Sarah Palin’s record is not very favorable for wildlife. She’s put efforts into undoing federal wildlife protections for polar bears and beluga whales in order to protect oil and gas drilling operations, for example. But her position on wolf hunting is perhaps the most controversial.

One of Palin’s first acts in office was to put a $150 bounty on the heads of her state’s wolves, allegedly with the goal of increasing the moose and caribou population. But this was no ordinary hunt - it was meant to incentivize the aerial killing of wolves, in which private hunters take a small plane and chase down wolf packs until they’re exhausted and can’t move any more, when they either shoot them from the air or land and execute them at point blank range. A Defenders of Wildlife ad illustrating this process is available at ClimateProgress.

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