Yesterday, I posted a rather disturbing video, showing a hunter killing wolves from the door of an airplane. Following that posting, a fellow blogging friend sent me an e-mail in which he pointed out that I might have been “posting from the gut”. Yes, friend, I was. But that e-mail also spurred me to do some in-depth research and I wanted to share that with you, dear readers.

First, the video has a political agenda (doesn’t everything?) in that the program established by Gov. Sarah Palin, in the Spring of 2007, was halted that very same Spring. For the Defenders of Wildlife to promote this video now is a little bit disingenuous. Voters in Alaska have voted, in 1996 and in 2000 to stop Alaska’s aerial gunning programs. In addition, the opponents of aerial wolf killing are from all parts of Alaska – 36 of Alaska’s 40 voting districts approved laws to curtail aerial hunting. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance posted an interesting letter on their website, written by Art Greenwalt, of Fairbanks, to the Editor of The Juneau Empire on April 2, 2007 that chides Gov. Palin and the Alaska Outdoors Council for being “wolf-haters” who are out of touch with mainstream Alaskans who instead would like to see increased funding for education, among other programs.

While the Alaska Fish and Game Department says that there are between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves in Alaska, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that there are only 5,000 to 6,000. A spokeswoman for Gov. Palin stated that Gov. Palin’s program would provide Department of Fish and Game biologists with a way to determine the age of the wolves killed – the left front leg. Opponents claim that is a cynical attempt to get around the payment of bounties, which were outlawed more than two decades ago. I’m not a wildlife biologist, but I’ve never heard of any scientist using the leg of a wolf (any of them!) to determine the age of the animal.

According to the United States Humane Society, the data gathered by the Fish and Game Department shows that killing wolves doesn’t reduce predation rates much. David Pauli, regional director of the Northern Rocky Mountain Office of The HSUS wrote, on the Humane Society website, that “the proven ineffectiveness of bounties and the broad scale environmental disturbance caused by aerial hunting programs make this proposal sound like something from a half a century ago.”

While the video is disturbing, I do think it raises an important question: who is Gov. Palin listening to? The people of Alaska or the “good old boys” who run the State? If Gov. Palin is elevated to the post of Vice President of the United States, who is she going to listen to? Those who agree with her? Or is she going to consult with different viewpoints and then arrive at a decision that benefits everyone, not just a select group of people.

What’s your take?