Animals & Money: Palin's fiscal weakness for hunters
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Tax
When John McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, wildlife lovers cringed for two reasons. The first is that she seems like just the kind of smart, young leader who has battled corruption and government waste that could get not so environmentally friendly Republicans elected. The second is that Palin herself has been on the side of hunters instead of wildlife watchers--even when the fiscal numbers are not on hunting's side.Palin--in addition to vowing to sue to stop the listing Polar Bears as an endangered species--has put the weight of the state behind defeating a ballot measure that would have limited the aerial shooting of wolves. Nationwide aerial hunting has been banned since 1972's Airborne Hunting Act, but Alaska gets around that by saying the hunters are working for the state to control predators. The idea is to produce more moose and caribou to hunt.
The Alaska Fish and Game Department has been allowing aerial wolf hunting--even though voters said no to it twice--for since 2003. (The legislature later overturned the voters' decision.) But this time Alaskans voted 92,781 to 74,124 to allow it.Why did Alaskans change their mind? It could have been, as the Anchorage Daily News suggests, because the wording was confusing: "Some who voted no on Measure 2 thought they were banning the practice, when in fact it took a yes vote to stop private hunters from gunning wolves and bears from the air." And others blame the state for spending $400,000 on an "educational campaign" on the issue, alongside nearly as much fromhunting groups.
Spending state money on the campaign, drew lots of criticism, but eventually the Alaska Public Offices Commission said it was okay. But that's only the beginning of the cost of the program. John Toppenberg, director of Alaska Wildlife Aliance says the program costs about $1 million a year to run. A pro-hunting blog, Black Bear Blog, said the state spent $640,000 on predator control studies in 2006.
For a while the state also tried to offer a $150 "cash incentive" to "wolf control volunteers" for each left front leg they brought in. The state insisted it wasn't a bounty, a judge said that's exactly what it was and ordered it to stop.
The predator control program has been a controversy in Alaska for two decades. They've knocked off about 800 wolves since it started. That's not that many among a population of about 7,700 to 11,200. Some think that predator control programs don't really have much impact on the population in any given area because it will just make other wolves move in.
The big argument for government to get involved in playing God in the wolf population is that it will increase the money spent in the state on hunting. But the hunting numbers don't add up.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's 2006 survey of outdoor recreation, wildlife watchers outnumber those who went fishing or hunting in Alaska. For every three Alaska residents who go hunting or fishing, four go watch wildlife. And lots of them would like to see wolves. And when you include non-residents enjoying the outdoors in Alaska the ratio goes to almost three to five. Even in Alaska, only 11% of the population hunts anymore.
The argument to kill wolves to support hunting is that hunters spend more money. But of $1.3 billion spent in Alaska on enjoying the outdoors, only $125 million was spent on hunting and fishing. That compares to $51 million spent on fishing and $581 million spent to watching wildlife. Tourism is a big business in Alaska and bear viewing tours are now part of that.
Wildlife biologist Stephen Stringham, who wrote Bear Viewing in Alaska also runs bear viewing tours, says that the program has also killed off a bunch of bears that people used to like to watch. "While this has been underway, numbers of bears in prime viewing areas has crashed," he says, threatening lots of jobs. "Whether she really cares is questionable."
Nationwide wildlife watchers outnumbered hunters (71 million to 12.5 million) and outspent them, too ($45.7 billion to $22.9 billion).
Politically, I have no doubt Palin's pro-hunting policies will help her out. But that's more of a cultural stance than one against wasting government money. Economically, they don't make sense.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
8-30-2008 @ 10:23AM
RobertsJim said...
However you cut it, she's an inflexible right winger albeit one with more practical experience as a manager and administrator than Obama.
Despite her 19th century views on the abundance found in untamed, wide open spaces, which Alaska has in spades, her saving grace is her fiscal conservatism and willingness to smite even fellow Republicans who show ethical lapses.
On the other hand, unless she can show some mastery of foreign affairs, reveal a plausible explanation for not wanting to protect Polar Bears, whose plight is shared by most Americans, and persuasively explain why she fired her police commissioner, she will join Geraldine Ferraro as a historic footnote.
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8-31-2008 @ 4:47AM
Karen said...
Jim
You stated "However you cut it, she's an inflexible right winger albeit one with more practical experience as a manager and administrator than Obama."
While I'll agree with "inflexible right-winger" you're forgetting Obama spent 8 years in the Illinois State House representing the district of a major metropolitan world class city of Chicago. That district is many times larger than the 5,000 population city and had to have far more complex issues than a small city in the middle of nowhere. (No offense to small towns in the middle of nowhere but...) In searching the web there's some interesting info on just how fiscally well and more like how NOT well she ran that city. It takes far more skill, diplomacy, intelligence, and thoughfulness to be a working member of the Illiniois House than to run a city of 5,000. To accomplish getting things done for your district you have to understand and get along with others and in Illinois that means the downstate agricultural folks. I understand this having lived along the North Shore of Chicago.
As a mayor of small town diversity of opinions, population and economics is minimal. She could run it like a monarch and with her inflexible hunting stance and her "troopergate" scandal under investigation it sounds like Queen Palin is what she truly is. Wow, not even two years in office as Governor and she's under investigation by her own legislature for abuse of power what a true blue Bush/McCain Republican! That's just what we don't need, four more years of ideological and "cowboy" mentality from annointed leaders.
And unlike Alaska, Illinois has a huge diversity in population, economics, and industries. Obama first as a Representative and then for 2 years as Senator has had to understand a multiplicity of issues, and again represent a great diversity of economics, people, and cultures.
Give me a break, more management experience? On top of every experience Obama had in Illinois he probably had bigger managment challenges running the Harvard Law Review than Palin had running that city.
8-30-2008 @ 10:35AM
Richard said...
I wonder at the sincerity of these people who worry about wolves and polar bears, but think it is okay to kill babies because they are "inconvenient" or because they want to get out of the responsibility of raising them.
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9-02-2008 @ 10:44AM
Gary said...
And I wonder about the sincerity of people who call themselves "pro-life" because they oppose letting a woman choose abortion under any circumstances, but blithely disregard the wanton cruelty committed against another of God's creatures, such as the aerial killing of Alaskan wolves.
9-10-2008 @ 8:52PM
Pat said...
I wonder about the sincerity of these people who worry about clumps of cells in generic women's uteruses, but think the very specific killing of innocent Iraqi women and children, in a patriotic orgy called "Shock and Awe" is just fine. I wonder about the sincerity of people who hypothesize that healthy women carry healthy fetuses late into their 3rd tri-mester and then kill them as a matter of convenience, but are completely ignorant of the FACTS about Disappeareds south of our border: Community Organizers, dis-embowelled so that their bodies would sink and then thrown from airplanes into oceans or lakes in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Indonesia, by people in financial deals with the United States to insure that OIL and other natural resources became private business.
8-30-2008 @ 1:58PM
Sherry said...
McCain is already suffering from dementia.
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8-30-2008 @ 7:53PM
Chris said...
she is a soccer mom. There is noooo way I could see her replacing McCain when he kicks the bucket...
can u see her going after Osama? what a joke
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8-31-2008 @ 7:11PM
pjcinmt said...
she could get in her plane and do some aerial hunting!
8-31-2008 @ 4:51AM
Boll said...
I totally agree with this article.
As a european tourist, I had the chance to observe a wolf in the Denali. It was the highlight of the trip! A lot of people are coming from every parts of the world to admire the alaskan wildlife.
I cannot understand how the alaskans allows such stupid, useless and expensive predator management. All the wildlife of the Alaska has been given to the hunting lobbies...
With such things, I'm not ready to go back there anymore.
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8-31-2008 @ 4:12PM
Suzanne said...
Thank you for letting us know where she stands on wildlife. I am one of the people who signed the poetition against aeriel shooting of Alaskan wolves. I was devastated when that was defeated, allowing these massacres to continue. Now that I know she was FOR this, I think for the very first time EVER, I am not going to vote in the election. Neither candidate is a good one.
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9-02-2008 @ 11:15PM
Barb said...
If you really don't like Palins policies you should make sure you vote for the OTHER candiate. Not voting doesn't help!
8-31-2008 @ 7:10PM
pjcinmt said...
Richard - With disgusting viewpoints like that, your mom should have visited planned parenthood.
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8-31-2008 @ 10:44PM
Brenda said...
pjcinmt
HUH?
I can only assume you are one of the people that support partial birth abortion as you have no problem telling the board Richard does not deserve to live because you disagree with his viewpoint.
Richard, I agree with your viewpoint. As I understand it, you value the life of a human child as much if not more than polar bears and wolves. I personally am a wildlife lover, and a rational environmentalist. I haven't done research, yet, on the wolf hunting, but on the surface it sounds revolting. As for the polar bear, they're not long for this planet due to loss of habitat. Stopping the pipe line that was behind her stance on keeping the polar bear off the list wouldn't in my opinion be smart, and won't help the bears.
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9-12-2008 @ 11:20AM
Max Mergatroid said...
You just don't get it. Humans - all 8 billion of us - are able to make reasoned and complicated decisions. Polar Bears on the other hand have no say in their habitat destruction and act based their instincts to simply survive. I somehow don't think you'd ever see Jesus hunting this majestic animal for a thrill-kill!
9-02-2008 @ 7:13AM
jesbion said...
You totally fail to recognise that shooting wolves from the air is not "hunting" at all! Surely you realise that this is done not as any "sport", but in an effort to reduce the numbers of wolves that have all but practically destroyed the herds of game that many people depend on, as well as the economic benifits of having deer, elk and moose, in enough numbers to bother with!
NOBODY, except people who misrepresent what this is about, call aireal shooting, hunting.....because it isn't! The "laws" you are refering to, regulate sportsmen who are hunting for sport, not animal control regulators who HAVE to kill enought wolves, in order for the herds to survive! Too many herds have totally perished, when they have passed a minimun number, which is necessary for survival.....
GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT, BUDDY!
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9-02-2008 @ 11:14PM
Barb said...
Get off this site -- this site isn't for crazies who believe in shooting predators from the air to increase tourism and hunting dollars into Alaska!
9-03-2008 @ 12:21PM
Cid MArtins said...
So... jesbion, 'buddy'... from your point of view, we should exterminate all humans in order to control the natural balance! Nature is a perfect dynamic system. It controls itself! The only variable which is breaking up and destroying that equilibrium is humans! Wolves and other animals were already in Alaska long before the first humans stepped on that land, so please do yourself a favour and think before making ignorant remarks ok?
Humans should stop being so arrogant and realize once and for all we are just one among many species on this planet! Not the smartest (we are destroying our only home - how smart is that?) but the most destructive and cruellest of them all! I believe it's about time we evolve...
9-08-2008 @ 4:32PM
Bob said...
I don't see anything wrong with a lot of her views, of course I do not share the desire to shoot wolves from choppers, but they actually could have a reason behind it. Odd that people have such a problem with hunting, but don't realize that a lot of herds have to be culled one way or another.
The whole "experience" thing has my head buzzing... When exactly do you get experience to run a world superpower in times of crisis? Reminds me of the Matrix II "... of course if we never make time, how can we ever have time?"
I don't have a problem with hunting. I don't have a problem with the outdoors. I do have a problem with doing people the disservice of slanting their views to the point of irrationality to "inform".
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9-03-2008 @ 10:13AM
Cid MArtins said...
You know, sometimes we are so involved in our issues and problems that we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of the times we can't even see the tunnel and we are completely in the dark! I am sorry, but this is exactly what's happening in the USA. I mean, here in Europe, most of us have already realized that the best option, by far, for the USA and the rest of the world is Senator Obama! You see, we don't understand what's so difficult about it! MacCain is another Bush and Palin is a no one! And the supposedly lack of Obama's experience is an issue? How dumb is that? Furthermore Palin is a hunter (she approved the slaughter of wolves' populations in Alaska ) and she is a creationist (accordingly to a newspaper I read)!! Do you want someone who believes God created us +/-6000 years ago to govern the USA? She was merely chosen because she is a woman! If I were a woman I would feel insulted by this! You might say the rest of the world has nothing to do with your election! Well, when you stop dictating the world rules and invading foreign defenceless countries (like Iraq - you don't do anything against Russia invading Georgia, do you? Where is your courage now?), then we won't care less about what you do! Until then, who will be the next president of the USA is of our concern too! And I can assure you that if now the image of the USA abroad is shattered, wait and see what will happen if MacCain wins - America will be alone! No one will give you any credit! It will be once and for all the end of the USA as we know it! Why do you think Senator Obama was received like a hero in Germany? Because we are not so deeply involved in your problems, we are able to have our minds clear to think straight and truly see who is the best person for the job! And believe me when I tell you that for what I can see, more than 90% of the Europeans choose Senator Obama! Are we all wrong? Or maybe are you being so well brain-washed by fear and lies, that you can't see something so obvious? Oh and by the way, more than 98% of the Europeans think G. W. Bush is the most pathetic and dumb president the USA has ever had! To us he is a joke!! You have no idea! Is that the image you want your country to have abroad? If it is, then elect MacCain, but then don't complain about it!
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9-11-2008 @ 10:42AM
Terri said...
I hope you have some room left over there, because if Mccain/Palin wins I am moving over there! Eight years of lies and a pres. who is trying to set women back 100 years. I have had it. The europeans have the right idea 0 population growth.
We are killing ourselves off anyway and if Palin becomes Pres. because Mccain gets sick or God forbid passes on, the earth and the animals will not have a chance at all. I can not bear to see this happen. Go Obama!! Win Win!