As Alaska's governor in 2007, Sarah Palin declared open hunting season on Alaskan wolves, offering a $150 bounty for each animal killed. This program drew cries of outrage from animal rights groups:
Defenders of Wildlife, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club asked the Alaska Superior Court to shut down Governor Palin's $150-per-wolf bounty program citing the fact that Alaska's bounty laws were repealed in 1984 and the State has no current legal authority to implement the bounties.
"The Governor is overstepping her legal authority by offering cash payments for each wolf killed by aerial gunners," stated Tom Banks, Defenders of Wildlife's Alaska Associate. "That's a bounty by anyone's standards regardless of what they call it."
http://www.defendersactionfund.org/
Palin, pictured below on the sofa in her office, enjoys hunting. The wolf kill is designed to increase the population of moose and caribou for sport hunters.
photo by STEPHEN NOWERS / Anchorage Daily News
The problem is Palin allowed one of the worst kinds of wolf slaughter there is -- aerial hunting, something even sport hunters believe is barbaric:
“Aerial hunting of wolves is akin to the medieval demonization of wolves. A wolf howling at night is symbolic of wilderness. Killing an alpha wolf can disorganize an entire pack. I used to be a hunter, but I’m completely against the aerial hunting of wolves.”
Here's a short video on aerial wolf hunting in Alaska:
After a lawsuit by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the state court forced Palin to shut down this hideous program. Nevertheless, the AWA expects the practice to continue:
No doubt next winter will find the AWA fighting the next round of creative efforts to decimate Alaska’s wolves.
Palin also sued the federal government after it declared polar bears an endangered species, while also denying that global warming had any impact on the bears' habitats.
This is Palin's alter ago....