Sarah Palin, the Vice Presidential nominee that has led a resurgence for the McCain bid for the Presidency, has a long and storied past with animal rights. Not one to shy away from hunting, Palin has spent a good deal of time angering animal rights activists as the Governor of Alaska.
A longstanding member of the NRA and hunter, Palin led the charge to place a bounty on the head of wolves in Alaska. According to an article by About.com's Doris Lin, Palin announced a bounty on wolves back in 2007 of $150.00 per wolf. The logic behind this was that the wolves were preying to heavily upon the moose and caribou that Alaskans love to hunt. .
In addition to hunting down and eliminating the wolves of Alaska, Palin also tried to remove the protected status from polar bears in the region according to Lin. The attempt to remove the polar bears from the endangered species list is puzzling to American voters at best.
Palin stated that the reason for this was because they interfered with drilling for oil as well as gas. As strange as that seems, Palin went so far as to sue the Bush administration to try to get this enacted. She outlined her stance on this issue by writing an opinion editorial for the NY Times in January of 08. The article states that polar bears are simply being mismanaged. She states,.
"To help ensure that polar bears are around for centuries to come, Alaska (about a fifth of the world's 25,000 polar bears roam in and around the state) has conducted research and worked closely with the federal government to protect them. We have a ban on most hunting " only Alaska Native subsistence families can hunt polar bears " and measures to protect denning areas and prevent harassment of the bears. We are also participating in international efforts aimed at preserving polar bear populations worldwide.".
Then she proceeds to basically try to explain why polar bears need to be removed from the endangered species list.