A Debate in the House and Congress

Currently, a California lawmaker is battling Alaskan officials on the issue of the aeriel shooting of wolves. Rep. George Miller has introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that would stop aerial shooting in Alaska. This bill will close the loophole left in the 1972 bill, named The Airborne Hunting Act, that did not prohibit the aerial shooting of wildlife if you had a proper license to do so. A newspaper in Anchorage, Alaska writes that almost 700 wolves have been killed by aerial shooters over the past four years, and these are only the deaths that have been reported. In response to Healthy Lungs, I am not sure the exact figures of how many wolves are killed per day, however, there are many killings that are not reported, and are therefore not included in the 700 figure stated above. I did find one account that states the amount of unreported deaths due to aerial shooting my match or even exceed the 700 mark.

This new bill highly opposes the decision of Alaskan officials to allow the aerial shooting of wolves in late 2003 in order to allow the moose population to regenerate. Many argue that the Alaskan government's decision to allow the aerial shooting of wildlife was against regulation and extremely inhumane.

Lastly, in response to Joe Smith, as of April 2007, the Alaskan endangered species list does not include the moose or the caribou. This list, however, is only a proposed listing and could possibly expand to include moose and/or caribou at a later date.