(CNN) – Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s support for aerial wolf-hunting has sparked a heated cross-country war of words between the governor and an environmental ad campaign fronted by the actress Ashley Judd, with Palin calling the organization funding the ads an “extreme fringe group.”
The squabble began Tuesday when the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund unveiled a campaign called “Eye on Palin,” targeting the governor for what they call her “extreme anti-conservation policies.”
The group is highlighting “Palin’s championing of the brutal and unnecessary aerial killing of wolves and other carnivores” - a controversial practice allowed by permit in Alaska since 2003, with the goal of protecting populations of moose and caribou.
Judd, who has in the past lent her voice to AIDS prevention and reproductive health campaigns, signed on with the group and is featured in a YouTube video. “It is time to stop Sarah Palin, and stop this senseless savagery,” she says in the clip.
Palin struck back in a statement Tuesday night, calling the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund a fringe group that “distorts” the goal of Alaska’s predator control programs.
“Alaskans depend on wildlife for food and cultural practices which can’t be sustained when predators are allowed to decimate moose and caribou populations,” Palin said in the statement.
She added: “Shame on the Defenders of Wildlife for twisting the truth in an effort to raise funds from innocent and hard-pressed Americans struggling with these rough economic times.”
Palin addressed predator hunting on the campaign trail last September in off-the-cuff remarks at an Ohio fundraiser, calling the practice “kind of a big darn controversial deal up there in Alaska.”
"A lot of the far east coast politicians think it's just so politically incorrect," she said.
From CNN Politics
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Work for us | Help
Perhaps Alaska can just leave the union???? And when they do take palin with them. Why won't this idiot disappear???
SAVE THE POLAR BEAR
Another example by Ashley Judd of a celebrity trying to be an expert. Palin knows her state and the wildlife situation. Wildlife does need to be managed.
OH! Now I anxiously await what Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Alex Baldwin have to say about this!
There goes CNN again. We finally have a story worthy of what the Alaskan witch is like and you turn in her favor. The story is about Ashley Judd against that bimbo and her Neanderthal ways. The only distorted anything around here is that excuse for a human being who thinks she is better than anybody else.
GO ASHLEY and GO DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE. This woman is evil incarnate!!!
Extreme fringe group? Anything like the group Palin's husband belongs to?
No, No, No, Shame on Sarah Palin for her barbaric slaughter of wolves, wild horse herds, grizzly bears and others for the sake of promoting tourist dollars for her beloved hunters (money).
I am not against hunters or hunting but Sarah Palin is playing God, and interferring in His creation and eco systems. If she is the God loving, God fearing Christian she pretends to be, how can she allow the senseless slaughter of wildlife for the sake of (yet once again) big business?
I am not a fringe group..... just an outraged American Citizen.
Sarah Palin's stance on our environment is horrible. Greed to get
trophy hunters, greed to satisfy big oil. As a member of Defenders of Wildlife, I totally agree that she must be stopped.
Why do the hollywood elite feel obligated to express to everyone their political and personal beliefs?
Here's a thought. Let's stick to "acting."
Kevin,
For the last eight years we have shouted and pleaded to get rid of Bush which now everyone can see was a complete disaster. This has nothing to do with left-wing... it has everything to do with common sense.
Defenders of Wildlife are a fringe group? I think Alaska is a fringe group. The 2 people up der that rely on caribou for food can't find them in that big wide open state? No one is saying don't control th epopulations, just don't be inhumane. Or better yet be inhumane on Palin.
Kevin you say that as if the rightous right wing are saints....
Highly unlikely....More like liar's and rob the poor and middle class to inrich the already rich.......Hypocrit's
CNN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY, WHY, WHY DO YOU PEOPLE SPOTLIGHT THIS PATHETIC WOMAN SARA PALIN ON YOUR NEWS? . PLEASE. PLEASE DONT DO THIS TO THE WORLD>
Don't you love it when clueless celebrities look straight faced into the camera and start promoting thing they don't even know anything about? I hope people have more sense than to listen to this dribble.
It's not extreme to have some respect for the natural world. It's extreme to want to kill the entire natural world.
Too bad we can't hunt Palins from a Helicopter.
Ashley Judd is by no means an extremist but IF she were, this would be a case of Sarah "Pot Calling the Kettle Black" Palin trying to stay in the media limelight with her fringe views.
You GO, Sarah Palin! Ashley Judd should do her homework before she opens her mouth.
ashley judd is an idiot......
@ Kevin in Ohio
Sarah Palin is the perverted one here. Along with Limbaugh, Coulter,
Hitler, FOX News, etc.,etc.
As with Cheney and Blago, Sarah needs to just go away too!
Right now please!
THIS WOMAN PALIN IS A MORON .
I'm already bored with Sarah Palin.
is there ever going to be a week where we have NO story about Sarah Palin? So far it appears we have at least one Palin story a week, maybe more and a poll every week on how many people like President Obama.
hmm...perhaps we should set her loose and see how she likes getting hunted. Perhaps McCain should have looked into his mistakenly 'popular' VP candidate interests, backgrounds and etc before nominating her. Oh, and not to mention Alaska who put her on as governor . No comment to that...it flabbergasts me.