Discussion Topic: On Alaska’s Aerial Wolf Management

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

_A new bill with 105 sponsors in Congress would for all purposes ban Alaska’s “wildlife management” policy of shooting wolves from the air, a policy vocally defended by ex-Gov. Sarah Palin . . . .
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_Leaving office on July 26, Palin told a Fairbanks crowd that Alaskans must “stick together” in opposing “outside special interest groups. Because you’re going to see anti-hunting, anti-Second Amendment circuses from Hollywood. . . .”
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_The chief Senate sponsor of the legislation, dubbed Protect America’s Wildlife, is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
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_”Shooting wildlife from airplanes is not sport[,” she said]. “It undermines the hunting principle of a fair chase . . . . The practice should be banned.”
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_Under the Protect America’s Wildlife bill, aerial hunting would be limited to federal and state wildlife agents. It would force Alaska fish and game officials to prove a biological emergency. . . .
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_”What this bill does is essentially make it impossible for Alaska to manage wolf populations in any sort of responsible way[,” responds fish and game deputy commissioner Pat Valkenburg. “]We finally have a program that works and to end it because of the emotional feelings of uninformed people is just not a good idea.”
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_But the Feinstein-Miller legislation is supported by nine former members of Alaska’s Board of Game.
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Be sure to read the full article and give us your take on aerial wolf management.

For more, see this story from the Anchorage Daily News.