Palin an extremist

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is an extremist with an appalling environmental record. In the Arctic, glaciers are receding at an alarming rate, huge sections of the ice shelf are falling into the ocean and it continues to experience the lowest levels of returning sea ice ever recorded. Despite this, Gov. Palin’s administration has joined forces with big oil companies operating in Alaska to sue the Bush administration for declaring the polar bear, which depends on this freeze for their very survival, as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

She is an enthusiastic supporter of the aerial shooting of wolves and bears in Alaska. This inhumane and unsporting method of killing wildlife belies any resemblance to fair chase hunting. A pilot chases down a wolf or bear and a sport hunter then either shoots it from the air, rarely getting a clean kill, or the plane lands and the hunter approaches the terrified, exhausted animal to dispatch it at point-blank range. Palin’s administration sought a bounty on wolves where the hunter collects $150 by bringing in the foreleg of the wolf as proof. Alaskan courts said no.

She advocates unregulated mining in pristine watersheds, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other environmentally sensitive areas of Alaska, seeks federally earmarked dollars for a pork laden “Road to Nowhere” that would severely threaten the wetlands of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and thinks of this as God’s will. Do we really need to go through this for four more years?

Bob Brooks

Montville