CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – A federal judge is allowing the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to challenge the Northern Arapaho’s plan to kill bald eagles on the reservation they share in Wyoming.

U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson on Friday agreed to allow the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to participate as a “friend of the court” in the lawsuit the Northern Arapaho Tribe filed last year against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The federal agency in March issued the Northern Arapaho Tribe the nation’s first permit allowing the killing of bald eagles for religious purposes. The permit would allow the Northern Arapaho to kill two bald eagles, but only outside the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Other tribes and individual Indians in the Southwest have secured federal permits allowing them to kill golden eagles.

In specifying that the Northern Arapaho could only kill eagles off the reservation, the Fish and Wildlife Service stated it had conferred with the Eastern Shoshone and learned that the tribe was opposed to eagles being killed on the reservation, which the two tribes share.

The Fish and Wildlife Service stated in March that the Northern Arapaho wouldn’t need permission from the State of Wyoming to kill eagles off the reservation with a federal permit. However, Johnson appeared to have a different view of that in his order allowing the Shoshone to intervene.

“(T)he permitted take area expressly excludes lands within the Wind River Indian Reservation, which is the only place in the State where Wyoming law criminalizing the taking of eagles does not apply,” Johnson wrote. “The permit thus confoundingly allows the Northern Arapaho Tribe to take eagles only on lands where doing so is a criminal offense....”

Johnson pointed out that the federal permit also specified that the Northern Arapaho Tribe would have to follow state laws. Accordingly, he wrote, the federal permit “offers no real permission to take eagles at all.”

In asking for permission to intervene in the case, the Eastern Arapaho Tribe noted that it has an indivisible, one-half interest in all the wildlife on the reservation. It states that killing eagles would violate its cultural beliefs and also says that it would be against the joint Shoshone and Arapaho Law and Order Code.

The Northern Arapaho filed papers recently opposing the Shoshone’s move to enter the lawsuit. The Northern Arapaho have maintained in their lawsuit seeking the permits that they have a right under the U.S. Constitution to kill eagles for their religious ceremonies.

Andrew Baldwin, lawyer for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, declined comment Monday on Johnson’s order allowing the Eastern Shoshone to participate in the lawsuit. Attempts to reach Kimberly D. Varilek, attorney general of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, were not successful on Monday. She didn’t respond immediately to phone calls seeking comment.

The Northern Arapaho Tribe has a history of conflict with the federal government over the eagle issue. The tribe filed papers in court supporting Winslow Friday, a young tribal member who shot a bald eagle without a permit in 2005 on the reservation for use in his tribe’s Sun Dance.

Former U.S. District Judge William Downes dismissed the charge against Friday in 2006 saying it would have been pointless for him to apply for a permit. “Although the government professes respect and accommodation of the religious practices of Native Americans, its own actions show callous indifference to such practices,” Downes wrote.

A federal appeals court in Denver later reinstated the criminal charge against Friday. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear his case and he wound up pleading guilty in tribal court and was ordered to pay a fine.