I would like to say first that I absolutely LOVE this site, I think it’s great and I’ve learned a great deal from all the postings. I understand that this is a site for sportsmen, and many guys and gals who fish hunt as well, including myself. What I don’t understand is why there are advertisements on this site promoting “Alaskans for Professional Wildlife Management.” This is basically a group of people who support the killing of wolves from aircraft in order to boost the moose and caribou populations in parts of Alaska. I live in Minnesota now, but I grew up in Soldotna, Alaska and spent 24 years of my life there. I think that killing wolves from airplanes just for being wolves is very UNprofessional wildlife management. Just look at the ad (below), it depicts wolves as “dangerous predators” out to inflict “harmful wrath,” and even shows a wolf baring its teeth as though preparing to snatch your child from your arms. Most of us know this is a ridiculous portrayal of wolves. We’re not living in the 19th century; our biologists should know better, and should implement a plan where the wildlife populations balance and regulate themselves naturally, even if it means humans taking fewer game animals. This campaign is all about greed on the parts of people who want to hunt more moose and caribou. These people want a scapegoat on which to blame low game populations. What about overhunting? Loss of habitat? Natural population cycles? Climate change? Perhaps some of these folks simply take sadistic pleasure in running a wolf to exhaustion with an airplane, and then killing it. Anyhow, I realize that IDO says “no postings of a political or religious nature,” but I am only responding to something already on the site. Such polarizing advertisements should not be displayed on a mostly neutral site such as this. I do have a question, though: Does IDO support the airborne killing of Alaska’s wolves in order to increase the populations of game animals for humans? Not trying to raise a stink, but the display of biased political ads invites such questions.
July 29, 2008 at 12:11 am
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