krech argues that theymore likely burned and pillaged nature to the limits oftheir abilities. He sets out to debunk a “myth,” not toclarify a complex issue. In our judgment, the cases heoffers are either (1) highly speculative reconstructions lefthanging as likely possibilities, as in his discussions of theevidence for Pleistocene overkill and Hohokam self-de-struction; (2) accounts of environmental mayhem pro-moted by colonial and neocolonial capitalist enterprisebut blamed on the Indians caught up in this trade follow-ing the destruction of their traditional societies, as in histreatment of bison, white-tailed deer, beaver, and Nativecorporations; or (3) cases of sustainable indigenous sub-sistence practice misconstrued as destructive or anticon-servationist, as in his analysis of Indian burning, Indianspiritual beliefs about animals, and contemporary Makahwhaling. These cases prove nothing with respect to theauthenticity of “the ecological Indian.”

Charles Kay, in an article entitled “Aboriginal Over-kill” (1994), argues that “Native Americans had no ef-fective conservation practices, and the manner in whichthey harvested ungulates was the exact opposite of anypredicted conservation strategy.” He asserts that “NativeAmericans acted in ways that maximized their individ-ual fitness regardless of the impact on the environment.”This follows from his assumption that “for humans, con-servation is seldom an evolutionarily stable strategy” (p.359). Kay’s evidence that elk, at least, were present inonly limited numbers in much of western North Amer-ica where they are now abundant seems convincing, andit is plausible that this was the consequence of heavyhunting pressure by Native Americans. However, to la-bel a particular level of predation “overkill” presumesthat we can define some optimal “natural” level of pre-dation. While Indian elk hunting may indeed have sup-pressed the “natural” reproductive potential of that spe-cies, surviving elk populations proved more thanadequate for millennia in the face of such hunting pres-sure. To call this “overkill” demonstrates Kay’s preser-vationist bias.

Michael Alvard’s (1998a) research with Amazonianhunters was carefully designed to distinguish optimal-


foraging strategies from conservationist ones. His dataclearly indicate that the Diamante Piro of southeasternPeru do not employ a conservationist strategy in select-ing prey. However, as he admits, “generations are oftenrequired for exploitive foraging decisions to deplete preypopulations” (p. 492). One might add that prey popula-tions may never be depleted by such “exploitive forag-ing” if the human population is maintained at a suffi-ciently low density. Smith and Wishnie (2000:509) citeevidence that subsistence hunters typically harvest buta small fraction of the available prey population surplus.If within the memory of the living (and the culturalmemory of the community) a particular harvest strategyhas no detectable impact on prey populations, why adoptthe more costly conservationist strategy? Is one not aconservationist for not conserving a resource that isabundant relative to the demands placed on it? As Alvardrecognizes, optimal-foraging predictions maximizeshort-term returns but say nothing of complementarylong-term strategies that might achieve a conservationistoutcome at the end of the day. For example, the strategyreported for contemporary Waswanipi Cree of rotatinghunting grounds (Feit 1973), a hunter’s analogue of fallowcycling of swidden fields, might allow for the long-termregeneration of prey populations depleted in the shortterm by an optimal-foraging strategy.

Smith and Wishnie (2000) argue that true “conserva-tion” must be carefully distinguished from mere “sus-tainable habitat use,” since even long-term sustainabil-ity (stable adaptations lasting centuries or millennia)may be explained in terms other than conservation, suchas “low population density, low demand for a resource,or limited technology.” True conservation, according toSmith and Wishnie, involves actions or practices that“(a) prevent or mitigate resource depletion, species ex-tirpation, or habitat degradation, and (b) [are] designedto do so” (p. 501). “Design” need not be conscious—thatis, it may result from a biogenetic or cultural evolution-ary process—but to prove design one must rule out al-ternative explanations, for example, the marginal-valuetheorem of evolutionary ecology (pp. 501–2, 512). Theyargue that small-scale subsistence societies are not in-clined to conserve when it is not in people’s self-interestto do so. While granting that “small-scale societies havedeveloped many practices designed to enhance liveli-hood, for which habitat or biodiversity conservation is aby-product” (p. 511), they suggest that such practices arenot “conservation” because they were not designed toproduce just that outcome and no other. Applying thesecriteria, they conclude that “voluntary conservation israre” in small-scale societies.

Though Smith and Wishnie’s definition of “conser-vation” seems reasonable, their application of the designcriterion rules out many examples of sustainable har-vesting that fit what most people think of as “conser-vation”—actions that prevent something of value frombeing damaged, lost, or wasted. They discount Nelson’s(1982, 1983) argument that the Koyukon proscription ofwasteful hunting reflects a “conservation ethic,” coun-tering that “avoiding wanton destruction of unneeded

prey is not the same as restraining harvest below currentdesires” and that “matching harvest levels to currentneeds . . . does not qualify as conservation” (p. 511). Inother words, conservation requires self-sacrifice; it mustbe altruistic.

In our view, the new orthodoxy diverts attention froma key issue: How can we avoid destroying our globalenvironment, and what can we learn from indigenousresource management practices (and their grounding intraditional environmental knowledge) that might helpus achieve that goal? Redford (1990:47) is pessimistic:“How relevant are [indigenous] methods and customs [ofresource management] to situations where [low popu-lation density, abundant land, and limited involvementwith a market economy] no longer exist . . . ? Techniquesdeveloped to satisfy subsistence needs are unlikely towork when surpluses are needed for cash.” Granted. Butif the problem is excess population, land scarcity, andthe market economy, we should consider how we mightwork with indigenous peoples to restrain such destruc-tive forces rather than discount their resolve to defendtheir traditional way of life and the land and resourcesessential to their survival as a people.

A preservationist bias is clear in the new orthodoxy.For example, Redford and Stearman (1993:252) argue thatthe interests of indigenous peoples and conservation bi-ologists conflict, since “it is clear that if the full rangeof genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity is to be main-tained in its natural abundance on a given piece of land,then virtually any significant activity by humans mustnot be allowed. . . . even low levels of indigenous activityalter biodiversity as defined above.” Kay’s characteriza-tion of Native American hunting as “overkill” impliesthat any measurable demographic impact on a prey spe-cies is excessive. Likewise, Smith and Wishnie (2000:515) argue that “the dominant cultural meaning andpractice of ‘conservation’ at the current historical mo-ment focuses on preservation of biodiversity.” We wouldcounter that this is not the way the term “conservation”is most widely understood. Furthermore, as Alcorn(1993) has argued, while the preservationist ideal isclearly alien to indigenous peoples, a notion of conser-vation as “caring for the earth” is widely recognized. Tohold indigenous peoples to the preservationist standardundermines the possibility of an effective alliance be-tween conservation biologists and indigenous commu-nities in defense of the environment.

Perhaps it is irrelevant whether we call the practicesthat have sustained the Huna Tlingit in their homelandfor the past several millennia “conservation.” In anycase, we consider the traditional Huna Tlingit gull-eggharvest practices that we describe below an example ofindigenous resource management that might be judgedconservationist, with the proviso that what is to be con-served is not biodiversity in the abstract but a livingcommunity that requires as a condition of its continuedexistence the sustainable management of the resourceson which it depends.


The Huna Tlingit Case

We report here the results of a study of the traditionalharvesting of glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens)eggs by Huna Tlingit people of southeastern Alaska, withparticular emphasis on their harvests from gull colonieson the Marble Islands in Glacier Bay National Park andPreserve (GBNPP).2 Many Huna Tlingit fondly recall howas children they traveled in late May and early June tothe Marble Islands in Glacier Bay on family outings toharvest the large, rich gull eggs. Many bitterly resent thefact that these harvests are now prohibited by law, aprohibition enforced by the GBNPP administration sinceca. 1960. (Glacier Bay was designated a national monu-ment in 1925, expanded in 1939, and designated a na-tional park and preserve in 1980. The federal presenceand tourist pressure have increased gradually since itsestablishment [Catton 1993, 1995].) Many, if not all,Huna Tlingit value Glacier Bay as their “breadbasket”(Bosworth 1988, Thornton 1999) and the core of theirancestral homeland (Goldschmidt and Haas 1998). Thegull-egg harvest issue has come to stand for the widerhistoric conflict between local Tlingit and the Park Ser-vice. In an effort to improve relations with its Tlingitneighbors, the GBNPP administration met with HunaTlingit leaders in 1997. At the Huna’s request, the ParkService agreed to fund this study of traditional gull-eggharvests, which the Huna hoped might support the even-tual legal recognition of what they see as their right tocontinue their traditional harvest activities within thepark.

a brief history

The Huna Tlingit have occupied their traditional terri-tory for millennia, with no evidence that they have de-graded it (which is not to claim they had no impact ontheir environment; see Hunn et al. 2002:19–51). The lo-cal archaeological record locates cultures dating to10,230 � 800 b.p. within a few miles of the present vil-lage of Hoonah and clearly ancestral cultural traditionshere by a.d. 1020 � 70 (Ackerman, Hamilton, and Stuck-enrath 1979). Croes (2001) has analyzed a 6,000-year-oldbasket recovered from the Silver Hole site on Prince ofWales Island, at the southern limit of present-day Tlingitterritory. He concludes that “the basket in many waysclosely resembles the ethnographic Tlingit and Haidabasketry of this northern area” (p. 151) and clearly con-

2. This study was developed in collaboration with the Huna Tlingitsand personnel of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (GBNPP)and was funded by the U.S. National Park Service under Cooper-ative Agreement No. 14443 CA-9000-95-0019, Subagreement 1,Modification 3, between the U.S. National Park Service and theU.S. Geological Service Biological Resources Division, Universityof Washington, and in cooperation with the Huna Indian Associ-ation, Hoonah, Alaska. It was designed to document fully the tra-ditional environmental knowledge with respect to harvests of glau-cous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) eggs as a basis for consideringthe possibility of negotiating the resumption of gull-egg harvestsin the park and preserve. A full report has been submitted to GBNPPpersonnel and the Huna community (Hunn et al. 2002).

trasts stylistically with baskets of similar age from far-ther south. The Huna recount oral histories indicatingthat they had occupied Glacier Bay before the last glacialadvance of the “Little Ice Age,” ca. a.d. 1100–1800(Thornton 1995). They were in the process of reclaimingancestral resource harvesting sites when the first Euro-American explorers arrived on the scene to witness therelease of Glacier Bay from its burden of ice.

One of 13 kwaan or “tribes” of the Alaskan Tlingitlanguage group or nation, the Huna include members offour major clans with original ties to Glacier Bay as wellas members of a few additional clans. Clan rights overa territory generally did not preclude the harvesting ofresources by other Huna residents of Huna Kawoo (HunaPeople’s Country). As Pat Mills put it, “People fromother places had to get permission, but if you were fromHuna and knew the place you could just go.” Relativesand friends from other communities, such as Angoon,Tenakee, and even Metlakatla, were also welcome solong as they went with a local family and there wereenough eggs.

The village of Hoonah across Icy Strait from GlacierBay has been from earliest recorded history the Huna’sprimary permanent settlement. Before the 20th century,they had additional winter villages, but these have beenabandoned in favor of Hoonah. The historical process ofresidential consolidation at the site is relevant to a properunderstanding of how Huna Tlingit strategies for har-vesting gull eggs may have changed since the pre-Euro-pean contact period and to the question of the effect ofthe establishment of the park and preserve on prior gull-egg harvesting practices. In the 19th century Huna Tlin-git people apparently occupied as many as a dozen “vil-lages,” “settlements,” and “forts” distributed through-out their recognized territory (de Laguna 1990, Gold-schmidt and Haas 1998). These village sites were stagingareas for subsistence harvesting. Abandonment of vil-lages was in part a response to depopulation due to in-troduced disease epidemics and to involvement in thecommercial fishing industry (Langdon and Brakel 2001).However, several villages and camps were abandoned asa direct result of forced exclusion by whites. In partic-ular, fox farmers are reported to have appropriated Hunavillage lands and forcibly expelled residents of those vil-lages. A fishing camp at Bartlett Cove, the site of GBNPPheadquarters, appears to have been appropriated by thepark administration (Langdon and Brakel 2001:104–21).Statements by many Huna Tlingit people indicate thatthey associate their exclusion from traditional settle-ments within Glacier Bay with the establishment of Gla-cier Bay National Monument.

The first mention of Glacier Bay in the historical rec-ord comes from the Vancouver expedition of 1792 (Van-couver 1801). Although Vancouver’s shore party de-scribed it as a massive wall of ice fronting the turbulentberg-choked waters of Icy Strait, they nonetheless en-countered a native group camped near the mouth of thebay and seemingly at home in that inhospitable envi-ronment (Menzies 1993:148–51). In 1878 the naturalistJohn Muir ventured into the bay with Tlingit hunters as


guides (Muir 1915). Glacier Bay captured his imagina-tion, and his writings and public presentations promptedothers to follow. Within several years of Muir’s first visit,Glacier Bay became a regular stopover for steamshipscarrying an assortment of scientists, explorers, and ven-turesome tourists. All accounts by these early visitorsmention the active involvement of Huna Tlingits in tra-ditional activities throughout Glacier Bay. Camps werereported in the middle and lower reaches of the bay, andBartlett Cove, with its village and cannery, was a regularstopover for steamships. After a lobbying effort by theEcological Society of America and an intense politicalbattle pitting preservationists and scientists against busi-ness interests and settlers, Glacier Bay was designated anational monument by presidential proclamation onFebruary 26, 1925.

Tlingit society underwent profound changes duringthis period. The burgeoning commercial salmon industrybrought sweeping changes beginning in the late 1870s.Within a few years salmon, the foundation of the Tlingiteconomy, was transformed into common property, andTlingits were reduced from proud owners of streams andfish resources to wage-labor fishers and cannery workers.They found themselves increasingly cut off from manytraditional subsistence sites that were being settled bynon-natives or included in federal land managementunits such as Tongass National Forest and Glacier BayNational Monument. In the face of powerful pressure toassimilate, many Tlingits were able to meld many ofthese societal changes with their traditional subsistenceway of life. For example, the summer’s commercial fish-ing activities were dovetailed with subsistence fishing,hunting, and gathering outings, and the transition to gas-powered boats meant that many of the traditional lo-cations for these activities could be reached more swiftly.

Until the late 1930s the Park Service had very littledirect management involvement in the monument. Bythis time a host of non-native homesteaders, miners,trappers, commercial fishers, and fox farmers had movedinto the region and Tlingit culture was in a state of tran-sition. Though the Huna were clearly involved in cash-oriented activities such as trapping, seal hunting forhides and bounty, commercial fishing, and prospecting,they remained deeply connected to the Glacier Bay land-scape. Park officials noted smokehouses at the mouthsof productive fish streams and parties of Huna travelingto gather berries and gull eggs (see Trager 1939 and Been1940).

Park Service officials moved to eliminate certain ac-tivities, such as the trapping and hunting of land animals,by native and non-native alike. Gathering birds’ eggs,which was technically illegal under the Migratory BirdTreaty Act3 and federal regulations, was eliminated in

3. On October 7, 1999, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announcedthat the United States and Canada had formally agreed to a protocolamending the treaty. This agreement allows both countries to rec-ognize and cooperatively manage subsistence uses of migratorybirds and their eggs for “their own nutritional and other essentialneeds,” including such harvests in the spring and summer, and

the monument in the early 1960s. This action strainedrelationships between Huna Tlingits and the Park Ser-vice, as it effectively cut the Huna off from their favoritegathering sites. Other activities, such as seal hunting forbounty and commercial fishing, were allowed to con-tinue.

With time, even authorized uses decreased because oftension between Huna and the Park Service. However,Schroeder (1995) shows that Huna Tlingit harvesting ac-tivities continued throughout the park well into the1980s. In summary, Huna Tlingits have utilized GlacierBay for subsistence activities throughout the historic pe-riod despite legal sanctions. This perseverance is moti-vated by the deep spiritual connection of the Huna Tlin-gits to their homeland, their recognition that the mosteffective and meaningful way to maintain this integralconnection is through subsistence activities, and theirability to adapt subsistence strategies and technologiesto new conditions within an ever-changing social andlegal framework.

huna tlingit subsistence

For the Huna, subsistence was far more than an eco-nomic activity; it was also a “moral and religious oc-cupation” (de Laguna 1990:209). For example, “Thehunter had to purify himself [before hunting] by bathing,fasting and continence, [and] to refrain from announcingwhat he hoped to kill” (p. 210), “No animal . . . shouldbe slain needlessly, nor mocked, nor should the body bewasted” (p. 209). “Fish had to be treated with respect andthe offal returned to streams or burned to insure theirreincarnation” (p. 210). Berries were believed to have an“inner form” or spirit (yeik) that had to be treated withrespect (Thornton 1999:36).

Traditional practice included explicit conservationprovisions. For example, “Kake people hunted sheep atthree places but were careful not to visit the same placefor two years, to conserve the game” (de Laguna 1990:210). “Patchy” resources of critical importance, such assalmon spawning areas, halibut-fishing grounds, andberry patches, were owned by families that monitoredthem and controlled access to them. A number of keyresources were cultivated by weeding (strawberries), fer-tilizing (berries), and transplanting (soapberries, salmon,deer) (Thornton 1999:4; Herman Kitka, personal com-munication, June 5, 1998; Pat Mills, personal commu-nication, November 6, 1998). In all these activities, shar-ing was of the essence: “Each woman marked her fishwith distinctive cuts and kept her bundles separate inthe cache, taking pleasure in sharing them with house-mates or visitors” (de Laguna 1990:210).

Fish were the primary resource category. According toMurdock’s Ethnographic Atlas (1967:106), fishing (in-cluding shell fishing and marine-mammal hunting) ac-counted for 56–65% of Tlingit subsistence; hunting oflarge land animals (including trapping and fowling) ac-

establishes eligibility for the “indigenous inhabitants of Alaska” inspecified areas.


counted for 26–35% and gathering of plants and smallland animals (possibly including birds’ eggs) for the re-maining 6–15%. These proportions are probably syste-matically biased, exaggerating somewhat the importanceof hunting at the expense of gathering. Thornton (1999)has shown that the quantitative contribution of a re-source to Tlingit subsistence does not necessarily reflectthe cultural significance of that resource for local people.For example, berries have profound spiritual and socialsignificance for Huna Tlingit people despite their lowranking in Murdock’s scale. Nevertheless, the quanti-tative predominance of fish in their diet is undeniable.Huna fished for five salmon species (harvested July–November, dried in fall for winter), halibut and Pacificgray cod (harvested late winter to early spring), and her-ring (eggs in April, rendered for oil in fall). Hunters tar-geted deer, mountain goats, and Dall sheep in fall, sealsin summer, and bears in late winter. A great variety ofshellfish was harvested in winter and spring, whilegreens and roots were available in late spring and manyberries in fall (Newton and Moss 1984, Thornton 1999).

Seagull eggs had their place among this abundance oftraditional riches. Though they were not notable interms of their quantitative contribution to the diet or ofoutstanding ritual significance, they were neverthelesshighly appreciated and are now fondly remembered withrespect both to their having marked a turning point inthe subsistence year and to the way in which theybrought families together. Gull eggs were taken duringa brief window of opportunity between mid-May andmid-June. Given the tight synchronization of egg layingin the gull colonies (described in more detail below), op-timal harvests were possible for only a limited time.Gull-egg collecting trips heralded the arrival of goodtravel weather and relief from food shortages. It was aparticularly exciting time for children, who participatedactively in the gull-egg harvests. For many hunting-and-gathering peoples, food species symbolically representthe particular places where they are harvested, and har-vest places are elements of a sacred landscape. This isespecially true among the Huna Tlingit, who harvesteach resource with and for family, house, clan, and tribe.Huna today view gull-egg harvesting as exceptionally im-portant not just for its food value but for its power todefine the Huna as a people and to maintain their tiesto their ancestral lands and waters.

The creation of the national park and preserve hasplaced the majority of Huna Tlingit ancestral lands andresource harvest areas under increasingly restrictive fed-eral control. Regarding Glacier Bay as their sacred home-land, Huna have become increasingly indignant aboutrestrictions on subsistence and other activities withinthe park and monument boundaries. In the mid-1990scultural resource management personnel at the park in-vited a group of Huna elders to a workshop to discusspossible collaboration on a project to document Tlingitknowledge of cultural and natural resources within thepark. The Huna halted the conference proceedings whenthey realized that they were being asked to reveal theirknowledge without being promised anything in return.

In return for their cooperation they demanded that thepark restore limited harvest rights for two key subsis-tence foods, seals and seagull eggs. Park officials agreedto work cooperatively with them toward a resolution ofthese issues. The present study was funded in that spirit.

Methods

During May, June, and October of 1998 we visitedHoonah and met with community leaders. On our arrivalwe presented our research proposal to a communitymeeting at the offices of the Huna Indian Association.Wayne Howell, a representative of the GBNPP culturalresources staff who had been working to improve com-munication between Huna people and the park admin-istration, was also present. We emphasized the value ofhaving an independent, academically based researchteam conduct the research. Though the study was fundedby GBNPP at the request of Huna leaders, it was ourunderstanding that our draft report was to be presentedfor review simultaneously to the Huna community andto the park administration and that, while both partieswere welcome to comment and offer suggested changes,the final responsibility for the report was ours. We ex-pressed our hope that the report might provide a detailedaccount of the significance of gull-egg harvests for theHuna people that might serve as a basis for discussionand negotiation between them and the park admin-istration.

The research was approved and a list of knowledgeablelocal citizens provided. We interviewed all the availableTlingit individuals who were knowledgeable about tra-ditional gull-egg harvests (n p 45) using an outline oftopics to be addressed. Interviews were conducted by oneor more of the researchers, most often in the inter-viewee’s home. They were informal, and intervieweeswere encouraged to elaborate upon their experiences,perspectives, and opinions. These interviews were taperecorded with permission and the tapes subsequentlytranscribed. Interviewees were offered a token paymentfor their time. Russell later returned to Hoonah for ad-ditional interviews and to allow interviewees an oppor-tunity to review and edit their interview transcriptions.All transcriptions were then carefully reviewed by pro-ject personnel, and representative quotes were selectedfor inclusion in the final report to illustrate the range oflocal perspectives on the issues.

We also visited GBNPP headquarters to discuss theproject’s design with Park Service representatives andconducted a survey of the region by air courtesy of thePark Service. Meanwhile, Thornton compiled relevantTlingit-language vocabulary and Hunn reviewed the rel-evant ornithological literature, comparing the scientificliterature with Huna Tlingit ethnoscientific knowledgeof gull biogeography, breeding biology, and behavior,with special emphasis on the glaucous-winged gulls ofthe park and preserve (e.g., Baicich and Harrison 1997,Bent 1963[1921], Ehrlich, Dobkin, and Wheye 1988, Pat-ten 1974, Verbeek 1993). Preliminary drafts of our report


(Hunn et al. 2002) were submitted to the GBNPP ad-ministration and to the Hoonah community for review.

Results

Gull-egg harvests, though of minor significance in theHuna Tlingit diet, past or present (see Newton and Moss1984, Schroeder and Kookesh 1990), are accorded a prom-inent place in subsistence practice. Indeed, in the mid-20th century, at least, gull-egg harvests were considereda touchstone of Huna Tlingit identity.

the cultural significance of gull-eggharvesting

The exceptional significance of gull-egg harvests is duein part to the fact that they marked a key seasonal tran-sition from the relative confinement of the winter andearly spring to the mobility characteristic of summer andfall, during which time the bulk of traditional subsis-tence products were harvested:

And this is how we have come to love our countrythe way our fathers and uncles did. We also felt thatwe were part of somebody and somebody specialwhen our families took us on these trips [to harvesteggs]. We were taught this is who we are and thatthis is how it’s going to be.

I think it was connection to your seasons, to . . .progress in your life, to continuity, to sharing in thecommunity, to everyone coming together and, youknow, doing this one thing. . . . And the differencebetween an egg inside Glacier Bay and an egg out-side Glacier Bay is Glacier Bay is our traditionalhomeland. That’s where our heart and soul is.That’s what ties us to our land. Our food that comesout of there is directly responsible for our strength,our knowledge, our inner peace, as compared to[food] that’s outside of the traditional homeland.

Gull-egg harvests also had special social and culturalsignificance as an activity that typically involved thewhole family working together, including children asyoung as eight years old. It was perhaps a unique op-portunity for children to learn from their parents andgrandparents—in the context of the actual harvesting—both practical and moral lessons with respect to Tlingits’relationship with their natural environment:

Gathering eggs in Glacier Bay was something espe-cially the family looked forward to. It was likeEaster. Family and cousins gathered up there and wecollected eggs, and it was a joyous occasion.

As soon [as you] were big enough, you go to youruncle, and the uncle was responsible to teach andtrain the kids.

And one of our uncles’ boats would take off . . .

would take the whole family up to Glacier Bay togather eggs. . . . [The children would be let off] onthe hillsides with our uncles making sure we didn’tgo too far off the edge.

We did not go as group of men or a bunch of peo-ple here or another bunch there. We went as family.. . .

I remember carrying some of my little sisters andbrothers on my back when we were going up thereand doing this.

Although not a highly ritualized activity, egg collect-ing was a context in which traditional values were re-inforced:

I only remember my grandfather would put the eggup like this, looking towards Heaven and thankingthe birds for the food that he found. . . . He’d callthe birds just like they were people, . . . and he said,“Thank you for letting me find the egg for my mealtoday.”

Dad took us up there to gather eggs, and beforewe went to get the eggs, while we’re on our way upon the boat, they would instruct us about how manyeggs to take, to respect it and not try to play with it.And like I said, it was just like a spiritual food. . . .

You did not want to even bother or touch anyplace, because the gull knows more about it thanyou do, so you always left the nest alone. You didnot disturb it. You just took the eggs and steppedaround it. Children were also taught to only takewhat was needed or what they could use.

[Any time] that you harvest food or you’re in thesacred homeland, you are being watched by every el-der that is accompanying you.

We were also told that if people broke the rulesestablished by the elders they might not ever beasked to go again.

The whole Glacier Bay was respected. Alwayswhen you left there, you had to pick up your gar-bage from wherever you’re at. You put that away oryou burn it in the fire. You don’t just leave it.

We consider a lot of things people. We talk tothem. We believe there is a spirit. We [don’t] knowhow he looked or anything. We only know he ex-isted somewhere. Probably existed in the rock or inthe mountains, in the animals in Glacier Bay orwhatever. We do know he exists.

Though the quantities harvested were limited by thebrevity of the harvest season (just a few weeks) and thescarcity of accessible colonies (in practice, by the secondhalf of the 20th century, limited to South Marble Island),


the eggs were widely shared within extended familiesand the community:

We’d halibut fish in Glacier Bay. When it was time. . . to pick eggs, they’d pick all the eggs they could.They’d pack ‘em in ice and they’d bring ‘em fortheir families. . . .

The seagull egg was too important. I remembermy dad bringing them home. And he’d talk aboutstoring them in moss and grass on the boat. . . .Usually when he went up there for halibut fishing,after the halibut trip they would bring the eggshome.

harvesting gull eggs: the dominantstrategy

A substantial majority of respondents who specified agull-egg harvesting strategy volunteered that they hadbeen taught that they should harvest eggs only fromnests with one or two eggs present (24 of 39 respondents,64%). The most common strategy reported by far was tocollect only from nests with up to two eggs and to takethem all (16 respondents, 41%). We call this strategy A:

What I was taught, if there was one or two eggs inthere, that was good to take, you take them. If therewas three or more in there, you know, they’re al-ready starting to form so the party I was with saiddon’t touch them.

We only picked one or two eggs. If there werethree eggs in the nest we were told to leave it alonebecause there was usually birds in there.

When you’d go up there to Marble Island, youwalk around and look for [a nest], and then whenyou see it, you look at the eggs. Some of them haveone egg. That’s good. If it’s got three to four eggs,you leave it alone.

And we didn’t pick any eggs off the nest that hadalready three eggs. If they had three eggs in there,then they had an embryo. . . . If there was one egg,two eggs, you could pick them, but if there werethree eggs, then we stopped.

Two variations on this common strategy were reportedby those harvesting eggs from a nest with one or twoeggs. The first of these was to take only one egg fromsuch a nest (2 respondents, 5%), and the second was toleave one egg in a nest with two eggs and not take anyfrom a nest with one egg (2 respondents, 5%).

We were instructed . . . that we are not even totouch nests that have three eggs in it. Nests thathave two, you can take one.

If there was just two eggs, leave one. Even if therewas one, we were told not to touch ‘em.

We always left one.

Five respondents (13%) reported taking eggs only froma nest with one egg in it.

You only pick the nest that has one egg in it. Andthe old timers would say . . . when you go pickingseagull eggs, just like pick a nest that has just oneegg in it. If there’re two, there might be little chickscoming.

It was not at first obvious to us how this cultural in-junction, if scrupulously respected, might have affectedlocal gull populations in the long run. However, afterconsulting ornithological accounts of glaucous-wingedgull breeding biology and behavior, which describe thespecies as an indeterminate layer (Bent 1963[1921]; Ehr-lich, Dobkin, and Wheye 1988:165, 176), it became clearthat this strategy was well designed to conserve localgull populations while affording a substantial and pre-dictable harvest.

Once the female begins to lay (typically one egg everyother day), she will continue laying until she has a fullclutch of three eggs (less often one or two).4 When thisclutch size is achieved, her capacity to produce new eggsshuts down. “The onset of incubation [sometime afterthe second egg is laid] probably causes developing folli-cles to atrophy . . . and ovulation to cease” (Kennedy1991:110). Experiments with various gull species havedemonstrated that if eggs are removed before incubationbegins, the female will continue laying. An experimentalstudy of the closely related lesser black-backed gull (La-rus fuscus) showed that these gulls “were capable of pro-ducing, on average, almost three times the normal clutchof three eggs.” To be precise, the mean number of eggsinduced was 8.59 � 0.61 eggs over a period of 23.5 �1.9 days. One individual laid 16 eggs (Nager, Monaghan,and Houston 2000:1343). However, after incubation hasbegun, the female will not replace the stolen eggs. If allthe eggs are taken or the nest is destroyed, a female mayrenest after an extended period of recuperation.5

It is likely that this egg-harvesting strategy was stress-ful for the females whose nests were repeatedly deprivedof eggs, since egg production requires a substantial in-vestment of energy. Continued harvests would also havedelayed the onset of incubation. It has been reported thatlater clutches are on average smaller, perhaps as a re-sponse to the reduced period for fledging characteristicof late clutches. Thus this harvesting strategy was mostlikely not “harmless” to the gulls—that is, their fledgingrates might have been marginally greater without the

4. Zador (2001) reports that of 291 unmanipulated glaucous-wingedgull nests observed in 1999 and 2000 on South Marble Island, 68%had three-egg, 20% had two-egg, and 11% had one-egg clutches.5. Gull population-control experiments indicate that glaucous-winged gulls will initiate a new egg-laying cycle approximately 12days following the destruction of a completed clutch (Ickes, Belant,and Dolbeer 1998; Stephani Zador, personal communication, 2001).


harvest pressure. Nevertheless, there is no evidence thatthe impact of this harvest strategy on fledging successwas such as to have posed a threat to the maintenanceand even growth of local gull populations.

Considerable evidence suggests, furthermore, that har-vesting is not a significant factor in the ultimate successof the gulls’ breeding efforts. Bent (1963[1921]) has de-scribed how nesting gulls respond to disturbance at theircolonies with respect to two other close relatives of theglaucous-winged gull, the Western (L. occidentalis) andherring (L. argenteus) gulls:

“While they are somewhat wary, many allowed usto come quite close before rising from their nests.. . .” [p. 92, quoting Ray 1904]

After being robbed the birds soon begin layingagain and [Dawson] noted, by watching a certainnest, that an egg was laid every other day. [p. 91]

Although the nest may be frequently robbed andseveral sets of eggs may be laid, only one brood ofyoung is raised in a season. The normal set consistsof three eggs, though two eggs often constitute a fullset in the later layings. . . . [p. 92]

Only one brood is raised, but when the nests arefrequently robbed the birds are kept laying all sum-mer. [p. 106]

Verbeek (1993:12) confirms these gulls’ resilience in theface of human activity: “Glaucous-winged gulls are noteasily disturbed at nest sites. In one study, in which nestson a roof were removed periodically . . . sixteen pairsrebuilt their nests on average 4.7 times rather than moveto another site.” In fact, there is some evidence that incertain circumstances harvesting of eggs may actuallyenhance colony productivity. A study by Vermeer et al.(1991) of the effects of egging on glaucous-winged gullcolonies in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Co-lumbia concluded:

If egging occurs throughout the laying and incuba-tion periods, no gull chicks are produced [as oc-curred in one of the colonies studied]. In the threeegged colonies where egging stopped midway duringthe laying period, gulls produced 0.86 fledglings perpair, whereas the average fledging rate for non-eggedcolonies was 0.77 chicks/pair. At the higher rate thegull population would be expected to increase at2.7% per year. . . . Therefore the effects of egging, ifpracticed in moderation, would still allow the popu-lation to grow.

The predominant Huna harvesting strategy is consistentwith the latter case.

Most Huna understand these basic facts of gull repro-ductive biology and behavior. The harvesting strategydescribed above is a self-conscious application of thistraditional knowledge to produce a sustainable yield ofeggs at or near the gull’s reproductive capacity. In fact,

one may describe the Huna egg-harvesting strategy as aform of animal husbandry (lacking, of course, the in-duced genetic changes involved in domestication).

variant strategies

There is, however, less than perfect agreement amongHuna Tlingits on the proper strategy for harvesting gulleggs. Harvesting from nests with three or more eggs wasreported by 12 (31%) respondents.6 It is noteworthy thatall but three of these specified a strategy of leaving oneor more eggs in the nest. We call this strategy B.

One person described a strategy involving leaving eggsin the nest on the basis of the time of egg collection inthe nesting season: “In the early part [of the season] you. . . take all of them. At a later date you start becomingselective even though it’s pretty hard to tell which oneis which. . . . we used to take two and leave one. . . .And then you start taking only one.” Strategy B wasfurther qualified by suggesting that where there werethree eggs in a nest they might already contain devel-oping embryos. Such eggs were avoided by most, butelders were said to have a special liking for them andthe exclusive right to eat them:

So three eggs on down that’s when I pick them, andout of three eggs I’ll take two eggs, but when youhave four eggs there’s already little ones in there.Three would be the most that you picked, and youwant to put those eggs [from nests with three?] in aspecial place for the elder.

If there were questions about whether eggs might con-tain embryos, they were given a “float test.” If the eggsank, it was “fresh”; if it floated, it was “too far gone.”This practice was described over 60 years ago by a ParkService biologist: “Some of the Indians are less destruc-tive in collecting eggs; their practice is for each memberto carry a small pail of seawater and test all eggs byplacing them in this water. Those that float are replacedin the nest, and those that sink are collected” (Trager1939:4). This practice is referred to as the “water test”by our consultants. Elder Sam Hanlon explained this pro-cess in more detail:

And the first time that we go up there, which is thelast week of May, by that time the climate is warm-ing up so the seagulls start laying their eggs. . . . Butanyway, they picked only a single egg in each nest.They can clean the whole island, you know. Thenext day, you would find more in that nest you justcleaned out . . . a single egg. There’s still no limit.You can spend two-three days picking one egg at atime. And you can get as much as a hundred, twohundred eggs real easy. So now it comes to two and

6. Empirical research indicates that four-egg clutches are extraor-dinarily rare. Reports by respondents indicating taking from nestswith four or more eggs may reflect distortions in information dueto the passage of time (see Patten 1974, Reid 1987). Zador (2001:24) reports one clutch with four eggs in a total of 291 nests in 1999and 2000.


three eggs. By this time it’s June. So the climate isso warm, in a day or two the eggs that had been laidtwo or three days ago, they already had chicks inthere. So when it comes to that, our people used tocarry a bucket of warm water, and they would takeone egg at a time from the nest if there’s two orthree, and they would put it in warm water. Thetemperature of the warm water should be [only]warm enough so you’re not cooking the eggs. . . .And when it floated, it’s telling you one thing—thatthere’s a chick in there. So we put it back to let ithatch. Pick another one. . . . We don’t want to killthe whole population of seagulls off [our italics].

The impact on fledging success of harvesting some butnot all of the eggs from a completed clutch is not entirelyclear. We know of no experimental data that specificallyaddress this point. Stephani Zador, the author of a recentstudy of gull nesting in Glacier Bay, addresses this issueas follows (personal communication, 2002):

We know that in most cases the gulls will not con-tinue to lay eggs when they have already been incu-bating one or more. So, if one egg is left, they willbe able to fledge one chick at the most. . . . Giventhat the gulls can fledge up to three chicks in a goodyear, if many pairs were left with only one egg to in-cubate and brood to fledging, it is logical that overallfledging success would be reduced. In fact, fledgingsuccess would be limited to one chick/pair, even inthe best of conditions. . . . In the situation . . .[where] there were three eggs and two were takenwithin hours after the third was laid, the femalewould generally need to resume follicle growth toform the replacement egg(s). But it will not do so ifmeanwhile it is incubating the egg left in the nest.

However, the impact of harvesting some but not alleggs from a completed clutch should be considerably lessthan a simple proportion of the eggs left—that is, if twoor one were left, the fledging rate would be better thantwo-thirds or one-third of the rate expected if the clutchhad been left intact. Fledging success rates measured byPatten at the North Marble Island colony in 1972 and1973 were 1.75 and 1.80 from nests averaging 2.80 and2.96 eggs per clutch. Thus, the third egg is rarely suc-cessfully fledged. Patten notes that these fledging ratesare nevertheless well above the estimated replacementfledging rate of 0.92 (1974:64).7 Thus, three-egg clutchesrepresent an investment “wasted” in poor-to-averageyears in anticipation of a dividend in exceptionally fa-vorable years. Artificially reducing a three-egg clutch totwo or one thus relieves the adult gulls of a significantburden of parental investment, and this should signifi-cantly enhance the probability of fledging for the re-maining egg or eggs. Except in the most favorable years,it seems likely that overall fledging success rates wouldbe reduced only marginally, if at all, by this harvesting

7. As noted above, Vermeer et al. (1991) report that 0.85 fledgingsper pair would support increases at 2.7% per year.

strategy. In sum, harvesting some but not all eggs froma recently completed clutch is conservative in limitingthe impact of such harvests to a marginal loss in mostyears.

Finally, we should note that we have confirmed a thirdstrategy, first reported by Trager (1939:4):

Two methods are used in taking the eggs. One is torob only nests containing three or less eggs. Theother method is more destructive. Upon landing onthe island, all eggs present in the nests are de-stroyed. Then three or four days later, all nests arerobbed of all eggs which they contain, thus eliminat-ing the possibility of taking partially hatched eggs.

This “more destructive” alternative, which we willcall strategy C, was reported by just one respondent andspecifically rejected by several others. It may have beenemployed under special circumstances, for example,when fishing parties on the outer coast needed fresh eggsbut could not time their harvests precisely. Though Tra-ger describes this alternative strategy as “destructive”and many contemporary Huna Tlingits explicitly rejectit as improper, it may nevertheless have been sustainableif practiced only occasionally. Destroying clutches thatare already complete and being incubated need not resultin nest abandonment. Biologists have observed relayingin colonies well advanced in incubation that had beendestroyed by severe weather, predation (Shugart andScharf 1976), or intentional nest disruption (Ickes, Be-lant, and Dolbeer 1998). The respondent who describedthis strategy clearly expected the gulls to relay, as themethod was justified as a means to obtain fresh eggs.This strategy, however, is more expensive of human ef-fort in that one must first destroy the eggs (perhaps alsomarking the nests so treated) and then return severaldays later in the hope of finding fresh ones. It would alsoappear incompatible with the dominant strategy de-scribed for the Marble Island colonies. It is, therefore,likely that it was not often practiced. It was certainlynot part of the familial egg-harvesting tradition valuedby the majority of respondents. The fact that there aredifferences of opinion within our sample demonstratesthat a culture is a dynamic system of sometimes com-peting beliefs and practices but a system characterizedby certain widely shared understandings.

Discussion

Some observers have suggested that Huna Tlingit eggharvests may have been responsible for observed or im-puted glaucous-winged gull nesting failures in the park.The best-known and most influential of these claims isthat incorporated in Lowell Sumner’s “Special Report tothe National Park Service on the Hunting Rights of theHoonah Natives in Glacier Bay National Monument”(1947). The report was solicited by the Park Service inresponse to pressure from the Bureau of Indian Affairsto permit seal hunting in Glacier Bay. Sumner concluded


that egg harvesting “would result in severe depletion”of the gull population if allowed to continue. He rec-ommended to the park superintendent that egg harvest-ing be excluded from the “special privileges” of “theHoonah natives” (p. 10) on the basis of an inference con-cerning the cause of an observed nesting failure:

On June 25, 1947, the seabird nesting colony onNorth Marble Island was inspected by the NationalPark Service party. According to normal expectation,nesting activities should have been well under wayat this date, with hundreds of young gulls in evi-dence, or at least hundreds of nests with incubationwell underway. Instead, great crowds of gulls stoodat empty nests, displaying the listlessness that char-acteristically settles upon a bird colony a few daysafter it has been robbed. There were no young gullswhatever, and of nests that contained eggs, only onehad the full complement of three. . . . It is recog-nized that the Hoonah natives used to raid the birdcolonies of Glacier Bay during primitive times.However, Hoonah has become an incorporated townwith daily radio communication . . . and all thehome conveniences of the machine age that themail-order houses can furnish. Use of seabird eggsby such a large community can only result in even-tual severe depletion. . . . The Director’s authoriza-tion of January 7, 1947, listing the special privilegesof the Hoonah natives, does not include the gather-ing of seabird eggs. It is believed that in view of pre-sent and future use of Glacier Bay National Monu-ment, this omission is completely justified.

We believe that Sumner’s inference that the colonyfailure must have been due to native harvesting is highlyspeculative. Similar inferences by Been in 1940 at DrakeIsland also lack empirical support. A similar reproduc-tive failure of glaucous-winged gulls was documented in1975 (Paige 1975), long after traditional egg harvests wereprohibited. Furthermore, the 1975 failure was not re-stricted to a single colony but evident throughout GlacierBay. However, we cannot rule out the possibility thatSumner’s visit to the North Marble Island colony justhappened to occur shortly after a strategy C harvest byHuna people. If indeed “great crowds of gulls stood atempty nests” on June 25, 1947, this would argue againsta nesting failure due to a drastic crash in food supplies,as under those conditions it is unlikely that many gullswould have remained at the colony (Stephani Zador, per-sonal communication, 2001). However, given evidencethat colonies will renest in about 12 days after such adisturbance, it is quite possible that had Sumner re-turned to the colony two weeks later he would havefound it thriving.

Our analysis of the validity of Huna Tlingit traditionalknowledge of gull reproductive behavior suggests thatHuna Tlingit egg harvesting did not seriously disrupt gullnesting or reduce gull reproductive success over time.As Patten (1974) noted, glaucous-winged gulls at the ma-jor Marble Island colonies were reproducing at rates well

above replacement levels in the early 1970s. Assumingthat the Huna Tlingits had harvested eggs from thesecolonies annually for some 100 years prior to Sumner’svisit, it appears that their traditional harvests did notharm the long-term reproductive success of gulls in Gla-cier Bay.

factors affecting nesting gull populations

The accessible nesting gull populations in lower GlacierBay are apparently substantially smaller now than 50 or100 years ago. It is clear that the most important factorin this decline is vegetative succession (see Cooper 1923,Lawrence 1958, Reiners, Worley, and Lawrence 1971).Three broad physiognomic community types are distin-guished subsequent to the emergence of bare rock or soilfrom beneath the retreating glacier. The first is the “pi-oneer community” stage of low herbaceous and woodymat vegetation, which, other things being equal, is wellsuited to gull nesting. This is followed by a “willow-alder thicket” stage that would most likely preclude gullnesting, and it in turn is overgrown by a young Sitkaspruce forest (Cooper 1923:225). According to Reiners,Worley, and Lawrence (1971:56), the mat communitymay develop 5–20 years after exposure of the substrate,the shrub-thicket stage at 20–40 years, and the spruceforest at 75–100 years. However, the rapidity of the tran-sition varies a great deal depending on the substrate, be-ing most rapid on slate and argillite and slowest on lime-stone and marble, particularly where the substrate issteep and/or has few crevices (Cooper 1923:234):

The more favorable spots, such as level or depressedareas, or surfaces with many crevices, soon becomecovered with a luxuriant turf-like growth, . . . by in-crease of the shrubby species such areas are rapidlyconverted into thickets in which alder and willowsare dominant, while the adjacent steeper andsmoother surfaces are still bare of plants. . . . Thespruces, thickly scattered upon the meadow andthicket areas, indicate the future course ofdevelopment.

Cooper does not mention the Marble Islands, but as theirname and location suggests, they very likely are com-posed of the rock surfaces most resistant to weatheringand invasion. Drake and Willoughby Islands (describedby Cooper as “being carved of solid rock” [1923:97]) sup-ported glaucous-winged gull colonies until the mid-20thcentury but are now too overgrown. North Marble Islandhas undergone the same fate somewhat more recently(i.e., since Patten’s studies there in 1973–74). It is un-certain if and/or when the South Marble Island colonywill become overgrown with vegetation, though it hasremained relatively bare for at least 160 years since themantling glaciers retreated (Reiners, Worley, andLawrence 1971:56).


sustainability of marble islands harvests

It is impossible to determine exactly how many familiesharvested gull eggs on the Marble Islands each year andhow many eggs they took. There has been an officialpresence discouraging use of the park for subsistence pur-poses for about 50 years. Many people remembered theirlast trip to these islands for egg gathering to have beenin the early 1960s or earlier. Of 20 respondents who spec-ified when they had last collected eggs in Glacier Bay, 5said before the 1950s, 4 during the 1950s, 7 during the1960s, 3 during the 1970s, and 1 during the 1980s. Thustheir recollections of quantities harvested are roughapproximations.

As far as current use is concerned, people in Hoonahare understandably reluctant to talk about what is de-fined by the U.S. government as illegal activity in a studyfunded by an agency responsible for enforcement of thoselaws. We therefore avoided asking about illegal harvest-ing. Consequently, we cannot estimate current levels ofconsumption of gull eggs in Hoonah with direct re-sponses from interviewees. However, we believe that theconsumption of gull eggs in Hoonah is now quite limitedand has been since enforcement of regulations in GlacierBay National Park became more active in the early-to-mid-1960s. Comments from interviewees that supportthis inference include statements from some parents thatthey would like their children to have the opportunityto eat gull eggs but only occasional illegal eggs came intothe community.

An alternative way of estimating Huna egg harvestsprior to more active law enforcement and after Hunaacquisition of larger and faster boats is to calculate thequantities available for harvest, given the cultural con-text of Huna Tlingit egg gathering—including strategiesfor taking them and available technology. Such estimatesare limited by the fact that the glaucous-winged gullnesting populations have not been systematically mon-itored at any site in the region. The number of eggs thatmight have been harvested is a function of the numberof active nests within a certain radius of Hoonah at thattime (i.e., the 1950s), the number of “surplus” eggs thata female gull might produce given what is known of gullbreeding biology, and the efficiency of Huna Tlingit gull-egg harvests.

For the number of nests we have only Patten’s roughestimate of 2,000 breeding birds (1,000 nesting pairs) forthe North and South Marble Island breeding colonies in1975 (reduced to ca. 350 pairs in 2000 on South Marble[Zador 2001]) and a count of 1,494 nesting birds (747nesting pairs) tabulated at nine outer-coastal colonies bySowls et al. (1982). However, we believe that these outer-coastal colonies were likely harvested only incidentallywhile pursuing other resources. The colony on MiddlePass Rock in Icy Strait is likely the only colony outsideof Glacier Bay that would have contributed significantlyto this harvest.

For the number of “surplus” eggs we have two esti-mates. Nager, Monaghan, and Houston (2000:1343) re-port a mean number of eggs laid per female of 8.59 based

on an experimental manipulation of nesting lesser black-backed gulls. Zador (2001:23) reports considerably loweraverages of 5.76 and 5.75 eggs per female for the SouthMarble Island colony in Glacier Bay for 1999 and 2000.If we subtract three eggs from these averages to allowfor an eventual full clutch of three eggs, we may estimate“surplus” egg production—the number of eggs thatmight have been taken from each nest while leaving afull clutch that could then be incubated, hatched, andfledged—at 2.8–5.6 eggs per nest. This “surplus” pro-duction is likely somewhat more than a “sustainable”harvest in that the stress of replacing lost eggs and thedelays incurred in completing the nesting cycle wouldreduce fledging success rates by some amount.

We have no quantitative data with which to estimatethe efficiency of Huna Tlingit egg harvests, that is, thefraction of the “surplus” eggs that we might reasonablyexpect the Huna to have harvested each year. It is certainthat 100% of the “surplus” eggs could not have beenharvested, given that some fraction of the active nestswould have been located on inaccessible terrain and thatsome fraction of nests and/or eggs would have escapednotice. During any given visit some nests would havebeen empty or would have contained complete clutchesand therefore would have been passed over. The variationin harvesting strategies reported would also have tendedto reduce the overall efficiency of the harvest. Finally,competition from other predators would have reducedthe number of eggs available to Huna egg collectors. Atthe same time respondents report that harvests were or-ganized to coincide with the most productive period ofthe nesting cycle, taking advantage of the tightly syn-chronized laying schedule in the colony. Huna also com-municated with one another with respect to the condi-tion of the colony and the success of recent harvestefforts, which could have substantially enhanced overallharvest efficiency. Thus, it is not unreasonable to expecta rather high efficiency rate for these traditional harvests.For the sake of illustration, we may calculate the numberof eggs that might have been harvested sustainably at arange of efficiencies (e.g., between 30% and 70%). Theselimits suggest a range of estimated annual harvests ofbetween 840 and 2,520 eggs.

Another approach to estimating the quantity of gulleggs harvested relies on general descriptions of the wayin which eggs were gathered. One respondent estimatedthat a single person might fill a five-gallon pail with eggsduring a single visit to the colony. We estimated that 30hen’s eggs fit into a gallon, which translates to 17.6 gulleggs per gallon, or 88.5 in a five-gallon pail. However,allowing for the layers of grass, Indian celery, or mossused to cushion the eggs, 60 gull eggs per five-gallon pailis a reasonable estimate.8 If this is accurate, between 14and 42 egg gatherers on the Marble Islands would haveexhausted the supply. This suggests that a minority of

8. The Park Service intercepted an illegal harvest of eggs in thesummer of 1999 in which the harvester had placed 45 eggs in awell-cushioned five-gallon pail three-quarters full (Wayne Howell,personal communication, 2000).


Hoonah families actively harvested eggs at these sites.However, since eggs were widely shared within the vil-lage, most families would have consumed at least a feweggs each year.

Catton (1997), drawing on Bureau of Indian Affairs an-nual statistical reports for 1943 and 1945, states that in1943 “800 dozen” (9,600) gull eggs were harvested byHuna Tlingits from throughout their traditional use area.To support an annual harvest of 9,600 eggs there musthave been a substantially larger nesting gull populationin lower Glacier Bay then than at present. This is quitepossible given the number of historic nesting sites in thisarea that are now abandoned because of vegetationalsuccession.9

We are convinced that these harvests were “sustain-able” by the fact that the South Marble colony has sup-ported many hundreds of nesting gulls for as long aselders can recall and as far back as historical recordsexist. The Marble Islands were considered very impor-tant for nesting gulls by biologists as early as 1939 (Trager1939) and 1947 (Summer 1947). Patten (1974) describedthe Marble Island colonies as “by far the largest in Gla-cier Bay.” On the basis of the association of recentlyestablished gull colonies with the tongues of retreatingglaciers, it seems likely that the Marble Islands havebeen important nesting sites for glaucous-winged gullssince they were first exposed by retreating glaciers ca.1845.

It is a highly likely that Huna Tlingits harvested eggsfrom these colonies throughout the approximately 120years between the emergence of the islands from the iceand the ban on egg harvesting from Glacier Bay NationalMonument. There is no evidence that those harvestshave had negative impacts on breeding success at thecolony. In fact, none of our consultants could rememberany shortages of eggs for gathering, nor could they recallany notable variations in gull populations from year toyear.

Conclusions

In response to those who doubt the utility of applyingtraditional environmental knowledge to comanagementof natural resources in protected areas, the Huna Tlingitcase gives cause for optimism. Huna Tlingit people haveno difficulty understanding the contemporary signifi-cance of their traditional environmental knowledge. Fur-thermore, their native language contains a rich vocab-ulary for traditional conservation principles andpractices. As a direct consequence of our report, theGBNPP staff worked with Huna Tlingit leaders to or-ganize a special egg-harvesting expedition to Middle PassRock in the Inian Islands, just outside the park boundary.

9. Because of access difficulties, outer-coastal and Icy Strait colonieswere likely harvested only incidentally while pursuing other re-sources and visited no more than once a year. Therefore coloniesoutside of Glacier Bay would not likely have contributed substan-tially to the 1943 harvest total.

This involved over 20 Hoonah secondary school stu-dents, who used the ethnographic material in our re-port—in conjunction with the advice of elders—as aguide for their collecting trip (Wayne Howell, personalcommunication, 2001). This proved a very positive ex-perience for the community, and it promises to be a firststep toward the Huna’s goal of reestablishing this tra-ditional subsistence practice in Glacier Bay. Thoughthere remain many legal and administrative obstacles toachieving this goal, documenting the sophistication ofHuna traditional environmental knowledge and thelikely sustainability of their traditional practice shouldfacilitate the process, with the traditional harvest strat-egies serving as a model for the management of the gull-egg resource.

In response to those who are convinced that “indige-nous peoples” were not inclined to practice “conserva-tion,” the Huna Tlingit case provides a counterexample.The Huna observed gull nesting behavior closely anddeveloped an understanding of gull breeding biologywhich they applied to the design of sustainable harvest-ing strategies. These appear to have functioned effec-tively for at least 100 years. The Huna Tlingit gull-eggharvest meets Smith and Wishnie’s theoretical criteriafor the occurrence of “conservation” (2000:505–6): (1)controlled or exclusive access (stable land rights), (2) dis-tinct or confined resource populations, (3) resilient re-source populations, (4) low discount rates, such that thevalue of sustained yield exceeds the value of immediateyield, and (5) social parameters (e.g., small group size andstable membership) and institutions (monitoring andsanctioning) that counter free-riding. Criteria 4 and 5 arecharacteristic of indigenous communities in general andof the Huna Tlingit community in particular. Such com-munities are defined by their long-standing residence inan area and their fierce determination to defend theirright to remain there. These attachments guarantee alow discount rate for a resource such as nesting gulls, aresource that meets criteria 2 and 3. All that the HunaTlingits lack today to meet Smith and Wishnie’s criteriafully is control over the resource they were forced to cedeto the Park Service 50 years ago. Of course, the HunaTlingits conserved the local gull population not from anyabstract concern to preserve biodiversity but rather inorder to ensure that their children and their children’schildren might enjoy the harvest of gull eggs as they had.We would add to Smith and Wishnie’s five criteria asixth: that the community have sufficient empiricallygrounded understanding of the local environment to rec-ognize how its harvests affect the survival of local pop-ulations of plants and animals. Traditional environmen-tal knowledge is a necessary though clearly not sufficientfoundation for conserving the balance between the needsof the community and the recuperative powers of theecosystem that sustains it.

The issue now before the Park Service is not simplywhether this traditional gull-egg harvest might or mightnot be biologically sustainable. It seems clear that a pro-hibition of Huna gull-egg harvests cannot be justified asnecessary to protect the glaucous-winged gull population


in Glacier Bay, as gull populations throughout south-eastern Alaska have been increasing (see, e.g., NationalAudubon Society 1997). Vegetational succession subse-quent to glacial retreat in Glacier Bay seems the mostsignificant factor affecting the long-term fate of glau-cous-winged gull colonies here, and bald eagles are themost significant egg predator (Zador and Piatt 1999).However, the Park Service must answer to other con-stituencies in addition to conservation biologists and lo-cal Native American communities. Glacier Bay is hailedby “wilderness” advocates as one of the “crown jewels”among American “wilderness parks,” a laboratory of nat-ural regeneration. Tourists visit the park to experience“pristine wilderness” (ironically, often aboard luxuriouscruise ships). Most make a close approach to the MarbleIslands to admire the nesting seabirds and roostingSteller’s sea lions. One may imagine their reactions werethey to witness a Huna Tlingit traditional gull-egg har-vest in progress there—though if they were informed inadvance of the cultural value of these activities for theTlingits and made to understand the careful conduct ofthe harvests they might come away with a truer under-standing of the Alaskan “wilderness.” What is at stakeis not just a few seagull eggs but the seemingly irrec-oncilable competing claims to one of America’s mostimpressive landscapes. We hope that our report will helpinform activists on all sides of the importance of rec-ognizing the legitimacy of Tlingit interests in the futureof Glacier Bay.

Comments

michael s . alvardDepartment of Anthropology, Texas A & MUniversity, College Station, Tex. 77843-4352, U.S.A.23 iv 03

Postmodernists excused, most ethnographers wouldagree that indigenous people often have good knowledgeof their environments. From my reading, those of usidentified by Hunn et al. as contributing to the “neworthodoxy” do not question traditional environmentalknowledge per se. We are more interested, however, inwhat indigenous people do with their knowledge. Whilethere is some evidence that the Huna have a folk un-derstanding of glaucous-winged gull nesting biology, itdoes not follow that they will necessarily use theirknowledge to conserve the gull populations. I have seenPiro bow hunters in Peru and Wana blowgun hunters inIndonesia use an intimate understanding of animal alarmcalls to lure entire social groups of prey (tamarins in Peru,birds in Indonesia) toward a wounded conspecific, wherethe animals were subsequently killed one by one.Whether foragers work to conserve their prey remainsan empirical question regardless of how much they knowabout their resources.

Hunn et al. also criticize the “new orthodoxy” for the

view that people in small-scale subsistence economiesare unlikely to practice conservation. This characteri-zation is correct as far as it goes, but it ignores the sub-tleties of a complex argument. It is not accurate to saythat the new orthodoxy discounts the capacity of indig-enous people to conserve. Smith and Wishnie (2000) andAlvard (1998) argue that while conservation is not pre-dicted to be widespread in small-scale subsistence econ-omies, there are conditions that favor it. Research ismoving from simple myth-debunking to sophisticatedanalyses aimed at understanding the contexts that do anddo not favor conservation. Lawrence Kuznar and I arguethat animal husbandry is a good example of nascent re-source conservation and that it arose historically in con-texts that favored conservation in general (Alvard andKuznar 2001). Interestingly, Hunn et al. refer to the Hunaegg-harvesting strategy as a form of animal husbandry.

A regularly misunderstood point is that not all sus-tainable harvesting is evidence of conservation. Thus,although Hunn et al. argue that the Huna have func-tioned effectively for millennia, this is not evidence thatthey have done so by conserving their resources. Theanswer to the rhetorical question “Is one therefore nota conservationist for not conserving a resource that isabundant relative to the demands placed on it?” is yes.One may shrug and argue that if people are unlikely tooverexploit because of limited technology or low con-sumer demand, then access to the resource should begranted, but this leaves the theoretical question of con-servation unanswered.

Elsewhere I have described conservation as resourceuse reduced to a level below what would be fitness-max-imizing in the short term and designed to encouragelong-term, sustainable benefits in the future (Alvard1998b). Given this definition, I view Huna selective eggharvesting as a potential case of conservation. Unfor-tunately, the contexts of the foraging trips are not pre-sented in enough detail to draw conclusions one way orthe other. We are led to believe that Huna foragers un-derstood that removing “fresh” eggs would induce thebirds to lay more. Hunn et al. say that this is a self-conscious application of traditional environmentalknowledge to produce a sustainable yield, but this in-terpretation is not apparent from the quotes presentedin the text. Not one of these indicates awareness thatthe harvesting strategy causes the gulls to continue lay-ing. I should be clear, though, that even such awarenesswould indicate only that the foragers were managing thepopulation—perhaps with the goal of conserving it, per-haps with the goal of maximizing short-term returns.

A designation of conservation depends not on why the“fresh” eggs were taken but rather on why the embryoniceggs were left behind. It is clear that “fresh” eggs werepreferred to ones with embryos. Most of the narrativesindicate that people left behind eggs that were morelikely to contain embryos. The interesting question, es-pecially for anyone who has been to the Philippines andpartaken of the ubiquitous and nutritious snack calledbalut (embryonic duck), is why. If Huna regularly re-frained from harvesting embryonic eggs that they might


have otherwise consumed in order to maintain the gullpopulation over the long term, then I am willing to con-sider the label “conservation.” Only one quote (fromSam Hanlon) suggests this. If embryonic eggs wereavoided because, for example, they were less edible, con-tained difficult-to-digest feathers or bones, or were morecostly to process, conservation is less a possibility.

The bulk of Hunn et al.’s data comes from narrativesof Huna respondents. Besides the obvious problems as-sociated with this approach, it may be particularly prob-lematic in this case. While I understand and am sym-pathetic to the desire to involve Huna in the research, Iam sure that these researchers appreciate the conflict ofinterests involved in relying on the accounts of peoplewho have vested interests in the outcome of the research.They write that egg harvesting “defines who the Hunaare as a people” and is “the touchstone of Huna identity.”It is surely in the best interests of the respondents toreport a benign harvest strategy and play down moredestructive methods in order to gain access to GlacierBay National Park.

f ikret berkesNatural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba,Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada ([email protected]). 10 v 03

“Conservation is about people as much as it is aboutspecies or ecosystems,” according to a recent editorialin a high-profile conservation journal, and “social factorsare often the primary determinants of success or failure”of conservation programs (Mascia et al. 2003:1). The ar-ticle by Hunn and colleagues is important and timelybecause it addresses these issues. It tells the story ofHuna Tlingit gull-egg harvests in an Alaska national parkand uses it to argue against the critics of traditional en-vironmental knowledge, who discount the capacity formanagement of indigenous peoples.

In this brief commentary I will focus on the contri-bution of Hunn and colleagues to the wider discussionof how we might develop a cross-cultural, pluralistic def-inition of conservation. They hold that traditional en-vironmental knowledge is important for conservationand value traditional knowledge for cooperative resourcemanagement that brings together government scientistsand indigenous experts. They consider detailed com-munity knowledge about the environment a prerequisiteto assessing the impacts of customary harvests and de-signing strategies for sustainable use. This is not a viewshared by the two other schools of thought they identifyas “postmodernist” and “conservation-biology.”

The postmodernist critique holds that cooperative re-source management does not or cannot work because itcreates for indigenous peoples “the burden of having toexpress themselves in ways that are foreign to them tojustify their views to scientists and bureaucrats”; thus,the solution is “the devolution of control over local landand resources to aboriginal communities themselves”(Nadasdy 1999:15). The conservation-biology critique

takes a skeptical view of the value of traditional ecolog-ical knowledge and questions whether indigenous peoplecan ever conserve their natural resources. It is this sec-ond critique that Hunn and colleagues confront. Theyput Huna Tlingit conservation to the test using the cri-teria of Smith and Wishnie (2000:501): conservation in-volves actions or practices that (a) prevent depletion ofspecies and degradation of environments and (b) are de-signed to do so. Their approach and results are well rea-soned and convincing. The way they tackle the secondcriterion is about as realistic as anyone can make it,given that the “intent” of conservation is not somethingthat can be clearly distinguished from conservation asan incidental effect (Ruttan and Borgerhoff Mulder 1999,Berkes 1999).

As for the postmodernist critique, Hunn et al. dealwith it indirectly. Their case study is located in a na-tional park. If the Huna Tlingit chose not to explain theirways and justify their views to the government scien-tists, the outcome would be quite predictable: their cus-tomary harvest of gull eggs would remain illegal. Na-dasdy’s larger argument is correct in many ways (e.g.,the cultural context of indigenous knowledge) and ad-mirable in its defense of the integrity of indigenousknowledge. Nevertheless, the case study shows that thepostmodernist argument is not very useful for margin-alized people negotiating for their rights. Hunn et al.differ from these critics in that they see the feasibilityof a common set of operational concepts between sci-entists and indigenous knowledge-holders (Berkes et al.1998) and are willing to take a chance with cooperativeresource management (Singleton 1998). Such co-man-agement rarely takes place on a level playing field; how-ever, it creates an opportunity for transformative changenot so much for indigenous groups as for our dominantsociety’s understanding of conservation.

Our conventional views of conservation have usuallybeen too simplistic and too Western-centric. In manydeveloping countries, for example, local support for con-servation remains weak because conservation is oftenseen as an elite issue insensitive to local livelihoodneeds. Customary harvests of indigenous groups andlivelihood activities of resource-based communities maynot fit well with the narrower definitions of conservationas preservation, but in many cases these communitiesare the conservationists’ best natural allies (Alcorn1993).

What would a broader definition of conservation looklike? Brosius and Russell (2003:55) call for “a social def-inition of conservation that validates and encouragessmall-scale local conservation efforts, that links conser-vation with issues such as soil fertility degradation andloss of traditional food crop varieties.” Programs thatencompass not only the livelihood needs of local peoplebut also their knowledge can effectively link conserva-tionists with indigenous groups and other rural groups,thus diversifying the base of people “who speak for theearth” and building broader, pluralistic constituenciesfor conservation (Brosius and Russell 2003). What are theelements of such a cross-cultural approach that respects


indigenous epistemologies, and what are the ways inwhich the dominant preservationist ethic may be mod-ified? It is in this context that the contribution of Hunnand colleagues is in my view particularly significant.

jack m. broughtonDepartment of Anthropology, University of Utah, 270S. 1400 E, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, U.S.A.([email protected]). 16 v 03

Hunn et al. argue against a “new orthodoxy” that dis-counts the capacity of indigenous peoples to practice sus-tainable resource harvesting strategies. In doing so, theypoint out that in debunking the “ecologically noble sav-age” myth many writers have offered another one—“In-dian as overkiller”—in its place. They are certainly cor-rect here to question the empirical evidence of thevarious “overkill” arguments that have been made (seealso Broughton 2002a: 66–68; Grayson and Meltzer2003). In reality, the impact of indigenous human pop-ulations on the landscape is highly variable. This is per-haps nowhere better documented than in the archaeo-logical record, where the long-term effects of humanhunting and harvesting strategies have been examinedin detail.

For example, recent fine-grained studies of the agestructure and growth rates of archaeological fur seal (Cal-lorhinus ursinus) remains from the Ozette site on theWashington coast show that 700 years of hunting (a.d.1100 to 1800) had no effect on fur seal populations (Etnier2002). Similarly, artiodactyl populations appear to haveirrupted in many areas of California and the Great Basinat the end of the drought-dominated middle Holocene(8,000 to 4,000 b.p.) despite active human hunting at thistime (Broughton and Bayham 2003). At the same time,many cases of substantial anthropogenic depressions oflarge-sized vertebrate taxa have now been carefully doc-umented in many settings across North America (Gray-son 2001; Broughton 2002a, b). Virtually all of these caseshave been derived from contexts that supported large andexpanding human populations. This certainly character-izes the conditions of the late Holocene in California,where the documentation of human impacts on prehis-toric faunas is especially comprehensive. California eth-nographies, I note, also contain many examples describ-ing how sustainable yields were maintained by deliberateresource management practices (Anderson, Barbour, andWhitworth 1998). Demographic factors would thus seemto override emic-based attitudes and philosophies aboutresource conservation.

In the case that Hunn et al. offer as an example ofindigenous resource conservation, the primary data areperspectives and opinions about traditional gull-egg har-vesting elicited from 45 Tlingit individuals. Althoughmany individuals reported that they would take eggsonly from nests that had incomplete clutches, manyother, less benign strategies were also reported. That har-vesting strategies might vary in different contexts is im-plicitly rejected, except to explain away one particularly

destructive method. The relationship between the re-plies given to the researchers and actual egg harvestingbehavior—past, present, or future—is, of course, un-known. The respondents must also have been aware thattheir comments could influence whether egg harvestingwould be permitted in the future. As sympathetic as Iam to the Tlingit cause, this research design, unfortu-nately, lacks scientific rigor.

Even taking the sample of responses as a fixed and truereflection of how Tlingit egg collectors actually behave,it remains unclear how the mix of reported strategieswould affect gull populations under different intensitiesof predation and different distributions and densities ofnests in the colonies. Hunn et al. wear a well-intentionedbias on their sleeve by repeatedly playing down the po-tential effects of egg harvests. Most egregious is theirsuggestion that since the mean fledging success reportedis about 1.80 birds per nest, reducing three-egg clutchesto two-egg clutches is actually doing the birds a favor byremoving “wasted investment.” But the mean values areas high as they are because of the many nests that dosuccessfully fledge three young. Indeed, seabird repro-ductive strategies are sensitively geared to interannualvariation in environmental factors that influence fledg-ing success (e.g., Ainley and Boekelheide 1990). The ef-fects of egg or chick mortality due to the intraspecificpredation that routinely follows the disturbance of col-onies is also not fully addressed. Nor is any mentionmade of the taking of chicks, juveniles, and adult birds,a practice commonly associated with the harvesting ofseabird colonies up and down the eastern Pacific Coastin historic and prehistoric times (Yesner 1981, Broughton2002b).

Hunn et al. repeatedly assert that there is “no evi-dence” that Tlingit egg harvesting had a negative impacton the breeding success of gull colonies; it would seemmore accurate to say that only anecdotal evidence existsto evaluate whether it did or did not. While respondentsmay not have been able to recall any shortages of eggsor variations in gull populations, memories can be se-lective and may not extend to prehistoric times, prior tothe introduction Old World diseases, when human pop-ulations and pressure on local subsistence resources wereboth considerably higher.

While the time for polemics on indigenous conserva-tion may now have passed, Hunn et al. ride the old-orthodoxy bandwagon in pleading a case for conservationwhere few data exist to support it.

jul ie cruikshankDepartment of Anthropology and Sociology,University of British Columbia, 6303 N.W. MarineDrive, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z1 ([email protected]). 8 v 03

This paper incorporates the components of a timelystudy in applied anthropology: escalating antagonismsbetween a small indigenous community and a powerfulbureaucracy, ready expertise from highly qualified schol-


ars, unanticipated and powerful research results. Follow-ing social sciences convention, the authors position theirstudy at the centre of a debate in environmental anthro-pology, and my remarks address this contribution.

The history of Glacier Bay National Park and Preservefollows a pattern familiar in North America: establish-ment of a national monument, expansion of boundariesto include more territory, designation as a national parkand preserve, inclusion in a UNESCO-designated worldheritage site, and systematic prohibition of indigenousharvesting activities by people who regard these landsas ancestral territories. In the mid-1990s, park personnelinvited Huna Tlingit residents to document their “tra-ditional ecological knowledge” about an area from whichthey had been excluded for decades. Not surprisingly, theHuna delegation agreed to proceed only if the park re-stored limited harvest for seals and gull eggs. A compro-mise of a kind was reached when the U.S. National ParkService agreed to fund an independent study of historicalgull-egg harvesting strategies conducted by an academicresearch team working in collaboration with both Hunaand park personnel.

Hunn and his colleagues bring decades of ethnographicexpertise in environmental anthropology to this projectand are unusually well situated to conduct the research.They conclude that Huna residents at Glacier Bay dem-onstrate a sophisticated appreciation of glaucous-wingedgull nesting biology and behavior that is reflected in sus-tainable egg harvest strategies. They anticipate that thisstudy will generate new policy, but here the jury is stillout.

Their larger concern is to address debates about localknowledge that have become polarized during the pastdecade. At one extreme they identify what they call a“new orthodoxy” shaped by conservation biology androoted in a cultural ecology paradigm that hinges on op-timal foraging strategies, altruism, and shifting defini-tions of conservation. Its proponents, they say, deny apriori the possibility that creative indigenous manage-ment techniques ever conserved natural resources in thepast. Thus constructed, the benchmark for definitions ofconservation veers sharply away from notions of ste-wardship toward ever-narrowing definitions of strictpreservation.

They characterize their other pole as a “postmod-ernist critique,” but here they may draw too firm aline between their own position and that of writerswho, in their words, “misconstrue or cynically ma-nipulate” indigenous terms to suggest incommensu-rability between the views of local residents and sci-entists. The difference between their own position andthat of Paul Nadasdy, whom they identify as theirchief “postmodernist” opponent, seems largely one ofemphasis. They speak very generally about power im-balances, noting that “indigenous communities ev-erywhere must necessarily engage an encompassingpolity that holds ultimate power” and that Western“experts” may fail to appreciate or choose not to in-tegrate alternative approaches to knowledge in coop-erative resource management regimes. They might

have added that in Alaska and northwestern Canadaparks have historically drawn on science to providejustification for dispossessing native peoples of theirhomelands and have taken legal action to enforce this.Where Nadasdy provides ethnographic accounts of atranslation process, they retreat to science as thoughcultural ecology could in the end be separated frompolitical ecology.

Significantly, Nadasdy conducts research near the ad-joining Kluane National Park in Canada, where prohi-bitions against indigenous hunting were also enforcedfrom the 1940s. It is now encompassed by the same worldheritage site that engulfs Glacier Bay. His argumentseems less about incommensurability than about howlocal knowledge can be distorted by what he elsewherecalls “fundamentally contested terms.” He points outthat certain terms—“land,” “hunting,” “resources,” and“property”—are central to negotiations surrounding landclaims, wildlife management, and environmental issuesbut that negotiating parties usually mean very differentthings when they use identical English terms. Inevitablythe most powerful parties take their meanings to rep-resent common sense and build those meanings into le-gal agreements. This seems similar to concerns thatHunn et al. discuss with regard to how the term “con-servation” has been hijacked by those who enforce (ormanipulate) meanings with reference to narrow defini-tions of “preservation” rather than broader definitionsof stewardship.

Ideally, Hunn et al. would proceed with two furthersteps crucial for assessing their thesis that good researchcan generate policy changes: first, an ethnographic ac-count of the negotiations that follow in moving rec-ommendations to policy and, second, a parallel study ofthe impact of a limited seal harvest, historically morecontentious than egg harvests. The history of interac-tions between park administrators and Huna may be assignificant to communication as “culture” in this case.These additional stages might further clarify anthropol-ogy’s contributions to local-knowledge debates.

madonna l. mossDepartment of Anthropology, University of Oregon,Eugene, Ore. 97403-1218, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 25 iv 03

In their detailed study of the previously neglected prac-tice of egg collecting, Hunn et al. demonstrate the effi-cacy of Tlingit traditional environmental knowledge inpromoting sustainable use of gull eggs. They show howTlingit practice incorporates knowledge of gull repro-ductive biology and behavior as now documented by bi-ologists. This issue is not merely of academic interest;Hunn et al. argue persuasively that Huna Tlingit shouldregain their rights to harvest gull eggs in what is nowGlacier Bay National Park, part of their aboriginal ter-ritory. They usefully position their work within thelarger theoretical debates that now challenge local tra-ditional environmental knowledge. On one side are those


who question whether indigenous people were capableof “sustainable resource management” and point to casesof resource degradation. On the other side are those whosee the concept of such management as an alien andethnocentric projection. Hunn et al. provide a much-needed empirical corrective to this debate.

Tlingit seabird egg collecting has been poorly docu-mented until now, mentioned only in general terms,with its importance minimized on the basis of its overalldietary contribution (e.g., Jacobs and Jacobs 1982:123; deLaguna 1972:395). Hunn et al. explain the cultural sig-nificance of gull-egg collecting as both a celebration ofseasonal change and a time for families to enjoy an ex-cursion to offshore islands. The Marble Islands are oneof only a few recorded locations of Tlingit egg collecting.Goldschmidt and Haas (1998:47, 57, 64, 83) mentionedfour other places where eggs were procured. Seabird eggsmay have been collected in the outer Prince of WalesArchipelago; Langdon (1977:95) suggested probable Tlin-git use of Noyes, Timbered, and Maurelle Islands, butno specific data are available. Yet Nelson and Lehnhau-sen (1983) list 91 known seabird colonies in southeasternAlaska, all potential sites of Tlingit use.

The antiquity of seabird egg use is similarly unknown.To my knowledge, seabird eggshells have never beenidentified in the region’s archaeological sites, which spanmore than 10,000 years of prehistory. I have identifiedthe bones of 11 seabird taxa found in the Cape AddingtonRockshelter on Noyes Island, including short-tailed al-batross, northern fulmar, storm petrel, cormorant, gull,pigeon guillemot, rhinoceros auklet, tufted puffin, Cas-sin’s auklet, murrelet, and common murre (Moss n.d.).This range of taxa suggests offshore seabird hunting, al-though some of these (e.g., albatross) were not taken atcolonies. The location, scale, and frequency of Tlingitseabird use across southeastern Alaska remains poorlyknown, emphasizing the importance of Hunn et al.’sstudy.

Hunn et al. argue that Tlingit subsistence practicesincorporate principles of conservation. This is furtherevident in scores of Tlingit texts that highlight ethicalresponsibility toward animals. All living beings arepart of the Tlingit social and moral world. Narrativesshow how cruelty, killing more than is needed, or rid-iculing animals brings a person misfortune or evendeath. As one of de Laguna’s (1972:824) informantssaid, “The old Indians never just shot animals for nopurpose. They just shot what they needed, and everyanimal they killed, they talked to it and explained whythey had to kill it. They showed the animals respect.”This ethical system and the principle of trusteeship(Langdon 2000) extended to the beings Westernersterm “plant or animal resources.” Tlingit environ-mental knowledge also guards people’s health andsafety. For example, seasonal warnings against shell-fish consumption helped the Tlingit avoid paralyticshellfish poisoning (Moss 1993). Many writers havedemonstrated that subsistence practices are the foun-dation of Tlingit cultural identity. This conservationethic still survives, although in the face of state and

corporate manipulation (Dombrowski 2002) a numberof native village corporations have clear-cut theirlands, resulting in substantial damage to wildlife hab-itat. I argue that this is a thoroughly contemporaryphenomenon that represents a radical break with theprecepts of traditional environmental knowledge.

Nevertheless, what Hunn et al. have called the “neworthodoxy,” the idea that indigenous people will “bynature” overharvest resources, has recently gainedprominence, especially among North American ar-chaeologists. As scholars who claim interest in long-term cultural and environmental change, many of usseem to forget that extant wildlife have evolved withover 10,000 years of Native American hunting andgathering pressure. Nelson (1998) has chronicled theadaptive virtuosity of deer, showing how their dietarybreadth and reproductive capacity have led to over-population, disease, and starvation in the absence ofhunting. Wildlife adaptations have been evolving intandem with human hunting and gathering strategiesover a long period of time, yet some scholars inspiredby conservation biology seem to assume a pristine,uninhabited wilderness as a baseline. It is hard not tointerpret this theoretical stance, at least in part, as areaction to the recent successes of those working forindigenous rights.

deborah bird roseCentre for Resource and Environmental Studies,Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T.0200, Australia ([email protected]). 18 v 03

Hunn et al. report on a significant piece of research:Huna Tlingit strategies for harvesting gull eggs. Thesignificance lies in several areas. The research bringsimportant evidence into the debates about traditionalenvironmental knowledge and the capacity of indige-nous people to draw on their received knowledge inparticipating in dialogue about ecological futures. It hasfacilitated dialogue between Huna Tlingit and nationalparks personnel and is thus providing practical out-comes for both indigenous people and parks. It providesa detailed body of evidence concerning both sustaina-ble-yield practice and the culture of place. By bringingtheir study into the debates about whether indigenouspeoples are or ever were “conservationists,” Hunn etal. open up the ground for a more constructive dialoguethrough the careful accumulation and analysis of evi-dence from a range of sources including Huna peopleand ornithologists. It is especially important, however,that this research has practical outcomes in interveningin the politics of “wilderness.”

I am particularly drawn to the inclusion of quotesfrom the extended and open-ended interviews the re-searchers conducted with Huna people. In my view, oneof their great contributions is that they implicitly holdup a mirror to the new orthodoxy of conservationism,which sets a very stringent standard for “conservation.”In reading the Huna discussions of egging we encounter


a rich engagement that radically transcends the neworthodoxy. When Huna people talk about “how we havecome to love our country,” we gain a much greatersense of the density of multiple contexts and forms ofconnection that bring Huna people into the islands forgulls’ eggs and impel them to harvest so as to continueto be able to return.

bram tuckerDepartment of Anthropology, Ohio State University,124 W. 17th Ave., 244 Lord Hall, Columbus, Ohio43210, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 6 v 03

Hunn and colleagues describe the foraging practices ofHuna Tlingit of Alaska as a case in which traditionalenvironmental knowledge guides sustainable harvestsof seagull eggs and the long-term conservation of thegull population. The traditional environmental knowl-edge in this case is a rule-of-thumb for the number ofeggs that one should take from a nest. Because glau-cous-winged gulls are indeterminate layers, they are ca-pable of laying additional eggs to replace those that havebeen harvested. Hunn et al. argue that when traditionalegg-gathering guidelines are followed, the birds’ fledg-ing rate is little affected and the gull population is con-served. In large part I find this explanation a convincingexample of indigenous conservation. This is an impor-tant contribution to the literature on traditional envi-ronmental knowledge and sustainable foraging strate-gies, and I applaud the authors for their work.

My objections have to do with the way they havechosen to contextualize their study theoretically. Theyhave seriously mischaracterized the viewpoint(s) theyclassify as the “conservation biology critique of tradi-tional environmental knowledge” or the “new ortho-doxy,” and this promotes a polarization of viewpointsthat is, like many famous theoretical battles in anthro-pology, based on a false dichotomy. It is unnecessarybecause the example of Huna Tlingit gull-egg harvest-ing does not contradict or refute the basic tenets of “thenew orthodoxy” or at least the part of this supposedorthodoxy with which I am most familiar. I do not wishto speak for the entire category, which is more heter-ogeneous than Hunn et al. make it appear, and I do nothave adequate space to make all the appropriate dis-tinctions. Rather, I limit my discussion to the perspec-tives informed by human behavioral ecology (Smith andWishnie 2000; Alvard 1995, 1998a, b; Alvard and Kuz-nar 2001; Ruttan and Borgerhoff Mulder 1999; Low1996).

The major mischaracterizations are these: First,Hunn et al. describe the “new orthodoxy” as a “critiqueof traditional environmental knowledge,” but most ofthe literature they cite as supporting it does not talkabout traditional environmental knowledge at all. Hu-man behavioral ecology by no means contradicts or dis-misses the idea that indigenous peoples know their en-vironments very well and pass this knowledge on tofuture generations as part of their survival strategy. On

the contrary, one of the core ideas in human behavioralecology is that inherited cultural information (in ad-dition to inherited genetic information) contributes sig-nificantly to behavioral phenotypes (Smith and Win-terhalder 1992:26; Richerson and Boyd 1992; Durham1991).

Secondly, Hunn et al. make it sound as though thehuman behavioral ecological viewpoint were that con-servation by indigenous peoples is impossible. This isfalse. Human behavioral ecology predicts that conser-vation will be rare. This is because evolutionary theorymore easily accounts for self-centered, short-term be-haviors. Evolutionary theory can also explain cooper-ative, long-term strategies such as those involved inresource conservation, but these explanations requirespecial circumstances and so are less likely to occur(Alvard 1998b, Smith and Wishnie 2000). When theydo occur, they are all the more interesting to behavioralecologists. For example, Alvard and Kuznar (2001) seeanimal husbandry as conservation and discuss the con-ditions under which immediate-gain hunters becameconserving herders.

Human behavioral ecology views conservation asboth a collective-action/cooperation problem and a fu-ture-discounting problem. The collective-action prob-lem has to do with whether everyone will follow therules. If some people decide to limit their harvestingbehaviors at personal expense, what is to stop otherpeople from cheating and illicitly harvesting the con-served bounty? The future-discounting problem has todo with the tradeoff between immediate and delayedrewards. Decision makers often prefer smaller rewardsavailable soon to larger, delayed rewards. These twoproblems do not imply that a “tragedy of the commons”is inevitable. Human behavioral ecology suggests al-ternatives, and the Huna Tlingit example actually il-lustrates several of them.

The collective-action problem is easily resolved be-cause there is a sanction against cheaters: “If peoplebroke the rules established by the elders they might notever be asked to go again. . . . you are being watchedby every elder that is accompanying you.” There maybe little temptation to cheat because the rules are easyto follow and there is not much to be gained by breakingthem. The future-discounting problem is also easily re-solved, because there is little short-term cost to con-servation. Egg foragers who conserve still end up withpretty much the same number of eggs at the end of theday. They satisfy their immediate needs while still in-vesting in the future of the gull population.

Hunn and colleagues’ diatribe against human behav-ioral ecological approaches to conservation is mis-placed. Their own case example is largely consistentwith human behavioral ecology and not a refutation ofit. Human behavioral ecology can be theoretically con-sistent with traditional environmental knowledge andadvocacy for traditional people’s sovereignty.


Reply

eugene s . hunn, darryll johnson, pris -c illa russell , and thomas f . thorntonSeattle, Wash., U.S.A. 30 vi 03

We appreciate this opportunity to respond to the sup-portive and critical observations of our commentators.They represent a balanced range of perspectives and col-lectively bring years of field experience and reflection tothe issues we have raised, most pointedly the conten-tious question of how, when, and if we may expect hu-man communities to conserve the natural resources onwhich they depend. We addressed our critique to twopositions that we attributed—admittedly with a broadbrush—to “postmodernists,” on the one hand, and “con-servation biologists,” on the other. Cruikshank and Roseare perhaps most sympathetic to the view we have char-acterized as “postmodernist,” while Alvard, Broughton,and Tucker might be said to represent perspectives alliedwith the “new orthodoxy” we have attributed to con-servation biology. Broughton, Moss, and Tucker bring thearchaeologists’ deep time perspective to the issue, whileBerkes, Cruikshank, and Rose have among them manyyears of experience in collaborative research with indig-enous peoples. Cruikshank and Moss have extensivefirsthand experience of the Tlingits and their immediateneighbors.

A great advantage of CA✩ treatment is that the re-sponses of a range of expert commentators will exposewhatever aspects of the original argument were unclearwhile allowing the authors to clarify misperceptions. Wewould like to clarify one point in particular: The majorityof the commentators, including those with contrary per-spectives, attribute to us the view that conservation bi-ology’s “new orthodoxy” dismisses entirely the possi-bility of conservation by indigenous societies. Forexample, Berkes cites the conservation biologists’ skep-ticism that indigenous peoples “can ever conserve theirnatural resources,” while Cruikshank characterizes the“new orthodoxy” as “rooted in a cultural ecology para-digm that . . . den[ies] a priori the possibility that creativeindigenous management techniques ever conserved nat-ural resources” (our emphasis). Tucker argues that wemischaracterize the conservation-biology position bysuggesting that conservation biologists consider conser-vation by indigenous peoples “impossible.”

To the contrary, we argue that conservation biologistsconsider conservation not impossible but certainly im-probable, that for them conservation is an exception toa general rule of evolutionary biology that human be-ings—in common with other organisms—ceteris pari-bus, will pursue selfish, short-term interests. Assertionsto the contrary are met with deep skepticism. Purportedexamples of indigenous conservation are subjected to in-tense critical scrutiny. In effect, indigenous peoples areguilty until proven innocent, guilty of failing to designa collective course of action that conserves the bio-

diversity on which their way of life depends. The pop-ularity of Paul Martin’s Pleistocene-overkill hypothe-sis—despite the lack of any credible evidence to supportit—suggests the critical double standard in play. As Gray-son (1984) has shown, that hypothesis has been refinedto the point that it can never be falsified, but it is widelyaccepted by conservation biologists and the general pub-lic as proven fact.

We respect the power of evolutionary ecological theoryto generate interesting hypotheses relevant to the issueof resource conservation by indigenous and other com-munities. We recognize the distinction between “epi-phenomenal conservation” (see Hunn 1982) and “con-servation by design” (Smith and Wishnie 2000). Weappreciate the fact that conservation is “a collective-ac-tion/cooperation problem and a future-discounting prob-lem” (Tucker). However, we believe that most evolu-tionary ecologists seriously underestimate the likelihoodof conservation, particularly by indigenous communi-ties. We disagree with the theoretical claim that con-servation by indigenous people should be “rare” (Tucker)or that “conservation is not predicted [by human behav-ioral ecological theory] to be widespread in small-scalesubsistence economies” (Alvard). Rather, we believe thatindigenous communities typically exhibit preciselythose characteristics Smith and Wishnie (2000) haveidentified as favoring conservation. Such communitiesare characterized by intimate, personal relationships in-formed by many generations of collective experience ofliving within the resources of a local territory. “Cheat-ers” are readily identified and effectively sanctioned.“Future discounting” is minimized by the deep personalattachment to their land that members of such com-munities will share. Conservation by indigenous com-munities should be seen not as exceptional but rather asthe rule. What needs to be explained is the occasionalfailures to conserve associated with, for example, “largeand expanding populations” (Broughton) or disruptionsof subsistence economies by colonial and/or capitalistpenetration. Examples of purported failure to conserveby indigenous communities should be subjected to thesame skepticism more usually accorded assertions thatindigenous communities conserve.

We have offered as an example of indigenous conser-vation a single, limited case study, that of Huna Tlingitseagull-egg harvest strategies. Our “research design” hasbeen criticized as lacking “scientific rigor” (Broughton).It has been suggested that because our evidence is limitedto statements by Huna Tlingit community members asto how eggs were harvested, it cannot be extrapolated toactual harvest practices (Alvard). It is suggested that theHuna Tlingit had a vested interest in demonstrating tous their conservationist sensitivities and therefore theirreports are likely biased by that interest. This is tanta-mount to suggesting that they got together in advanceof our arrival, having carefully consulted the ornitho-logical literature on seagull breeding biology, to developa response calculated to deceive us. This suggestion is,in our opinion, absurd. We noted that the Huna’s re-sponses varied in many significant details. We noted also


that the implications of their dominant strategy for sus-tainable harvests were not at all obvious to us initially.Finally, as Alvard comments, our Tlingit consultantsrarely cited resource conservation explicitly as justifi-cation for their harvest strategies. To suggest that theyinvented this tradition for our benefit seems to us toreflect a strong inclination to discount the possibility ofindigenous resource conservation. To suggest as wellthat they might have been motivated primarily by a de-sire for fresh eggs or an aversion to eggs with developingembryos (Alvard) ignores our discussion of the issue.Many Huna elders consider eggs with developing em-bryos to be a special treat. There is no general aversionto eating such eggs. Furthermore, if culinary preferencerather than a concern for resource conservation were themotivation for their harvest strategies, it would seem farmore efficient to simply harvest all the eggs and laterdiscard those deemed objectionable. To seek to explainaway our evidence as selfishly motivated affirms ourpoint: Conservation biology discounts the likelihood ofindigenous conservation because “human behavioralecology more easily accounts for self-centered, short-term behaviors” (Tucker). This is in our view a seriouslimitation of human behavioral ecology.

We are well aware of the limitations of the evidencewe present. However, our “research design” did not lack“scientific rigor”; it was simply not designed to providean airtight test of a hypothesis of human behavioral ecol-ogy. Instead, we set out to document Huna Tlingit tra-ditional environmental knowledge and its application toa practice effectively prohibited by the federal govern-ment 50 years ago. That our data shed some light on anissue of theoretical significance for human behavioralecology was serendipitous. We also appreciate the factthat ethnographic data such as we have presented, whileparticularly effective in demonstrating the continuingpower of primordial attachments to place for indigenouspeoples, as Cruikshank, Moss, and Rose stress, cannotaddress the question of long-term impacts. Such impactsmust be assessed archaeologically. Unfortunately, sea-gull-egg harvests leave few if any traces in the archae-ological record (Moss). Furthermore, given the dyna-mism of the Tlingit environment, it is not likely thatthe specific environmental circumstances Huna Tlingitconfronted during the past two centuries could be pre-cisely replicated at any other time and place. Yet, theTlingit archaeological record provides no evidence of en-vironmental degradation attributable to Tlingit misman-agement during the past ten millennia. We are doubtfulthat this record is due to “limited technology or lowconsumer demand” (Alvard), as it is clear that it wouldhave been a simple matter for the Tlingit to have de-stroyed every gull colony in southeastern Alaska if theyhad been of a mind to do so, while their “low consumerdemand” must be seen as a strict function of their pop-ulation density—a key parameter of the sustainability ofsubsistence economies that is outside the scope of thepresent argument.

If the archaeological record had provided evidence forsoutheastern Alaska of a “substantial anthropogenic de-

pression of large-size vertebrate taxa,” as noted byBroughton for the late Holocene in California, would webe required to conclude that ancestral Tlingit failed toconserve their resources, or might we just as well con-clude that they had simply achieved sustainability at ahigher Tlingit population density? Evidence of “popu-lation depression” is not evidence of “overharvesting”so long as human predator and prey populations coexistover the long term. We do not claim that Huna Tlingitseagull-egg harvests had no impact on local gull popu-lations, just that whatever that impact might have beenwas sustainable for the foreseeable future.

Alvard and Tucker both take us to task for suggestingthat conservation biologists deny the relevance of tra-ditional environmental knowledge for indigenous con-servation. Tucker is quite correct to note that, ratherthan deny the relevance of traditional environmentalknowledge, conservation biology “does not talk abouttraditional environmental knowledge at all.” That is pre-cisely our point. We argue not that such knowledge inand of itself is sufficient to guarantee conservation butthat it is a necessary foundation for conservationist prac-tice. Furthermore, given the abundant evidence of in-tense attachment by indigenous community membersto a way of life firmly rooted in place, combined with aworldview that imagines the local community to be partof a larger moral universe encompassing the people,plants, and animals of that place, supported by an inti-mate empirical understanding of the local ecology, itshould follow that conservation is not a theoreticalanomaly but the normative expectation.

In conclusion, we would like to recognize the concernraised initially by Nadasdy (1999) and here expressed byBerkes, Cruikshank, Moss, and Rose that traditional en-vironmental knowledge not be exploited by the state todeprive indigenous communities of their right to controltheir own destinies as it has so often been in the past.However, we are uncomfortable with the pessimistic as-sessment of those we have characterized as “postmod-ernist” that no true collaboration is possible betweenindigenous communities and the governments that en-compass them. We believe that Cruikshank overstatesthe case when she asserts that “inevitably, the most pow-erful parties take their meanings to represent commonsense and build those meanings into legal agreements.”It is worth noting that the language of Native Americantreaties is interpreted by federal courts in the UnitedStates in accordance with the legal principle that am-biguities in contract language should be resolved fromthe perspective of the weaker party (Cohen 1986:55). Ifthe most powerful party “inevitably” defined the situ-ation to its benefit, there would be no Indian treaty rightto catch 50% of the harvestable salmon in Washingtonwaters. Our research was inspired in part by the beliefof certain National Park Service managers that Hunadesires to resume limited harvest of certain resourceswithin Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve can beaccommodated within the spirit of the agency’s preser-vationist mission. Thus neither party to the present con-flict represents a monolithic force. There are individuals


on both sides who are disinclined to compromise butalso individuals on both sides willing and able to pursuea resolution of the conflict that can preserve the fun-damental concerns of both parties. A real and lastingcontribution of this research may be to encourage morecooperative management of Glacier Bay National Park’sresources. Berkes makes the important point that theprimary benefit of such a co-management agreement andthe analysis of traditional environmental knowledge thathelps justify it may be in defining conservation less eth-nocentrically, recognizing the illusion of a resource man-agement policy dedicated to the goal of preserving a pris-tine wilderness that never was. Conservation should bedefined to include people, their communities, and theirlivelihoods.

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