Ashley Judd Fires Back At Sarah Palin, Hasselbeck On Larry King Live

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by Michael dEstries February 8, 2009
Categories: Animals
Tags: , .

judd_palin

No one in their right mind would ever let Sarah Palin have the last word — which is why Ashley Judd and Rodger Schlickeisen, president of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, appeared on Larry King Live Friday evening to clear the air over the Governor’s latest comments. Here are some highlights:

KING: You want all wolves, no killing ever of wolves, Ashley?

JUDD: Oh, of course not, Larry. First, how do you do? Thank you so much for having us on the show. What is really important is to maintain a healthy and natural ecological balance between predators and prey. And allowing wealthy humans, primarily urban hunters or those who are bounty hunters from out of state, to go to Alaska and for sport hire airplanes, hire private pilots to fly around and kill wolves in this incredibly savage manner, it’s not right. It is not ethical. It is not appropriate. It doesn’t make sense on any level.

KING: What about people that say to you, Ashley, you don’t live in Alaska? So there is 400 wolves, so what?

JUDD: Well, I think that in terms of — my response to that, Ghandi said it best: we know everything we need to know about a society by seeing how it treats its animals. And this is a conservation issue more than it is particularly an animal rights issue. And it matters to me because, as I said at the top, it is wrong on so many levels. I think what I find particularly galling in the governor’s statement is that somehow this is interfering with poor rural Alaskan’s ability to subsistence hunt. That is a distortion. In fact, there is a native tribe in the area who applied to be able to expand their subsistence hunting and she said no. This is for urban hunters. It’s for trophy hunters from out of state. And in terms of managing the population of caribou, hello, wolves do that best. That’s why the natives honor them as the animal that keeps genetic populations healthy.

KING: OK, Ashley, what do you make of that? (Referring to Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s recent comments on The View)

JUDD: What I make, Larry, is that we are in a transition period in our country, where we are figuring out that we can actually care about multiple things at once. And the archaic debate between the environment and the economy is just that, archaic and over. It’s done. It’s rigid, black and white, all or nothing thinking. We know now, by virtue of great thinkers like Van Jones, who wrote the “Green Collar Economy,” that we can solve our two biggest problems at once, the environment and the energy crisis.

We can fight poverty and pollution at the same time. These things go hand in glove. Caring about human rights, caring about conservation, of course they fit together naturally. Look at Rwanda, stress on the environment, competition for resources due to overpopulation, genocide. It all works together. So it doesn’t — it’s not an either/or conversation anymore.

Check out the full video below:

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

View all posts by Michael dEstries →
  • http://www.vegspinz.blogspot.com DJ Karma (of VegSpinz)

    Greed rears its ugly head again- at the cost of the wolves. It sounds like this is Palin’s attempt to better Alaska’s economy by attracting more bounty & trophy hunters, and has nothing to do with food or wildlife preservation. Sickening. Find a better way, Sarah!

  • jamie lynn

    oh no. not another topic for rabid palin supporters to glom onto and call us all baby-murdering liberals who care more about animals than humans, etc etc…

  • sara

    go ashley judd! sarah palin is the one “distoring the facts” here.
    palin gives sarahs a bad name. :P

  • http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin Raw Foods

    jamie lynn – too funny. don’t worry though we’re actually the conservationists. they use liberal like it’s a dirty word (it’s not) but in this case THEY are the liberal ones. liberally wanting to kill innocent animals.

    I agree I hope the scary palin people don’t come to our board JUST to post in her defense.

    And wow Ashley Judd – she puts Palin to shame in the looks department AND brains. She’s so eloquent and gorgeous. More than I can say for Pit bull Palin.

  • Sonia

    I wish you wouldn’t refer to Palin as a pit bull. As Sara said earlier, it gives pit bulls a bad name. Lucy(my pit) would appreciate it.

  • Sonia

    Oh yeah. Well said Ashley!

  • http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin Raw Foods

    Sonia,

    My sincerest apology to your Pit Bull. You are right. My parents have a pit too and she’s a sweetie. Apology out there to pit bulls everywhere.

    It was at the end of my post as you can see and I do sincerely apologize to any pit bulls I may have offended. She shouldn’t be compared to a dog, snake or rat or any animal. As all are far sweeter than this tyrant.

    sincerely,

    Erin

  • steph

    LMAO, Jamie Lynn…i was thinking that very thing when i was reading this :)

  • Get Technical

    Wow! Neither Palin nor Hasselbeck can trump Ashley. She backed up her statements, stated them beautifully and intelligently. Not to mention Judd is way better looking…

  • DEO

    Erin is RIGHT ON….go JUDD!

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  • DEO

    nobody gets this-
    non Alaska residents are not allowed to shoot the Wolves, BUT, they are allowed to come in and shoot the caribou!

    It’s big tourist/hunting business in Alaska. So SPalin, who gets boatloads of donations from these hunting conglomerates, gets some trumped up policy on the Wolves, kills them, which in turn makes the Caribou population soar, so then they’ll conveniently have to “thin the herd”. This is not about wildlife management, this is big business. Cute how Plain made it about DEFENDERS trying to sink people for money. DEFENDERS have been railing about this aerial killing since the yaer 2000, PRE Palin, but leave it to Palin to deflect from what she is specifically doing to someone else. $$$$ARAH PALIN.

  • http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin Raw Foods

    Thank you DEO! I heard the same thing from my friend who LIVES in Alaska. I understand it so much better now. My GOD I think she’d kill anything for money. She scares me….

    :( E

  • PISSED OFF IN PA

    Tell you what why don’t we round up all the wolves and drop them on Judds doorstep. Maybe then she’s and all of you would shut the hell up!!

  • PISSED OFF IN PA

    If any of you really cared about the wolves youd be offering a way to solve this problem, don’t you see your part of it? Lets round them up and put them on your doorstep. Bet in 2 weeks you all would be COMPLAINING…

  • http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin Raw Foods

    Um I think in two weeks they’d go back to their habitat and not sit on doorsteps. We have plenty of wildlife around here (Including black bears) You learn to live in PEACE with nature and not go shooting majestic wolves from planes. It has ALREADY CLEARLY BEEN ESTABLISHED that this is being done to keep the caribou population up so Polar bear poacher wolf killing Palin can make some money when they come up and pay her to shoot the caribou…. By golly she’s gonna be rich and famous.. .Gag

  • maelstrom

    Hey Pissed off in PA maybe we should drop the wolves on YOUR doorstep. Can you imagine the headlines??? ALASKA WOLVES EAT MORON….

  • KayJay

    Have any of you wolf supporters ever seen the devastation a pack of wolves can reep on the local wildlife, cattle and sheep – often times just for the thrill of the kill. They will kill a pregnant deer or elk tear the fetus from her womb in order to get at the inards…the rest is left to rot.

    Imagine taking a walk along a trail with your dog…you are enjoying just strolling along, feeling at peace with nature when BAM! out of nowhere a wolf comes out and kills your dog right in front of you….don’t think that would happen? Think again, happens all the time.

    Wolves are a very necessary part of our eco-system, however, they need to be kept in check. Their populations grow so rapidly that if not kept in check they become a real danger. You bleeding heart liberals are a a big part of the problem with the world today … it is like most have zero common sense. There needs to be balance.

  • Hil

    Aldo Leoppold, often considered the father of wildlife preservation in this country wrote a great essay on why killing wolves to increase game species is a really bad idea. Here’s a link if anyone would like to read it:http://www.eco-action.org/dt/thinking.html Not much has changed as far as the predator prey dynamic between wolves and deer (or caribou) since the 1930s. Yes wolves kill sheep and cows occasionally. yes it can be scary to come across a wild animal in its habitat especially when that animal attacks your pet, but shooting them from helicopters is not the solution. When we eliminate preditors we throw ecosystems out of wack, and there are too many natural resources in Alaska to allow it’s ecosystem to be damaged like that of Arizona. Did you know Arizona wasn’t always a desert? What lead to it becoming a desert….killing off all the wolves. (ok so damming the Colorado river played a part too….but that happened after the trees and grasslands were stripped bare from an exploding mule deer population).

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  • Proud Hunter

    Ashley Judd is such a ditz.

    “…And in terms of managing the population of caribou, hello, wolves do that best.”

    She has obviously never set foot in an area where wolves have completely wiped out a prey population. In areas where wolf hunting is allowed, that balance is more in-tact. In areas where it’s not allowed, the wolves completely take over and wipe out the prey species (whitetail, caribou, elk, etc.) Of course, how could you expect someone who lives in Hollywood to truly understand a rural issue?

    The species was nearly gotten rid of over 100 years ago for a damn good reason. Anyone who lives (not just visits) in an area with wolves understands that reason.

  • Marion Delgado

    I am from rural Alaska, screw these Nazi pricks. Don’t respond to them, even. The best part of their education they got from reading each other’s bumper stickers.

    And don’t try to use “science” against them. They’re a bunch of inbred morons who came up to Alaska either with the military, oil work, or to settle near a couple colonies of insane fundies. So if you can’t shoot it, make money off it, or pray to it, they simply don’t get it. Or care.

    They managed to overwhelm what used to be an entirely sane and well-managed state, actually, in a very short time, starting around 1970.

    It’s my fondest hope that Alaska becomes non-Republican again soon – Alaska is actually where the environmental movement really started, in 1950s protests against Project Chariot and the other nutbar projects for killing native people and the wildlife and ruining the environment.

    I would love to see them all pack up and go back to Ft. Benning, Dallas, OK City, and West Mudguppy Alabama. But you can’t change some things, the habitat is reduced, the climate is changing, beetles are killing the forests, and there are even more Eskimos and most Indians there, let alone the geometric growth in lower 48 Anglos.

    There is simply less hunting for everyone – you can no more change that than Jefferson could reverse US industrialism and make us all small farmers.

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