wolves shot from the air to protect caribou.

This one is for the dog lovers out there

Aerial Wolf Gunning 101What is it, and why does vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin support the practice?
By Samantha Henig
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008, at 6:38 PM ET
Wolves. Click image to expand.Wolves

Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and John McCain's vice presidential pick, is an enthusiastic hunter who has proposed legislation and cash incentives to encourage aerial wolf gunning, the controversial practice of shooting wolves from an aircraft. Do people in Alaska really shoot wolves from planes?

Yes, but only with the government's permission. Aerial shooting yields better results than traditional hunting, since it allows the hunter to cover a lot of ground quickly and track target animals from a clear vantage point. Historically, hunters also used planes to drive animalsâ??polar bears in Alaska and elk in Montana, among othersâ??toward gunmen waiting on the ground. But many hunters found the practice unsportsmanlike, since it violates the "fair chase" ethic, and animal rights activists call it inhumane, since airborne gunmen rarely get a clean (i.e., relatively painless) kill. In response to concerns like these, Congress passed the Federal Airborne Hunting Act of 1972, which made it illegal for hunters to shoot animals from a plane or helicopter.

The federal legislation (PDF) does have a loophole for predator control, permitting state employees or licensed individuals to shoot from an aircraft for the sake of protecting "land, water, wildlife, livestock, domesticated animals, human life, or crops." (This doesn't just apply to wolves; coyotes and foxes are sometimes gunned down from aircraft, especially in Western states.) Since 2003, Alaska has issued aerial wolf-hunting permits in select areas where moose and caribou populations are particularly endangered. The idea is that by killing the predators, the airborne gunmen can ramp up the number of moose and caribou that human hunters can take home for supper.

An aerial wolf-gunning team typically consists of two peopleâ??one to fly the plane, and one to shoot the animals. Former crop sprayers tend to make good pilots because they are used to flying close to the ground. Airborne hunters tend to fly single-engine Super Cub planes at very low speeds and at altitudes of less than 100 feetâ??sometimes swooping down to 10 to 15 feet above the ground. But flying so slow and low can be dangerous, and there have been a number of reported deaths in recent years as a result. Helicopters have the benefit of being able to hover very close to the ground, but they're prohibitively expensive for private pilots. (A small helicopter might cost as much as four times more than a Super Cub.) This past spring, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game lent its helicopters and employees to the predator-control effort.

There are two methods for making a kill during an aerial hunting expedition: Either you shoot the wolf while airborne or you track the animal from above, then land and shoot it from the ground. Legal limits on "land and shoot" hunting have been far less stringent: For many years after shooting from the air was outlawed, anyone with a hunting or trapping license could practice "land and shoot," provided he or she walked a certain distance from his plane before opening fire. Current rules in Alaska require a delay between landing an aircraft and killing an animal: In most cases, hunters must wait until 3 the following morning before they can get started.

Back in the 1950s, Alaska paid government employees and bounty hunters to take out thousands of wolves, but today's aerial wolf killers are unpaid. (They can make some money by selling the wolf pelts.) Palin tried last year to have the state pay $150 for every wolf killed, but the state superior court shot that down as an illegal use of bounty payments, which were outlawed in that state in 1984.

What's aerial wolf gunning, and why does vice presidential Sarah Palin support the practice? - By Samantha Henig - Slate Magazine

wolves eat people so that makes them fair game in my book

if the caribou grew out of control, the alaskans would be importing wolves

This is the kind of nonsense that pops my cork.lol
If the wolves are beginning to be a problem for other species than just open it for regular hunters to harvest them like they do any other animal.
Hellicopters rent for about $600 an hour. Not a very cost sffective way of hunting. We have this same kind of nonsense here in washington. They hire a couple hellicopters to fly elk out of an area because people complain they're eating there flowers. Those kind of assholes need to just move back to the big city where they belong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maladroit

wolves eat people so that makes them fair game in my book

if the caribou grew out of control, the alaskans would be importing wolves

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Wolves avoid people when possible. It's only when they are forced out of their environment or in a fight/flight situation that they attack humans.

However there is the exception to every rule.

As an interesting note; we have open Boar/Hog season here in Texas because they are a big problem to crops and the land and other animals. Maybe people hunt wolves in Alaska for similar reasons? But I'm not sure how the wolf population effects the wildlife, crops or society up there so I can't choose an opinion one way or another.

yellowstone national park imported wolves from canada...at the time, i recall one of the explanations being that big game was overpopulating beyond the available food supply and that was weakening all the herds, so they needed wolves to hunt them down to reasonable numbers:
Yellowstone Park Wolves

It would help if these idiots would just quit trying to manipulate nature. Many years ago these same idiots decided to intraduce mountain goats to the olympic national park because some sort of shrub was taking over at higher elevations. Goats took care of that problem plus ate everything else they could find destroying all the ground covers and leading to the landscape getting washed away by rains because the ground cover was gone. They were talking about introducing wolves to take out the population of goats.
These people are just educated idiots. Just because they went to college and read a book they think they have the answer. The problem with college is if you're an idot going in your still going to be an idiot coming out.

These stories are sad.

"the introduction of the Indian Mongoose (to Hawaii) has been a disaster of epic proportions. Mongooses do kill rats, but not the numbers needed to justify their use. Unlike the nocturnal rats, the mongoose is active during the day. So instead of ridding the islands of rats, the mongooses have found many other things to eat instead. Their diet is surprisingly varied. In fact, it appears there's very few things that a mongoose won't eat"

NATURALLY SPEAKING: The Mongoose: A Maui Menace