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Indybay Feature

Sarah Palin: A Champion for Brutal Aerial Hunting

by wolves
As Governor, Sarah Palin has championed aerial hunting of wolves and bears. Please watch our new video, learn more about Palin's record and help us spread the word about her awful record…
sarah_palin.jpg
Have you ever heard of aerial hunting? It's a brutal practice. Wolves are shot from low-flying aircraft or chased to exhaustion, then killed at point-blank range.

Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, promotes this barbaric practice, exploiting a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to allow private wolf killers to shoot down wolves using aircraft. We have to get the word out about this!

Please watch this powerful video by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and then share it with every wildlife lover you know:

Sarah Palin on aerial wolf hunting

The Truth About Aerial Hunting of Wolves in Alaska
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palin1moose.jpg
Please see pictures of the moose Palin with an arrow shot in the face,
the bear skin rug on which she's seated
...the skins of animals she's wearing

the woman who cancelled a wind farm project from the state
budget and replaced it with a half billion dollar subsidy to big oil
by $
The American capitalist class has sunk to new lows with this garbage candidate, Sarah Palin, who hardly knows her ass from a hole in the ground. This fascist should have her high school diploma revoked for opposing the fact of evolution. Her opposition to abortion, to the point of having her 5th child with Down syndrome at age 42 or so constitutes chuld abuse, at a minimum, and is of course, viciously anti-women, threatening the lives of millions of women. Her book banning and promotion of shot gun marriages for her stupid teenage daughter who got pregnant, instead of taking the idiot immediately to an abortion clinic, are all signs that the American capitalist class is now ready to sponsor the same fascist thugs the world capitalist class sponsored when it supported Hitler and his backward reactionaries. Obviously, every high school should have an abortion clinic next to it with condoms available in the reception area for the stupid boyfriends, every teenager should be strongly encouraged, and if under 18, literally taken to have an abortion, every high school and college boys' and men's bathroom should have free condom dispensing machines, every college should have an abortion clinic next to it, with condoms in the reception area for the stupid boyfriends as 20-29 year olds are better off not having any children either. Age 30 and owning a house are the minimal mandatory requirements for breeding and marriage, although the latter is best banned. and age 35 is the end of breeding as it is not good to be a grandparent to one's own children. When any society puts up such a backward fascist as a candidate, it is a sign that it is time to change that society fundamentally, which only a labor movement capable of carrying out a general strike can do. Finally, Boeing workers went on strike. Let us hope the strike broadens nationwide, as the economic depression certainly will widen and deepen, and the equally reactionary anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-death penalty, millionaire Democrats have nothing to offer either. You will have to vote for Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader to register constructive opposition to this nightmare of a society in which we live.
I have to admit that watching videos of this practice turns my stomach, but there would surely be consequences to many animal species, including wolves and humans, if effective wildlife management practices were banned. Let us not forget what happened in this country when horse slaughter was banned. The resulting surplus of horses has resulted in plummeting horse values, and horses being abandoned and neglected in record numbers. Now, perfectly healthy and well trained horses are selling at auction for less than $200, and some are being purchased by kill buyers for shipment to Mexico where there are no industry controls, and the barbaric cruelty being employed is beyond this writer’s imagination. I would have to say that there has never been a worse time to be a horse in this country. These are the unintended consequences of well meaning animal activists that failed to look at the big picture.

Before anyone starts sending hate mail, please hear me out. Wolves and bears are top line predators, meaning that there are no natural predators to control their numbers. If you love animals, you must think about the consequences to other animal species if they are allowed to overpopulate in any given area. In a worst case scenario, disaster ensues for the overpopulated predator species as well. When their natural food sources become scarce, they will savage and prey on not only each other, but humans and domestic animals as well.

Aerial management may seen unfair and barbaric, but consider the alternative that was used before airplanes were available. They were poisoned with strychnine baits. Poisoning likely affected non targeted species as well - such as eagles.

Alaska has attempted other management methods in the past. See: http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/management/control/predator_management.pdf

Now let us discuss the impact of these predator species on humans. There seems to be a misconception that managing the population of these species is merely an attempt to preserve moose and caribou for sport hunting. On the contrary, the very lives and existence of approximately 16% of Alaska’s populaton is at stake. These are the native tribes that have depended on wild game as their main source of sustenance for thousands of years. It’s not like they can become vegetarians in these regions. I might argue that the continued existence of rural native Alaskan people is at far greater risk than the wildlife.

Taken from http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5791&page=36 :

“The first humans in the Western Hemisphere are believed to have come from Asia across the Beringian land bridge into Alaska 12,000-15,000 years ago.” It is their home, too. For those that argue that the problem is simply too many humans in Alaska rather than too many wolves and bears, let me point out that there are approximately 635,000 residents or about 1.1 persons per square mile - in an area that is twice the size of Texas and one fifth the size of the lower 48 states. In the lower 48, there are approximately 79 people per square mile. Plenty of elbow room! The state’s population ranks 47th in the nation. “Human activities have had less effect on the ecosystems of Alaska than elsewhere in the United States. Conversion of land to agricultural use has been minimal, as is the extent of land alteration through mining and petroleum development.”

My conclusion: Perhaps you don’t care about the tribes of people who are the last remaining ancestors of the “First Americans”. Do you not care about all of the other animal species at stake when bears and wolves overpopulate? Is there no concern for livestock, dogs, cats, and human children that are attacked when these predators are allowed to diminish too much wild game in a given area? And finally, have you no concern for the affect on the wolves, themselves, when they overpopulate? Aside from them preying on each other when food sources become scarce, it leads to a natural progression of disease and starvation among them.

Posted by Bronco in the Daily Interlake: “The waxing and waning of species populations are regulated by nature and she seems heartless and cruel in her choices at times. Forget romantic notions of her preserving only the animals we hold dear and erasing the invasive and ugly ones. Fish and game management agencies throughout the country have been employing well thought out agendas that have led to game populations that exceed those before we set foot here hundreds of years ago. Those agencies have people in them who are concerned for our wildlife, not butchers who rejoice in their deaths. It’s unfortunate for the wolves, I agree. They are beautiful, intelligent, animals that mate for life and have strong family values. But left to propagate unattended they will follow the course of all species who find their numbers swelled to overpopulation. Mother nature introduces disease and starvation.”

Before we jump on the bandwagon and condemn the people of Alaska while sitting at computers in our urban homes, let us educate ourselves about the issues first.

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