The P at the End of a Hunting Rifle: Sarah Palin

I am a member of various wildlife & conservation organizations, such as the League of Conservation Voters, EarthJustice, The Nature Conservancy, The NRDC, and Defenders of Wildlife.

When Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's running mate, I thought, now why does her name sound so familiar? Then the light bulb went on, I looked through my email archive, and there it was: Sarah Palin was one and the same the Alaskan Governor who had made my petitioning life miserable for bringing back aerial hunting:

[paste from email]

I have some sad news. Unfortunately, Alaska voters defeated a ballot initiative yesterday that would have ended the state’s brutal aerial hunting program.

Thousands of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund supporters gave invaluable support to this important campaign, but in the end, deep-pocketed special interests carried the day.

This morning, I spoke with Nick Jans, co-chair of Alaskans for Wildlife, our grassroots partners in The Last Frontier who spearheaded the state ballot initiative to end Alaska’s brutal aerial hunting program. He wanted me to pass on this message to you:

“I want to thank Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund supporters for their help in this hard-fought campaign.

"We faced an approximately $750,000 campaign from our opponents -- including Safari Club International and a $400,000 state-funded campaign approved by Governor Sarah Palin and the Alaska legislature. They used deceptive propaganda and the authority of the Alaska government to defeat the ballot initiative.

"But thanks to the generous support of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund activists and donors, we were able to reach thousands of voters. Yesterday, over 75,000 Alaskans voted to end this barbaric practice.

“Despite this loss, we’re not giving up -- Alaskans for Wildlife will continue to hold the state Board of Game’s feet to the fire and redouble our efforts to end this brutal program.”

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund will continue to partner with groups like Alaskans for Wildlife and our sister organization Defenders of Wildlife to end Alaska’s slaughter from the skies.

[end paste]

From http://www.defendersactionfund.org/

[paste]

Sarah Palin has supported aerial hunting since taking office despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, the American Society of Mammalogists, and more than 120 other scientists have called for a halt to the program, citing its lack of scientific justification and despite opposition from many hunters who see it as violating the sportsmen's ethic of fair chase. Palin in 2007 even proposed offering a bounty of $150 per wolf, as long as the hunter provided the wolf's foreleg as proof of the kill. And just earlier this year, she introduced legislation to expand the program and derail a scheduled August 2008 citizens' vote on the issue. The bounty was determined to violate the state's constitution and her legislation failed.

[end paste]

The despair I feel is now two-fold: Her actions as Alaska's Governor flew in the face of decades of conservation work, where we were so close to"fixing what we broke," just to throw a wrench into the works, and then to add insult to injury, she may get to be the Vice President of my country? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Don't tell me they're hurting in Alaska and need the economic stimulus from aerial hunting there, either, because Alaska has been #1 in revenue per Capita for years!

I have no compunctions about killing my own food. I'd try to make sure my food was dispatched as quickly, peacefully and unpainfully as possible. However, there are very unethical and unsportsmanlike ways of hunting, and aerial hunting is one of them. Like "canned" hunts, the advantage is tipped so far in favor of the hunter that I fail to see much "sport" in it, and unlike "canned" hunts, the chance of a quick death are much, much slimmer and the chance of prolonged suffering for the prey animal is much greater.

Dog breed and behavior experts say that a German Shepherd, a very wolf-like domestic dog breed, has intelligence similar to a 7 year-old child, and biologists claim that wolves are known to be much more intelligent than domestic dog breeds. These hunters are not shooting down "stupid" animals that aren't coherent about what they're going through. Imagine what might be going through the mind of an 8-10 year old child as they are unsuccessfully attempting to avoid being shot with a rifle by some guy up above in an airplane for an hour or so before it's all over, and you can perhaps have some perspective of the suffering these wolves are experiencing. I wouldn't wish this on someone I didn't like at all, much less an animal in its natural environment, living its life in relative peace.

Defenders of Wildlife put out this video ad about her:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGPFPBmzRrQ

Sarah Palin has been uplifted by the religious right for her religious and family values. At least where the hunting of wolves is concerned, she is not as moral as she pretends to be.

Oh, I almost forgot about the GOOD NEWS for wolves:

The NRDC, Defenders of Wildlife, and EarthJustice all sent me email about gray wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies remaining on the Endangered Species list!

From the NRDC:

"The Bush Administration has just announced it intends to withdraw its plan to strip gray wolves of their endangered species protection in the Northern Rockies. "

From Defenders of Wildlife:

"Officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) say that they plan to rescind the agency's plan to delist gray wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies sometime soon and place them back under federal protections."

From EarthJustice:

"...the Bush administration announced that it will drop its legal defense of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule that declares these wolves fully recovered and removes them from the endangered species list."

I am so relieved that these wolves will still be protected!