#permits

My garage door broke and in order to fix it, by city laws I had to buy a permit of intent to repair from the city, then I had to hire an architect to approve my proposed fix, a certified handyman to do the actual repair (it's illegal to fix your own stuff without going to college where I am), then pay an inspector to inspect the finished repair, and finally a city license to be allowed to throw away the pieces left over from the repair. And this was just for a repair, not to change the house or get a new garage door.

I know my city is one of the extremes, but even in the most lawless places in the US, you need a lot of permits to repair or build anything, and it's illegal to live in a house like you're doing.

Is Croatia really that different?

Anon I am ao sorry, that sounds like hell.

It is completely legal where I live; I am not allowed to build new big structures or a new house on the property, but I can do whatever I want to the existing one. Croatian people will sometimes build houses without permits then legalize them later.

That’s why I don’t possess any of these birds!

Almost all native birds (exceptions typically include upland game birds and certain waterfowl IF YOU HAVE HUNTING PERMITS etc.) are protected under the migratory bird treaty act (MBTA), and require special permits to salvage/collect or possess. It is federal crime to possess any of them, without such permits. Eagles do require separate specific permits.

While I do have a small personal collection of domestic and non-native captive birds (chickens and a budgie), everything else I post is prepped at a University museum. I also have some mammals but the laws around them are very different so we don’t need to get into that now.

The museum has all the required permits to salvage, collect, prepare, and possess these specimens for education and research. I just work and volunteer there while I’m getting my degree. Some of the preps here were done at a wildlife rehab for their education program when I worked there full time. They also had all the necessary permits.

The Eagles were prepared at a Tribal Eagle Aviary. My museum does have permits for Eagles. However, Eagles are accumulated at the Eagle Repository first before being distributed to museums and tribes, so it takes a long time to get them after requesting.

Tribal Eagle Aviaries have the required permits to salvage and possess Eagle parts for distribution to tribal members for cultural use. This Eagle Aviary also does raptor education and wanted two skins to use for off-site education while there live Eagles are still training for that.

Thank you for your concern! It’s an important reminder that everyone should be aware of the MTBA and which permits they would need to collect or posess any part of a protected native birds including eggs, nests, and feathers.

I do have a note in my blog’s bio and I try to mention it frequently in posts where it’s especially relevant like a few of my Eagle posts and in answering an ask about how to get into museum prep. I do think I should write a better pinned post introduction at some point though, and this is good encouragement :)