http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin

What a tool of the Right you are. Palin supported aerial wolf-hunting enthusiastically as governor. This is who she is: a vicious, cowardly, arrogant person. If you want to hunt, I say get the hell out of your plane, dump the military-grade gun and carry a knife. See what happens then. I'll be rooting for the wolves all the way!

I'm sure someone else already said it but I felt it would bear repeating. When I heard of this effort on her part to wipe out the wolf population, I wanted to punch her in the face. God, what a selfish cow! Sarah, you may have lost much of the animal lover population here.

I also want to add that I find the argument about wolves competing for food with humans to be specious. Perhaps what needs to happen is a limit on hunting in general so that there's more SUPPLY. What a jackass biatch.

Women, children, old men, it's all good and nary a word of protest from you.

But shoot wolves????

That's monstrous!

/context eludes the psychopath.

A big problem with America and Americans is that we don't look and we don't see, whether it be the caskets of 4,000 American soldiers, the bodies of a million Iraqi citizens, or the unconscionable agonizing slaughter of one terrified and defenseless wolf. The picture and the film it comes from are worth much more than a thousand words. Don't pander, Salon. Keep the photo in place, and help us to confront the dark side of our humanity. Maybe, just maybe, enough of us will awaken from our passive slumber and actually do something as a result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mu_rqmFpL8

"It is just a grim, grim situation"

How they actually do it is not to shoot the wolves while they are running, but rather to make pass after pass until the wolves are exhausted, at which point they are shot - usually inaccurately, so they flop around in pain.

"Private sport hunters who own airplanes" - not state employees out to cull wildlife, and they get a gleeful kick out of it.

"A lot of it is just thrill killing."

"A lot of this is based on social and political dogma."

That's the truth behind most self-styled sport hunters in the modern world.

It's similar to the Bush Meat situation in Africa:

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

This article is very disheartening. Why does the human race think killing/culling animals is a valid thing to do in order to suit our own needs? We encroach on their habitats and then have the audacity to kill/cull them in order to control their numbers and keep them from hunting/competing with human hunters.

WE are the most selfish, arrogant, greedy, dangerous predators on earth.

While I haven't gone out to buy a rifle, I've had some great discussions with a hunter friend. Good hunters are interested in conservation, habitat preservation, and yes, in a habitat with predators. Most love the outdoors, and agree with the biologists issuing tags for hunting in a humane, sustainable manner.

This particular hunter friend is now voting democratic, because the republicans seem so anti-habitat preservation. He's no longer interested in the NRA and gave up his membership, because he does NOT agree that people need to own assault rifles.

I have no desire to go out and shoot animals, other than with a camera. However, those of us who love animals do need to understand that Palin notwithstanding, not all hunters are against us. Many are interested in wildlife health, habitat health, and stable wildlife populations.

You said: "I would like to see Sarah Palin have to get down on the ground and minister to the wounded woves as they are in their death throes."

Not me. I'd rather sent Palin out on the tundra with a pair of snow shoes and then run her down in my Piper Cub until she's exhausted (see the attached video to see what I'm talking about). It would give the heartless haridan a taste of her own medicine.

This practice literally makes me sick!!! I would like to see Sarah Palin have to get down on the ground and minister to the wounded woves as they are in their death throes--since they rarely die immediately, and suffer terribly. Furthermore, I would like reqired of her a mandatory course about wolves, taught by a wildlife expert who opposes the ariel slaughter--so she can study up close their intelligence, mating habits and history. She must complete the entire course, and will be given a test at the end! Then, after the course is over, she will be put out in the wild (wearing a wolf suit) with the roving wolves, and get to run with them as the planes shoot them down. If she gets shot in the process......oh well!!!!!! Her leg can be donated for posterity!

Sarah Palin's family values. (Warning, it's graphic)

http://thebruceblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-huntress.jpg

But HOW can the religious right not be outraged by wanton destruction of life and nature just for the fun of it or based on pseudo-science rationalizations?

They don't all,and they are not a monolithic group,esp. the evangelical youth. as for those who do ignore this atrocity against God, they think that protecting divine life (human) is more impt than animals and justify voting for these politicians that way. (and are encourgaged to do so by old-school RR talking heads and republican demagogues).

Before you get too high up on your horses to pillory the hated animal killers, consider that for humans to live, animals die. Having grown up in what was at the time rural southern california, I saw the big mall cover the field where the burrowing owls lived. I saw how the horny toads disappear after the houses got closer and people with their pet cats (major predators) moved in. I'm not going to defend aerial wolf shooting, because I think it's a really bad idea for a number of reasons. But are you really that much better just because you don't have to see the carcasses of the animals that perished so you can live in your nice homes, drive to work, and go shopping?

As for Farley Mowatt's book "Never Cry Wolf", it's a great read (I loved the book), but google up Farley Mowatt "thinly veiled fiction" to see the full story.

The above is directed more at some of the comments getting all preachy and indignant about some animals getting killed. The article itself was good, as it focused on the more important issue (which many of the comments did pick up on). Wildlife population management must be based on good science, and depends on biologist input. To set those policies on purely political grounds is not smart. Having worked on reintroduction of a different endangered species, I've witnessed the unfortunate resistance and pressure from uninformed but powerful vested interests, channeled through their political representatives. It leaves a bad taste for the political "process".