Social and Political issues aside, I don't like her hunting Alaskan Wolves from an airplane. The animals have no chance of escaping her high-powered rifle fired from above. The Wolf is a noble animal and should not be hunted for sport! Hal
I don't like the idea either, but the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife shoots coyotes from helicopters. Even worse, in my opinion, is the policy of dropping various sterilization and vaccination drugs in foods intended to be ingested by target wildlife. This is from 2012, so I don't know what the status of the program is now, but Alaska was allowing the aerial shooting of bears in 2012. My opinion is that, while I may disapprove of something like that, if they are doing it within the bounds of established wildlife regulations, my opinion on the subject would be no different than that of those who would ban hunting altogether. I may not hunt, but that doesn't give me the right to stop others from doing so.
If the Fisheries and Wildlife dept of Alaska is okay with the wolves being killed in whatever fashion, I really do not have any worth while input. So far as shooting from the air, I was a door gunner and shooting from the air takes a lot of experience. I used twin 60's and it took at least a couple of thousand rounds before I learned to proficiently track and hit a singular moving object. By the bye, my moving objects were slower than a moving wolf which to me, makes the wolf even harder to hit and less sure.
Hunting is more than a sport and a means of putting food on the table. In every state in the country now, hunting is used as a way of keeping various animals from becoming overpopulated. The alternative would be to hire state hunters to kill off some of the animals, and I doubt that would be done in a sporting manner.
The wolf is NOT a noble animal, it is a vicious predator that kills any other animals that it can. They not only kill beautiful wildlife like deer and elk; but they also kill cattle, sheep, horses, and other domestic animals. In Idaho, the wild deer, elk, and even moose are now wintering close to towns, and even wandering through yards, because they are safer there than they would be out in the woods in their natural habitat. My friend who lives in Idaho said that it is not unusual to see wolves running down deer and livestock , even very close to town. People need to be allowed to protect their livestock, and the wolf population is growing so fast that the wolves are getting bolder each year. I am glad that Sarah Palin is helping to eliminate some of these ruthless killers. This poor creature died a horrible death and was chewed up while he was still alive.
Wolves are noble animals, as animals go. Every animal has a purpose, and past efforts to eradicate them entirely were, in my opinion, mistaken. That said, people should also have a right to protect their own animals from these animals. Wolves are predators but, of course, if we eradicate predators, we'll soon learn to regret that.
The predator control programs here are very limited. As @Yvonne said, wolves eat their prey alive. It is said that anyone who witnesses a wolf kill will never forget it. Reducing the number of wolves in an area serves two purposes: 1) It allows the herds (largely caribou) to stabilize because most of the calves are not eaten alive as the mother watches helpless, and 2) It keeps the wolves themselves from starving to death when the number of prey is reduced to the point that wolves cannot be supported. Wolves go through hell as they slowly starve to death. It is nature's way, but humans have the ability to reduce suffering. The same goes for bears, mostly black bears, whose principal prey is moose calves in the spring. The moose population drops to the point that bears coming out of their dens in the spring have nothing to eat, and the hungry bears then starve slowly and in the process often eat each other to get them through until the berries and salmon are around. I am no fan of Sarah Palin, and I doubt she killed any wolves herself, but she did allow it to happen when she was governor here--one of the few good things she did as governor.
Sure, the mutilated deer carcass looks less than appetizing, but this is the way Nature has decreed that wolves, among other predatory species shall sustain themselves. Lions, Tigers, Leopards, and Hyenas start ripping into and disemboweling the Wildebeest, Impala, and Zebra while they're still running! Do you think their "dinner plate" is any more pleasant-looking for human eyes than that of the Deer? Hal
One of the aspects that wolves enjoy more so than other predators do is hunting, attacking and eating humans. Such is the case especially around smaller villages in Alaska. Since wolves have no other way of dispatching their prey as do other types of predators, the pack overtakes the human prey, tearing at the legs and torso to disable the prey and just like the animal counterparts, he or she is eaten.....alive. At least humans make sure the animal is dead before the body is processed...………………….
Wolf attack is hardly a major cause of death, however. Source: List of wolf attacks in North America, Wikipedia Yes, they are predators, and they have been known to attack and kill human beings. Of a list of the 25 animals responsible for the most human deaths, worldwide, they are #25. The most dangerous? Human beings, of course. The World Atlas has a slightly different list, placing wolves at #15 on a list that is led by mosquitoes and human beings. You will get no argument from me that wolf populations need to be controlled. We can't have as many wolves as we had two hundred years ago because there isn't as much for them to eat today, which puts us on their potential dinner plate.
This is Chipper and our little 5 lb. Sheba Pom, whom we dearly loved. She and Chipper were inseparable, and we had them both from the time they were tiny puppies. One day, Sheba went out in the yard to go to the bathroom, and I went out behind her. She was GONE ! Just that fast, a predator had grabbed her and ran off into the nearby woods. Bobby and I searched and searched, and never found so much as a trace of that sweet little Pomeranian. I cried and cried. She didn’t get a chance to grow old like Chipper did. I know that killing helpless creatures is what a predator does, but when you have lost what is precious to you because a predator got it, there is no way to ever think that any of them are noble animals ever again. Any time that I have seen a coyote and had my rifle, I shot at it, and I would do the same today, and totally support anyone who helps to protect our livestock and pets from being needlessly killed by any predators.
I lost Bird and Obie, who I loved very much, to an animal a few years ago. It was probably a fox, but fox remain beautiful animals. My cats no longer go outdoors at dusk or before dawn. That day, I could have killed a fox if I saw one. However, I can't hate an animal for doing what animals do any more than I could hate Ella for bringing me a beautiful dead bird that was alive before she decided to bring it to me, or for killing the formerly lovely chipmunk a few months ago. Instead, I praise her for doing well, what cats were created to do, and I check on her more often so that she is less likely to come across another one.
A few years ago near Anchorage, people walking their dogs on a leash were having them taken and eaten by wolves while they watched helplessly. Talk about some freaked-out people! I think fish and game killed most of the pack quietly so as to not upset the animal rights folks. Wolves are MUCH more cruel in their killing than are any of the cats. The cats may maul their prey as they are "catching" it, but they dispatch it with killing teeth as soon as possible. The number of humans killed by wolves, as @Bobby Cole pointed out is greatly underestimated. It is understood by most of the rural Alaskans. Wolves leave NO TRACE of their prey, especially when it is as small as a human. They eat the bones and even the clothing most of the time. People just disappear and are never heard from. Again, the animal lovers connect the wolf with the dog, so don't want to believe that wolf packs are killers of people. Wolves eat dogs here all the time, especially if they are in an unfenced yard unattended. Wolves are the most vicious and clever killers in North America, at least, and no @Hal Pollner they are not like lions at all except that lions sometimes hunt in groups.
Dogs kill way more people than wolves. Of course, there are more of them and they live with people, so that is no surprise.