Obama finally lets the 527s loose. - Page 3

Nimrod's Son · 09-18-2008, 12:38 PM

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Originally Posted by Debaser

and what's the reasoning why Palin started offering monetary reward for this? shoot a wolf, hack off its leg, and bring it back for a bounty from the state.

To encourage winter hunting.

Here:

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Originally Posted by Wall Street Journal

Palin ran for office in 2006 as an advocate of aerial bear and wolf hunting, saying it helps protect moose and caribou that locals hunt for food. “If we’re not allowed to have a scientifically based, very sensible predator control program, especially in rural Alaska, we will see a diminished population of moose and caribou – those types of game that fill Alaska’s freezers,” Palin told a local television station last September.

Soon after she took office, Palin proposed that the state provide a $150 “incentive” for aerial wolf hunters; to collect it the hunters would have to turn in the animal’s severed left forepaw. Several environmental groups immediately attacked the proposal as an illegal “bounty” and sued the state. The court agreed, shutting the program down before it started.

Later, Palin backed a bill that would have made it easier for the state Board of Game to expand aerial hunting. The legislation passed the House, but failed to clear the Senate.

“This policy is in place as a form of game management to ensure that Alaskans are able to feed their families,” said McCain-Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella.

The practice has long been controversial in Alaska. In a 1996 ballot initiative, Alaskans voted to ban predator hunting from aircraft. State law, however, allows the legislature to overturn a referendum after three years. Lawmakers did so, and voters again voted for a ban in 2000. The legislature reversed the ban again in 2003. Last month, Alaskans defeated another initiative to ban aerial hunts.

Lutz said that subsistence moose and caribou hunters aren’t the real beneficiaries of the state’s practice of killing natural predators. Most of the moose and caribou, he said, are taken by urban or out-of-state hunters who don’t need the game for survival.

In most other states, game wardens use aircraft when going after sick or rogue animals, such as those who have attacked people. Such game management is “perfectly legitimate,” Lutz said.

Alaska’s aerial kills, he said, are really sport hunting in the guise of game management. “What Alaska is doing is licensing private citizens, private hunters, flying private planes flown by private pilots to go out in the bush and do this,” he said. “And then they get to sell the skins of the animals they kill, which is sport hunting by almost any definition.”

Aerial hunters killed approximately 124 wolves last winter, and a total of almost 800 over the last five winters. The hunts usually take place when there’s snow on the ground, rendering the wolves more visible from the air. There are anywhere from 7,000 to 12,000 gray wolves in Alaska, according to Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. The animals are not considered threatened, although they are in the northern Rockies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

Nimrod's Son · 09-18-2008, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Wolves don't attack people either.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=825_1198391329

http://www.adn.com/wildlife/story/244284.html

http://www.google.com/search?sa=N&ta...ttack%20alaska

Nimrod's Son · 09-18-2008, 12:44 PM

oh and let's take away people's guns too, right?

GlasgowKiss · 09-18-2008, 01:02 PM

Oh im nimrod, my countrymen and I are too wealthy to use spears.

BlissedandGone2 · 09-18-2008, 01:07 PM

nimrod, how can you realize how ridiculous it is to kill off one animal, to protect another animal, but only because there arent enough of that animal to kill. everything you say is completely unfounded and you have to add an arbitrary arguement to the end of it that has nothing to do with anything but you being an idiot.

BlissedandGone2 · 09-18-2008, 01:10 PM

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