Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin strongly supports aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska. Here's what that looks like:
Aerial wolf hunting
A look at Palin’s preferred method of killing wolves 30
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Posted 11:03 PM on 31 Aug 2008
by David Roberts -
Posted in
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David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/david_h_roberts.
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caniscandida Posted 4:13 am
01 Sep 2008
Thanks, DR,
that video is powerful, and disturbing. "Hunting animals from aircraft has no place at this time" is certainly true. But that is true, in general, of cruelty to animals, of all kinds.
Our own Erik Hoffner some time ago recommended an excellent novel about social realities in northern Alaska, "Ordinary Wolves," in which hunting of wolves from airplanes and snowmobiles is a recurring motif, and the hunting and killing of all animals figure in the background in an important way.
Alaska should never have been granted statehood. As it is, the Alaskans boast that they are the ultimate frontiersmen, when in fact they are subsidized by us taxpayers in the Lower 48, and in a hideously disproportionate way by us New Yorkers. Alaska should be kicked out of the union.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:40 am
01 Sep 2008
Snowmobiles
Running down Wolves and Coyotes on snowmobiles until their hearts bust is also a method enjoyed by sadists like this Canis. Palin's husband is a snowmobile racer, yikes.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/1/3 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Wolverine Posted 5:53 am
01 Sep 2008
Frontiersmen
Alaskans probably are frontiersmen, but the issue is whether being one is a good thing. Let's see, the frontiersmen in what's now the mainland U.S. murdered the natives, stole their land, and destroyed it for profits and personal conveniences. So Alaskans certainly fit the definition, but it's nothing anyone with any sense of morality would brag about.
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Russ Posted 6:54 am
01 Sep 2008
frontiersmen
The point is, since Alaskans are welfare mooches, they cannot be frontiersmen, since by definition a frontiersman is self-reliant.
Canis, I too have long thought Alaskan statehood was a mistake. Ted Stevens was in on the ground floor of that process, so Alaskan pols have been like that right from the start.
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PermieWriter Posted 8:59 am
01 Sep 2008
Arial hunting
What a cowardly way to hunt. If these sadists want to hunt wolves, let them have a knife and their brains. It should be an even match.
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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archigeek Posted 1:56 am
02 Sep 2008
BS..
I used to work--was employed with--hunters, and all of them would go out in the dark, pre-dawn hours and sit in a tree stand for hours before a deer would show up, if one showed up at all. Hunting at dusk went down the same way. What these cretins do in Alaska is NOT sport. It's slaughter, pure and simple. And just f$%&in' lazy, to boot. Reminds me of a Bruce Cockburn song, "If I Had Rocket Launcher/some son-of-a-bitch would die". I don't advocate killing, am against it, but I'm pissed off enough to think about it.
The mellotron is your friend.
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Pangolin Posted 6:24 am
02 Sep 2008
Mad Max with snowmobiles
It appears to be the consensus that the people of Alaska that aren't natives are more or less parasites on the rest of us. Of course my favorite little bit of Alaskan trivia is that most of the Alaskan oil goes overseas as West Coast refineries can't process it.
We don't even get the freaking oil!!
Put the Carbon Back
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wiscidea Posted 6:59 am
02 Sep 2008
What's the point?
Exactly what's the point of hunting wolves, especially in Alaska?
If a person is interested in the thrill of the chase, then why not play an elaborate game of laser tag in the wilderness? One guy gets the helicopter or snowmobile and the other guy tries to evade him. Winner buys the other a six pack.
Hunting using primitive weapons and very likely risking one's own life might have once demonstrated that someone was superior mating material, but supporting and participating in aerial -- or any other -- wolf hunting just demonstrates someone is a cruel heartless thug.
Hunting for the thrill of killing something, not for survival, is obscene.
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caniscandida Posted 8:13 am
02 Sep 2008
"Alaskan trivia"; "laser tag"
Excellent point, Pangolin. Alaskan oil goes to East Asia, not to the Lower 48. Drilling "off-shore," or in ANWR, or in the Arctic Ocean, will do nothing to change the fact-of-life, that Big Oil's interest is in supplying lucrative markets, NOT in helping American commuters, or American home-owners who use oil for heating.
Cute idea, Wiscidea. You could make a delightful home video of Dear Ol' Dad, busting his dear ol' heart, as he pushed through that snow drift while being pursued in a snowmobile. The head nurse in the emergency room had the celebratory cocktail, in his place.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Wolverine Posted 8:41 am
02 Sep 2008
Because Wolves Are Considered Enemies
The reasons that Alaskans kill wolves is to increase the size of the elk herds that they hunt and because of their innate hatred for wolves. I don't know whether it's for any love of killing or any macho reasons, but it's repulsive nonetheless.
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wiscidea Posted 9:28 am
02 Sep 2008
So...
The goal isn't sport... it's genocide?
The age-old hobby of eliminating the competition, even if the overall result -- regardless of the repulsive nature of the activity -- is reduced health of the elk herd and the environment humans, wolves, and the elk depend upon for survival.
Do they have any evidence that there are more elk available for humans if the wolves are slaughtered? Seems there would be a much higher probability of mass starvation of the elk herd and zero elk for humans or wolves.
Idiots. Don't they teach ecology in the schools up there? Oh... probably not covered by the Bible.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:05 am
02 Sep 2008
Remember Farley Mowat wisci
He pointed out that predators, like Wolves, kill the sick animals eliminating disease and weakness from the herd. Leaving the fittest to reproduce.
Palin and her hunting guide constituency are out for trophies, the biggest, the strongest, the fittest animals killed for the moronic macho glory of mounting a head on the wall.
Worse yet, the guides already have enough of their own trophies, so they sell more of the best animals to tourists. Flown in to kill and leave. No "sport" in it even.
Here in the north, the guides sell the biggest, most successful fish. Using sonar and fishing maps. The stunted, Pirhana-like smallest fish are left to devour the eggs of the predator walleyes and bass who keep the lakes healthy by limiting those small fish populations.
A local GOP assembleyman here, pandering to his fishing guide friends, got the season opened early here so their client could fish over the spawning beds, allowing these hordes of stunted panfish to devour the eggs of the predator fish.
He was quickly corrected by the olcals and he had to back pedal fast, reversing that disastrous nonsense. But will he ne ousted this election? We'll see.
Palin is the same sort. Sell nature to the highest bidder.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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caniscandida Posted 10:30 am
02 Sep 2008
"innate hatred for wolves"
Cf. Barry Lopez's classic "Of Wolves and Men," and the more recent, "Vicious: Wolves and Men in America," by Jon T. Coleman, historian at Notre Dame University, which serves as a powerful, detailed supplement to Lopez's book.
Elimination of "competitive" predators, e.g. raptors, big cats, and sharks, has always been justified, encouraged and perpetrated by human beings.
But wolves have been put in a category of their own. More than any others, they have figured as embodiments of evil, as diabolical agents, as symbols of Satan. Killing wolves has seemed not just economically prudent, but morally desirable, and even biblically enjoined.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 10:41 am
02 Sep 2008
Farley Mowat's "Never Cry Wolf"
Thanks for recalling that excellent memoir and appeal, Amazing.
By coincidence, NYTimes's Bill Marsh wrote an interesting article on Alaska and Hawaii, and facts of various sorts about those states, in the latest Week in Review, including movies about them:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/08/31/weekinreview ....
He oddly listed "Never Cry Wolf" as a movie about Alaska, when in fact it is based on Mowat's research and experiences in what is now Nunavut, a bit northwest of Hudson Bay.
Still, it was good to recall that beautiful appeal against wolf-hatred, in the context of the wolf-hater Sarah Palin's ascendancy to the VP slot.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:01 am
02 Sep 2008
Calling here for Obama Canis
Going through the raw phone lists, lots of nasty repug-lican hangups. Finally got one positive. That makes up for the 20 bad ones.
Just like your comment does too. Keep the faith. The only causes worth fighting for are the hopeless ones.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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John former Marine Posted 10:45 pm
02 Sep 2008
The only thing worse...
The only thing worse would be to bait the Wolves, catch them in foot traps, and then shoot them from helicopters. In my home state of Maine, there are a bunch of sell-out money-worshipping "guides" who make a living by dumping stale donuts in the woods and habituating black bears to junk food. New Yorkers and Connecticunts then pay these "guides" thousands of dollars to be taken to the donut dumping site where they find a fat, lazy bear that they can walk up to and shoot in the head, point blank, with a handgun, not even a hunting rifle. Of course, they also buy a $8,000 ATV to carry their fat asses around in the woods, a deluxe rifle with a thousand-dollar scope (not all of us have been trained to shoot by Uncle Sam, especially not rich "hunters" from down flat country), an activated charcoal-impregnated suit, and a bunch of other shit. Then, after racking up a bill for probably $15,000 to kill a bear, they shoot it in the head, skin it, and leave it to rot in the woods.
Gotta love "hunters."
Actually, there's an even more pointless activity "sportsmen" engage in. They throw lines in the water, torture a fish for several minutes, tear the hook from their bleeding lips, and then toss it back because they're "conservationists" and they only do "catch and release." Talk about something rediculous. Catch and release? How about I hook a string to my crossbow and go around shooting deer, then pull the barbs out and let them go? WTF is it ok to torture fish for fun and then let them go? This had to be invented in Connecticut or New Jersey.
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
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caniscandida Posted 5:30 pm
03 Sep 2008
trophy-hunting; fishing
Actually, mon cher petit Jean-autrefois-des-Marins, some of the world's most progressive thinkers live in New Jersey and Connecticut. Which is not to say that I deny your assertions, only that I would not normally associate trophy-hunting with those places. It is certainly true that there are few people here in the NYC metropolitan region who would appreciate a display of animal-remains, aka "trophies," collected by trophy-hunters.
You are right-on about fishing, and the pain inflicted by even the most conservation-oriented fishermen. Thanks for pointing that out. Very few people have consideration for the suffering of fish.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Wolverine Posted 6:45 pm
03 Sep 2008
Catch & Release
Yeah, my brother use to do catch & release fishing because he thought it was not harmful to the fish. Amazing how insensitive naked apes can be to the suffering of others, especially of anyone who's not a naked ape.
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saluki Posted 1:38 am
05 Sep 2008
Catch and Release
"Amazing how insensitive naked apes can be to the suffering of others, especially of anyone who's not a naked ape."
Actually, the sensitivity of the naked ape to the suffering of others is unique in the animal kingdom. No other predator species shows the least concern for the suffering of their prey. Cats often seem to enjoy playing with their prey before killing it. Wolves, weasles, wolverines, and others often kill more than they can eat. Only mankind has an artificial morality that he imposes upon the universe.
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vakibs Posted 1:48 am
05 Sep 2008
compassion is uniquely human
saluki
You are right. Human beings are uniquely gifted with the trait of compassion. This is what makes us human, along with our unique ability to reason. Let's celebrate these qualities. Let's think, let's be creative, and let's save the biodiversity of our dear planet.
What wolverine is bemoaning is the appalling lack of this very human quality among several human beings, including Sarah Palin.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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wiscidea Posted 2:04 am
05 Sep 2008
sensitivity
"Actually, the sensitivity of the naked ape to the suffering of others is unique in the animal kingdom."
So is the tendency to kill for the pure pleasure of it.
Both are natural products of evolution. We now have the option of choosing which behavior we prefer to promote. Do we want leaders who care about our fellow beings or leaders who enjoy sticking fire-crackers in frogs and hunting wolves who are simply fulfilling their role in the natural world.
Obama and Biden represents the first sort of leader.
McCain and Palin represent the second.
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Russ Posted 2:20 am
05 Sep 2008
responsibility
vakibs writes:
Yes. And it's this which renders us uniquely responsible in a way no other predator is.
Actually, I'd say we have the capacity for compassion, as well as for spirit, creativity, and intelligence.
These capacities are most of all a challenge, and the challenge is nothing less than to create oneself as a human being.
Unfortunately, as we know (for example, as we just saw disgustingly displayed in St.Paul), far too many hominids despise this challenge, never become human, and indeed take a depraved pride in remaining gutter apes.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:27 am
05 Sep 2008
Palin telling torture tales
Right now on the stump. McCain looks truly tortured standing behind her, as if to say: "How many more times will my campaign managers exploit my prison story before this is over."
Let it end John. Just say no to this obscenity. Tales of horrendous pain designed to motivate your "base", recounted off a script by another exploitee.
You and Sarah are both victims of the propganda machine of the corporate lobbyists running your campaign.
Use your own words, give your own speeches. Fire the rats who exploit us all.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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saluki Posted 10:19 am
05 Sep 2008
The predator
vakibs:
"Let's think, let's be creative, and let's save the biodiversity of our dear planet."
Unfortunately our ability to think often causes us to go to extremes. We can think about compassion for animals, and we can also think about how proud of ourselves we can be for being compassionate for animals. And we think about how we can look better, more moral and superior in the eyes of our peers by making a show of our compassion. We are even able to think of ways that we can claim that we are acting out of compassion when we really are more interested in advancing a political agenda. Don't you find it odd that we can have compassion for a wolf that is hunted and killed from the air and yet we have no compassion for a caribou that is run down by a pack of wolves, evicerated and eaten before it has even died.
"What wolverine is bemoaning is the appalling lack of this very human quality among several human beings, including Sarah Palin."
In regards to hunting in general, it is a trait that humans aquired over the millenia to better feed themselves. And of course those humans that liked doing it were probably favored by natural selection. Just because we have recently moved past the need doesn't mean that the trait is not still there. I don't hunt myself, but I don't begrudge those that do within the context of a well run wildlife management program.
In regards to Palin and the hunting of wolves, her supposed cruelty and blood lust is simply a misrepresentation designed for political gain. Palin inherited a wolf control program from her predecessor and she chose to continue it. The idea that she or Alaskans hate wolves or don't care about the environment is absurd. The wolf control program is specifically targeted to allow certain herds of caribou to recover after too much wolf predation. One of the southern herds, for example, went from 10,000 individuals down to 600, even though the female pregnancy rate was high and food was available. They found that wolf predation was causing the loss of 99% of the newborn caribou within the first two weeks of their life. Palin's wolf control program is designed to remove wolves from very specific caribou breeding grounds in order to give the caribou a chance to recover. The target was to remove about 600 of Alaska's approximately 11,000 wolves.
So when you talk about being intelligent enough to have compassion, you need to look at the bigger picture, not the simplistic and self serving idea that it is terrible to kill wolves. Not the idea that "I'm going to look like such a great humanitarian if I show how disgusted I am by wolf killing." That this idea is in operation here is made obvious by the fact that no one actually bothered to check into the circumstances of the story.
Here is the report of the circumstances.
http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/501699.html
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saluki Posted 10:23 am
05 Sep 2008
Woe is me
"Let it end John. Just say no to this obscenity. Tales of horrendous pain designed to motivate your "base", recounted off a script by another exploitee. "
I agree that John's story has been told too many times. But isn't the objective of this site and of this very tread to tell repeated tales of pain for political gain.
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seabeast Posted 10:46 am
12 Sep 2008
Killing Wolves
I see nothing wrong with this method. If these wolves are rapidly killing a diminishing caribou population then they should all be exterminated.
What is the point of preserving biodiversity when one species has already prevailed? We can pretend like we are saving the animals but in fact there just isn't room for them on this earth anymore.
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nogop4me Posted 12:00 am
15 Sep 2008
Sarah's personality disorder
I am sorry, but this hunting practice is in no way necessary. There are programs within the enviromental community that raise wolf cubs to replant them to areas that need them. If Alaska has more wolves than they want, do something humane to remove them.
The Alaska bounty is hogwash. Not only do they do this hunting from an airplane that is illegal, but inhumane. It is NOT a sport.
Many antisocial personality disorders hold that any violence towards animals, especially torture, shows a complete lack of regard towards humans.
I believe Sarah Palin has showed us that she is amoral and a sociopath. There may be voters out there that don't like Obama, but they do love animals, and this ad will make them sick, and think more than twice about who Sarah Palin is.
I have sent this link to everyone I know.
I lived for 20 years in the Upper Penisula of Michigan and have heard every argument FOR ridding creatures from our environment that don't seem to fit in with the residents. I even turned in my EX-husband for poaching deer, fishing with a gill net, and he was charged with hunting cyoates from a plane! So Poster Alaska, don't try to tell anyone that Alaska needs to kill off it's wolves!
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animalover Posted 7:19 am
15 Sep 2008
Humane treatment of all animals
The bounty on wolves claim is political mis-information to try to smear Gov. Palin. No matter what your politics, it's not fair to anyone to allow lies about either side to circulate on the net. I researched this claim on the Alaska Legislature site and submitted it to Snopes.com.
If you look at the official Alaska site, the bounty was proposed by the Alaska Dept of Fish & Game (not Gov. Palin) to be used within a certain remote area where the wolves were decimating the caribou and moose herds as a means to protect help protect the herds. The wolves in this area are overpopulated and each spring during calving season they are killing off most of the newborn calves, homing in on them by the scent of blood. The wolves not only endanger the prey species in the area, but are invested with lice due to overpopulation. Wolves are difficult and expensive to control in this part of Alaska, so the bounty was proposed to help offset some of the expense. The proposal was never implemented. Bounties were historically paid to entice people to help control Wolves but they were ended in the 1970's. It is also notable that they do not issue "hunting licenses" for wolves only "control permits" because the sportsmen have no interest in them and they are not used for food. There are also some areas in Alaska where wolves cannot be killed at all because there is no threat to other wildlife.
While I am an avid animal lover and wildlife conservationist, I also realize there will always be hunting. Some areas of the country depend on hunting for a good portion of their food. Alaska has a long history of shooting wolves from low flying aircraft in the most remote areas (not everywhere). I am not advocating nor condemning this method because I understand the argument from both sides. Shooting from low flying aircraft is not something people do for "fun". They must remove the door from the plane and fly in sub-zero temperatures during winter months when the wolves can be tracked. The wildlife management reports I read, indicated that "wound & injure rates were very low" and they reported wound & injure rates associated with other hunting methods as well. The report also states one of the main reasons for collecting the forelegs is to ensure that animals are actually killed not just wounded. I think law makers have a responsibility to make and enforce laws that require humane hunting practices. As I read the 144 pages of the report I was impressed at the amount of thoughtful study and detailed information that it contained and that they actually are concerned with "wound & injure" rates, lice etc. - and that they outlawed shooting of wolves in areas where they are not a threat. I'm not saying they are perfect or can't be improved upon, but I don't believe this is as big an issue as some are trying to "spin" it to be.
I'm not sure what Mr. Obama's position on killing wolves (or any other wildlife) is. However I do know he is personally responsible for blocking a bill that would have allowed doctors to give medical treatment to babies born alive after botched abortions. He listened to personal testimony from nurses who were only allowed to hold these babies for their short lives and watch them inhumanly suffer and fade away which often takes hours. Obama personally blocked the state bill even after wording was changed be the same as the Federal Bill which passed the US Senate unopposed (Both Hillary & Kerry voted in favor of the bill). I cannot vote for someone who has that little regard for human life. I also cannot imagine that someone who is not concerned with the humane treatment of newborn babies would somehow be concerned with humane treatment of animals.
Here are links to the full congressional testimony of some of these nurses- no spin added.
http://nobamanews.blogspot.com/2008/07/jill-staneks-full- ...
http://nobamanews.blogspot.com/2008/07/allison-bakers-ful ...
the federal law - no spin added
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/BAIPAFederal.pdf
Jill Stanek is the nurse who took this issue to her state legislature. This is the link to her full report in Citizen Link (non-partisan)
(Yes, she does have an agenda too - she is pro-life, however her objective in this case was only to fight for babies born alive - not to fight all abortion.)
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007034.cfm#
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megal Posted 6:50 pm
12 Oct 2008
Re:M4P Converter, Convert M4P to MP3, M4P to WMA
swf to avi converter can convert SWF files to various audio videos like SWF to MP3 Converter, SWF to AAC Converter, SWF to WMA Converter, etc.
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amazingdrx Posted 9:29 pm
12 Oct 2008
Aerial witch hunting
You just know this would be a feature of a Palin administration.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/21/ ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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