Alaska hunting is for the rich -- road-kill is for the poor.

"Hunters kill bear as shocked wildlife viewers watch," ADN Oct. 8, reveals the corrupt state of hunting in Alaska.

Rod Arno, executive director of the Alaska Outdoor Council, says he doesn't hunt along roads but "there are other hunters who gravitate to roads because they can't afford to travel to remote areas."

So, after fighting "needs-based" hunting (the basis of subsistence) as welfare, Arno excuses road-kill on the presumption that these road-killing clods on the Peninsula couldn't afford a four-wheeler or a fly-in trip?

It proves what critics have been saying all along: Wealthy Outside sports get the good hunting -- the poor get road-kill.

The abomination of road hunting is the state's token wildlife subsidy to get the ignorant vote of road-hunters to support a hunting system blatantly managed for rich sports. Alaska's wildlife resource is disappearing because it is being managed for the pleasure and profit of a few -- and not for the benefit of the public.

by Rudy Wittshirk, Willow
Letters / Anchorage Daily News / October 10, 2009