Palin and the Wolves

the natives don't want to cull the packs they want to kill them and get rid of the problem of wolves the gov won't let them just kill off all thats why its called preditor control

As yet, no one has asked Earth's opinion about her wolves. The greatest, "seminal treatise" from the father of ecology, who had a profound opinion about Earth's wolves, believed Earth and ecosystems had a secret opinion about her wolves. Aldo Leopold watched an ecosystem die in the absence of its wolves. In what is considered the greatest words ever written, Leopold used mountain as a metaphor for ecosystem and the Earth. When all the wolves were killed to increase deer populations for hunters, the mountain/ecosystem died. The mountain looked as if God had a new pair of pruning shears and no other exercise; the deer consumed the mountain, and then the unanchored soil blew away in the wind and so did the future. Leopold admonished, the cowman had not yet learned to trim the herd to fit the ecosystem, to fit within the parameters of the ecology of Earth.

What is our living, life gifting Earth's opinion about her wolves? Trim the herd to fit Earth or the future, or Earth's living, life-giving body will blow away in the wind or scramble the entirety of Earth's biogeochemistry and the climate or the nitrogen and carbon cycles will fail, then life will be no more. For all the First Dudes, you are alive because of wolves and ecosystems, the living, physical body of the Earth.

One of the items too many people eliminate from this "discussion" is the fact that Alaska has laws governing subsistance hunting by people who live in the more remote parts of th state. Simply put, Alaska natives have a constitutionally guaranteed right to take wild game to live on. If the people who live in the remote areas were left alone, there wouldn't be any controversy about killing wolves from the air. However, politicians such as former governor Knowles and their supporters, can't leave nature to sort out it's own balance. (The Alaska natives are part of nature, believe it or not!)

Perhaps you can stand before my daughter and explain the killing of the animals she loves so much. There is no balance of nature anymore, the Government "balances" everything for us now don't they!

Sarah would rather shoot eskimos than wolves.

lets see 300 out of 11,000 thats less than 3 % and only in areas that have a booming population that would decimate the local moose and other animals. what happens if it was not managed?? prey numbers would go down wolves would ether starve or move ie: wipe out all the sled dogs in a village, hunt in town, what else can you think of.
I don't like the hunts from planes either but it is a tool for fish and game and is used sparingly. most population control is by trapping or hunting. in some areas experianced trappers are given a quota based on what the area can sustain, if 15 - 20 in a pack is normal and it increases to 24 they are allowed to take 2-4 only and no other trappers can trap there.
as for sterlization ,you do one there is still 10 to take their place . its hard enough to live trap one but to do most of a pack is impossible .

steve in the lower 48 not in canada and alaska you have half the population of wolves we have in 5 times the space, and as to farley mowatt his data is old and was inaccurate he wasn't in the field very long and only in a area that didn't have a large population of wolves he has been dis proved many times ' but is still misquoted. when you have problems in town of wolves hunting dogs that are on a leash or are attacked while put out to go to the bathroom or killed when they are with there masters jogging this happens when the snow is light and they can't kill moose. ie: north pole ,eagle river, fairbanks, cantwell your forefathers were smart they got rid of the problem outright we are at least just culling we have 25 % more wolves in 20% of the same area as you. you want them live trap them take them home then you too can have the same problems we have

I don't call people who shoot out of airplanes hunters no more then I call people who use explosives to fish fisherman. A true hunter uses only their skill and rifle to hunt. If nature beats you, I suggest you improve your hunting skills, not rent a plane and shoot your target from it.

I have never believed in wildlife management, seems nature was doing just fine before humans...I think we need to control them a little better.

This superficial and callow reportage is unworthy of Newsweek. Decades ago biologist Farley Mowatt's "Never Cry Wolf" disproved all of Ms. Palin's old wives tales about wolf and caribou as predator and prey. High time to get some folks out of the nineteenth century!

you shoot it, you kill it. you kill it, you eat it. sport hunters are slime like judges, lawyers & politicians.

Flying in a plane with a rifle is not hunting - it's just killing - some lazy people might think it's hunting but it's closer to murder

I feel aerail hunting of "pretadors" is just another way for people to prove their ingorence, and once more humans are destorying what should be. Why is not it possible for the wolves, caribou, and humans to live together? The natural cylce 100 years ago worked just fine.
Human's regretable need to control EVERYTHING is going to bring the world down in shambles.
But it isnt just "rednecks" with the disgusting habbit
All human beings share the impulse to fruitlessly try to control what they can not .
It just so happens Alaska has some die hard hunters in controlof the state right now.

Showing why balance is needed so greatly in our government.
I am sure some "wolf control" would be a smart idea but not from a plane, not mindless killing.

Posted By: AlaskaLady @ 04/10/2009 9:39:16 PMAs former Alaska residents, my husband and I have been actively involved in Alaska's bear and wolf management issues for two decades. http://akwildlife.com/Photographers.html. In 2000, former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles formed the McGrath Adaptive Management Team to determine the cause and solution for an "alleged" lack of moose around McGrath. My husband, Leo, was appointed to that six-member team. The team directed Fish & Game to conduct numerous studies. Those studies established the McGrath area as having the most and best science on which to base management decisions. The finding of these studies demonstrated there was no need to consider or begin predator control. Though these results were published in a State Fish and Game Memorandum; dated Nov. 2, 2001 http://www.akwildlife.com/Page5.htm followed by a Press Release dated Nov. 6th
http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/news/99-02/11-6-01.php, and featured in the Anchorage Daily News (http://alaskawolfkill.com/McGrath_Moose_Flourish.html) they were later buried and ignored for political reasons.

After receiving these reports, the Adaptive Management team stopped meeting. The draft predator control plan they had been working on was unjustified and support for it vanished. Everyone began to look to the Board of Game to better regulate hunting pressure, the true cause for the lack of Bull Moose. However, in 2001, one, and only one thing changed. Pro-Wolf Control advocate Frank Murkowski, wildly supported by the hunting lobby, was elected Governor. He appointed five radical fellow wolf control advocates as new members to the seven-member Board of Game. The Board and ADF&G buried the McGrath information calling for regulation of hunters. They then adopted the incomplete plan the McGrath Adaptive Management Team had been developing, and rushed into implementing predator control.

In Jan. 2008, we completed a video which exposes the truth about the stranglehold the hunting lobby has on wildlife management in Alaska. Using testimony from Alaska Department of Fish & Game staff, a master hunting guide, and Board of Game members, this video exposes the fallacy behind Governor Sarah Palin's claim that predator control is based on sound science. Declarations that the program is for the benefit of subsistence hunters are shattered with documentation showing that sport and trophy hunters take up to 73% of prey in areas where aerial wolf hunting has taken place. See it here: http://current.com/items/88811075/end_aerial_wolf_hunting.htm

Can anyone tell me the last time a human was killed by a wolf? This whole thing is fueled by age old panic and archaic thinking. The way we see wolves has not changed since we first tried to exterminate them. That is the whole basis of this mess. People can put whatever spin on it they want, but the same fears and prejudices against the wolf are what lead idiots to fly around ina plane and shoot at them thinking they solely are responsible if Bob doesn't get his god damn elk this year.