If you’re a big animal fanatic, like me, you’ll probably be pretty disappointed to hear that on March 21, Congress made the collective decision to abolish some of the hunting restrictions on national wildlife refuges in Alaska. Those restrictions were introduced by the Fish and Wildlife Service last year in order to protect predators from being hunted. The bill banned aerial hunting, which is when hunters use airplanes to track an animal in the snow, chase them to exhaustion and shoot them from the air, live trapping, and the baiting and killing of predators when hibernating or their dens and/or offspring is nearby.

Government Affairs Director at the Center for Biological Diversity, Brett Hartl, commented that, “This isn’t hunting – it’s slaughter. Killing wolves in this cruel, unsportsmanlike fashion is outrageous, especially in national wildlife refuges that belong to all Americans.” He later added that “repealing these protections also undermines the critical role predators play in healthy ecosystems.”

Unfortunately, Alaskan Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski says that “state management of fish and wildlife is practically sacrosanct (sacred).” While I agree that human involvement is important for population control of predators and prey, I don’t think that the state should allow the brutal killings of these wonderful creatures. The way they are going about it is too cruel.