As she coos over them on TLC and anthropomorphizes them for the Tea Party, she tends not to remind people that as governor, she backed a bill called the "Active Management - Airborne Shooting" that allowed for aerial shooting of the bears for the first time in Alaska's history. (Mercifully the bill died in the state senate.) The text is here. One of her cronies also introduced snaring of black bears west of Anchorage. The new regulation was described by the Alaska chapter of the Back-Country Hunters and Anglers Club as follows:
The plan calls for the killing of 900-1400 black bears over a 3-5 year period. Any licensed resident hunter over the age of 16 can participate after obtaining a free control area permit. There is no limit on the amount of bears a hunter can take, and hunters can take any black bear, including a sow with cubs, or cubs. Up to four bait stations will be allowed, as well as same-day airborne land-and-shoot "hunting." It will also be legal to sell the tanned hide of a black bear taken in this control area.
The Hunters and Anglers were appalled (and grizzlies were inevitably killed by mistake under the Palin-backed plan):
Many hunters feel that this kind of controversial plan simply won't effectively increase bear harvests in an area where we've had liberalized seaons and bag limits for years. Programs like this only serve to degrade the public perception of hunting and hunters.
At the same time, of course, Palin was championing the grizzly as the state symbol on the quarter. Palin's full and disgusting record of culling and killing bears and wolves is elaborated here in Audubon magazine. Money quote:
On March 10 (2007) the board granted permission to private hunters and trappers, including supervised children as young as 10, to use wire loops to snare Unit 16 black bears and grizzlies by the feet. The lucky bears get shot before they starve. For the first time ever hunters may transport themselves and their equipment by helicopter. And they may now shoot Unit 16 bears over bait, such as rotten hot dogs and rancid bacon fat (“garbaging for bears,” as the practice has been called)even in summer, when sows are nursing cubs. The lucky cubs get shot along with their mothers.
The board was stacked with Palinites including a close personal friend. When you see her posing as an environmentalist and nature-lover, remember the truth. Very few Alaska governors have been as brutal in their treatment of grizzlies as Palin.
In this as in almost everything, she is a liar and a phony.