Actress Ashley Judd and Governor Sarah Palin are going at it tooth and nail over Alaska's wolf hunting laws.
Judd taped a web video for the Defenders of Wildlife foundation that blasts the state's predator control program, which Palin supports.
"It's time to stop Sarah Palin and stop this senseless savagery," Judd says, describing the shooting of wolves from airplanes. "Palin is ... casting aside science and championing the slaughter of wildlife."
The video then directs viewers to the website www.eyeonpalin.org and asks for donations.
Palin responded to the ad with a statement from her office.
“The ad campaign by this extreme fringe group, as Alaskans have witnessed over the last several years, distorts the facts about Alaska’s wildlife management programs," she said. "Alaskans depend on wildlife for food and cultural practices which can’t be sustained when predators are allowed to decimate moose and caribou populations. Our predator control programs are scientific and successful at protecting vulnerable wildlife."
Defenders of Wildlife countered, saying "hundreds of wildlife scientists have repeatedly condemned her program and she has not once provided any evidence to refute their charges that what she is doing is unscientific."
It is not the first time the group has raised money using Sarah Palin as their foil. Last fall, when Palin was John McCain's vice presidential running mate, the group raised $1 million with ads denouncing Palin and her state's predator control program.
"It is reprehensible and hypocritical that the Defenders of Wildlife would use Alaska and my administration as a fundraising tool to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money," Palin said.
In Alaska, private citizens are permitted to shoot wolves from the air or conduct land-and-shoot hunting of wolves in rural areas.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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