Call of the Wild

Narrator: Do we really want a vice president who champions such savagery?

On screen: Do we really want a vice president who champions such savagery?

Narrator: Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund is responsible for the content of this advertising.

Palin and the Wolf
There's a lot of emotional huffing and puffing in the ad. It says "Sarah Palin actively promotes the brutal and unethical aerial hunting of wolves and other wildlife" and says she encourages "cruelty" and "champions ... savagery." But strip away the emotional characterization and we're left with a description of Palin's position that is essentially factually correct, though incomplete.

Here are the bare facts: As a gubernatorial candidate, and since she was elected in 2006, Palin has promoted aerial wolf and bear shooting, which is usually done with a two-seat, fixed-wing Piper Super Cub in winter, when the animals can be tracked more easily. In March 2007, Palin's administration announced that it would offer $150 for the foreleg of each freshly killed wolf, in order to encourage hunters. A lawsuit by Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance prompted a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the payments, and the state backed off.

Palin also proposed legislation in 2007 that would have allowed aerial shooting, under a "predator control" program, of wolverines as well as brown bears and wolves, and would have eased some of the requirements the state had to meet before approving airborne predator control in a given sector. The bill passed the House but died in Senate committee last spring; Palin has vowed to reintroduce it. So the ad is accurate on that score, as well.

Let Us Prey
If you think the explanation above implies a more complicated landscape than the ad shows us, you're correct. In the first place, while gray wolves are listed as an endangered species in the Lower 48, and great efforts have been made to reintroduce them in some Western states, they are abundant in Alaska. Ron Clarke, assistant director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says the state is home to between 7,000 and 11,000 of them. Wolf populations in Alaska have bounced back since the 1950s, when federal agents conducted an extensive poisoning and aerial shooting campaign; moose and caribou proliferated as a result, in some cases leading to severe degradation of their own habitats.

Second, it's not for nothing that wolves have acquired their big, bad reputations. Studies indicate that predators (wolves and bears) often take 70 percent to 80 percent of the moose and caribou that die each year in Alaska. Research by the state Department of Fish and Game shows that "a single wolf eats 12-13 moose in a typical year and/or 30-40 caribou, mostly calves." (Whether it's "and" or "or" would seem important, but we'll let that one slide for now.)

Third, the state doesn't refer to the practice as aerial hunting; to Alaska officials, it's "predator control," as you may have noted above. The federal Airborne Hunting Act, passed in 1971 in response to a national outcry against aerial hunting in Alaska, prohibits shooting at or harassing any bird, fish, or other animal from aircraft. Exceptions are allowed if the federal government or a state finds aerial hunting is needed to protect "land, water, wildlife, livestock, domesticated animals, human life, or crops." In those cases, programs must be developed, individuals must obtain government permits to do the hunting, and state officials must report facts and figures to the feds on a regular basis.

That's the situation in Alaska. If you're just some guy or gal with a small plane, a rifle, a hunting license and a six-pack, you can't take off and go hunting for wolves anywhere you happen to be. Predator control programs have been authorized by the state in five of its 26 game management units, which account for 9.4 percent of the state's land mass. Pilot-and-gunner teams have to apply for permits, and they must provide their own planes.