This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
An effort to control Western wolf populations is getting a little help from above, as it were.Sarah Palin fired of a whole round of tweets earlier today and among them was this one: "Support sportsmen & ranchers who need responsible predator control regulated by states, not federal bureaucrats." That's a reference to Sen. Orrin Hatch's bill to remove the gray wolf from the Endanged Species list. Palin linked to Hatch's press release.Palin's support is not only significant because she's .... well... she's Sarah Palin, but also because she has some history with this issue.If you don't recall, Palin caused a bit of a ruckus during the 2008 presidential campaign for supporting of shooting wolves and bears from helicopters in her home state of Alaska. Some thought that was downright unsportsmanlike, while she defended the ongoing practice as needed predator control.With a growing wolf population in states such as Idaho and Wyoming, a group of western Republicans in the Senate and a bipartisan group in the House is attempting to delist the wolf to allow for more predator control hunts.— Matt CanhamTwitter: @mattcanham