Reps. Young and Miller in Dog Fight Over Wolves
Conservative Rep. Don Young of Alaska and liberal California Rep. George Miller are going at it like wolves. Actually, like dogs and wolves. And the question, as Young sees it, comes down to: Who do you love more - dogs or wolves?
Young thinks Miller’s bill to protect wolves from aerial hunting is, well, a sheep in wolves’ clothing. What Miller calls the “Protect America’s Wildlife Act,” Young derides as the “Wolves Are Cute Act.” He says by protecting wolves, Miller’s bill would help predatory wolves continue killing pet dogs and other wildlife across his home state.
The Alaska congressman has been sending shockingly graphic e-mail letters to his colleagues with gory photos of dog carcasses, the victims of killer wolves, similar to the tactics of extreme anti-abortion literature. One of his “Dear Colleague” e-mails sent last month featured a photo too gruesome to share of a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Chesie who Young said was so viciously attacked by wolves that all that was left of her “was a couple chunks of collar sitting on top of three or four pieces of intestine.” (And that’s a dead-on description from the looks of the grotesque photo Young attached of the maimed dog, whose head and face was the only body part still intact.)
“These facts aren’t pretty, but they’re facts,” Young wrote, “and should Rep. Miller’s bill become law, more dogs will meet Chesie’s tragic fate.”
This week, another e-mailed letter from Young features Buddy, the beloved 10-year-old Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever of one of his constituents who was ripped to shreds by wolves. This time Young spared his colleagues a graphic photo, choosing instead to include this cute picture of Buddy in happier times.
And in his letter Young proposed a solution to resolve the dog vs. wolves conflict: Let’s send Miller to the wolves… [more]