Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's cruel aerial slaughter has suddenly escalated.
This week, Palin's henchmen have killed 66 wolves, using helicopters, spotter planes and aerial gunners. To make matters even worse, Palin's Board of Game has approved the use of poison gas and deadly snares to kill defenseless wolf pups and their families in and around their dens.
This week, at least 66 wolves have been killed by aerial gunners with high-powered rifles in helicopters near Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. And, under new policies approved by Governor Sarah Palin's Board of Game, wolf pups could be gassed to death in their dens in the weeks ahead.
Under new guidelines, hunters can use snares to trap black bears in a specific area and can access the area via private helicopters. As for wolves, state employees are now authorized to use poison gas to kill orphaned wolf pups in dens (orphaned, presumably, after aerial hunting).
The Board of Game and Department of Fish and Game aim - or at least hope - to kill up to 60 percent of the 2,500 to 3,000 black bears that, in their opinion, prey upon an unacceptably high number of moose calves in Unit 16B, a huge area that extends from the foothills of the Alaska Range to Cook Inlet and from the Yentna River southwest to Redoubt Creek.
I'm not going to pretend I know the ins and outs of this, because I don't. I don't live in an area overwhelmed with wolves. I can't imagine though that they have become such a problem that poison gas needs to be thrown into their dens.
As for the bears, if you kill 60% of them does that mean in years to come you'll then be using those traps to kill the moose who would then perhaps be overly populated. I mean to what extent to do you step on the toes of mother nature?
America's wolves were nearly eradicated in the 20th century. Now, after a remarkable recovery in parts of the country, wolves are once more threatened.
In the Northern Rockies, the federal government has put forth a proposal that could lead to the slaughter of hundreds of wolves in Idaho and Wyoming. Even Yellowstone wolves could be shot on site if they wander outside the park's boundaries!
In Alaska, state officials continue to allow airborne gunners to kill hundreds of wolves. Easy targets against the snow, hundreds of wolves have been shot from above or chased to exhaustion and then killed by aerial gunners who land and execute them at point-blank range.
In the Southwest, misinformation and anti-wolf sentiment runs high, with wolf recovery in Arizona and New Mexico limited to a defined area if the wolves set up territories elsewhere, they are captured and returned.
The lovely thing is gray wolves in the Northern Rockies are protected under the Endangered Species Act. But who is to say that an aerial gunner will know whether or not they are aiming at a gray wolf?
