Don’t call shooting from the sky hunting

The small airplane circles in
the sky, its pilot and passenger peering out the windows as the
plane banks to the left and right. They see a dark-colored dot
moving against the snow below, and quickly, they circle tighter and
downward until, yes, they realize it’s a wolf.

The
circling then changes to a slow glide with just enough motor to
keep the plane aloft. The low-flying plane startles the wolf, and
the frenzied animal takes off running through the deep snow ahead
of the roaring engine. The airplane quickly passes the wolf,
circles, and comes around again, chasing, teasing.

Three
or four more chasing passes and the wolf is exhausted and panting
from running through the deep snow. Two things could happen next.
As the plane slowly comes around again, the passenger leans out the
window, rifle in arms and sights in the wolf. Then the passenger
pulls the trigger, kills the wolf and the plane flies away. This is
called “aerial gunning.”

Or with large airplane skis, the
plane lands on the snow nearby, and the passenger gets out with
rifle in arms and leans up against the tail rudder, steadying the
rifle’s sights. Then he pulls the trigger and kills the wolf. This
is called “land-and-shoot hunting.”

Both are legal in the
state of Alaska, and further, the Alaskan Legislature and governor
continue to contract with pilots and hired guns to do the job
during this winter. Approval has been given to kill 1,000 wolves
via aerial means. The rationale, if you can call it that, is that
wolves are diminishing moose herds, although no wildlife science
backs up that claim.

Recently, over 100 wildlife
scientists — including myself — wrote to Alaska Gov.
Frank Murkowski to protest this type of predator control. But
getting a hearing is difficult. The Alaskan Legislature and the
governor previously ignored a professional, scientific report
recommending against the practice, and then they ignored two ballot
initiatives passed by the majority of Alaskans outlawing aerial
gunning and land-and-shoot hunting, and right now they are ignoring
America’s wildlife scientists.

Instead, they’re just
killing wolves for no good reason, ratta-tat-tat, like in a video
game, flying around, Rambo-style, rifle loaded, finger on the red
button for “kill.”

Which I know a little about. I
remember the small airplane circling in the sky, the pilot and
passenger peering out the windows. I remember the banking turns,
the roar of the engine, my eyes squinting down, the dark-colored
dot moving against the snow. We didn’t have wolves where I grew up,
but we did have coyotes, and my dad had an airplane.

From
the sky, a coyote den shows up because the animal scrapes out a
fresh patch of dirt every morning that shows up against the white
snow. We’d circle around and buzz a time or two to see if a coyote
would come out.

Of course, aerial gunning, or using an
airplane to hunt wildlife in any manner, is illegal in most places,
and so I can’t say we did that. But I can say a few other things:
Once we spotted the coyote, we’d fly back to the airport,
load the snowmobile in the truck and drive back out to the farm. We
didn’t ask the farmer for permission because nobody cared. It was
open season on coyotes just as it is for wolves in Alaska, and just
as it is now for coyotes in most of the American West: Killing them
was all anybody did.

And then we rode the snowmobile out
to the den, scared the coyote out of the hole and pulled the
trigger. It’s what everybody did for no good reason — just
killed them.

And it’s wrong.

Nowadays, as a
hunter, I support fair-chase hunts; I even support fair-chase
hunting of wolves.

But as for the aerial gunning and
land-and-shoot hunting of wolves, and any other goofy way to kill
wildlife that doesn’t connect you with the spirit of nature and the
life of the animal, or for any other killing that doesn’t make you
realize how precious all life is and that when we devalue any piece
of it, we more than anything devalue ourselves, I say this: Stop
it. I did.