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alpharaposaAn environmental group is publishing an ad attacking Gov. Palin for supporting it
I recall reading somebody who is normally quite mellow about politics shortly after Palin was confirmed as the VP nominee. She ranted a bit, and one part was to complain about how Palin supported shooting wolves out of helicopters, "So a vote for Palin is a vote for dead wolves".
And that was it. But even as I read that, I dimly remembered that there was a reason why people supported shooting wolves in Alaska, and I hunted around a bit. And there it is: people shoot wolves in Alaska so that wolves do not over-hunt prey species. If both unculled wolves and those humans who live off of caribou were to hunt at the same time, the caribou would rapidly head down the list to become endangered. Rather than see a bunch of native tribes starve, Alaskans cull the wolves. Wolves aren't in any danger of becoming extinct in Alaska.
I know there are people who are against killing animals for any reason. There are folks in Indiana who protest against hunting deer. But if you live in Brown County, Indiana during deer hunting season, odds are you've ruined a few cars running into them. "Rats with antlers", they're called. Not all wildlife in the world is endangered. In fact, certain kinds of wildlife are so overpopulated as to be a nuisance.
Conserving at all costs is often not true conservation; many terrible fires that sweep through National Parks would be far less damaging if smaller fires were allowed to burn from time to time, or if limited logging was used to remove excess fuel. For decades, loggers and fires were both kept out of such places, and the result was a tendency for the few fires that got away to become crown fires - terrible, unstoppable furies that wipe out everything, not just some ground fuel. Today, places like Philmont National Scout Ranch welcome limited logging. It provides income for the Ranch, but also thins the forest enough to prevent crown fires. The ranch made this decision after a crown fire wiped out a large swath of forest in the northern part of the ranch.
I recall reading somebody who is normally quite mellow about politics shortly after Palin was confirmed as the VP nominee. She ranted a bit, and one part was to complain about how Palin supported shooting wolves out of helicopters, "So a vote for Palin is a vote for dead wolves".
And that was it. But even as I read that, I dimly remembered that there was a reason why people supported shooting wolves in Alaska, and I hunted around a bit. And there it is: people shoot wolves in Alaska so that wolves do not over-hunt prey species. If both unculled wolves and those humans who live off of caribou were to hunt at the same time, the caribou would rapidly head down the list to become endangered. Rather than see a bunch of native tribes starve, Alaskans cull the wolves. Wolves aren't in any danger of becoming extinct in Alaska.
I know there are people who are against killing animals for any reason. There are folks in Indiana who protest against hunting deer. But if you live in Brown County, Indiana during deer hunting season, odds are you've ruined a few cars running into them. "Rats with antlers", they're called. Not all wildlife in the world is endangered. In fact, certain kinds of wildlife are so overpopulated as to be a nuisance.
Conserving at all costs is often not true conservation; many terrible fires that sweep through National Parks would be far less damaging if smaller fires were allowed to burn from time to time, or if limited logging was used to remove excess fuel. For decades, loggers and fires were both kept out of such places, and the result was a tendency for the few fires that got away to become crown fires - terrible, unstoppable furies that wipe out everything, not just some ground fuel. Today, places like Philmont National Scout Ranch welcome limited logging. It provides income for the Ranch, but also thins the forest enough to prevent crown fires. The ranch made this decision after a crown fire wiped out a large swath of forest in the northern part of the ranch.
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Date: 2008-09-13 02:26 pm (UTC)I remember when there was a bounty on wolf ears but that stopped when it became clear that they were no longer a threat to roaming livestock. Pack dogs that were allowed to roam by their owners were more of a danger to our livestock.