Sarah Palin Hunting: PETA Blasts Sarah Palin over Video

Sarah Palin hunting video footage that depicts the former Alaska governor hunting for caribou drew ire from PETA and “West Wing” director Aaron Sorkin.
Sarah Palin Hunting: PETA Blasts Sarah Palin over Video
12/8/2010
Updated:
12/9/2010
[xtypo_dropcap]V[/xtypo_dropcap]ideo footage that depicts Sarah Palin hunting for caribou has drawn ire from PETA and West Wing director Aaron Sorkin.

On TLC’s Sarah Palin’s Alaska, the footage shows Palin and her father shooting, skinning, and quartering a caribou, prompting PETA Vice President Dan Mathews to say on Tuesday that the scene was abhorrent.

“Sarah seems to think that resorting to violence and blood and guts may lure people into watching her boring show,” he said in a statement. “But the ratings remain as dead as the poor animals she shoots.”

Contrary to the second part of the statement, her show’s ratings have actually been on the rise as of late, Entertainment Weekly has noted.

Before the episode aired, Palin tweeted: “Unless you’ve never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather couch or eaten a piece of meat, save your condemnation of tonight’s episode,” and later added that she is against “anti-hunting hypocrisy.”

Palin has said that she hunts to eat the meat and save it in her freezer.

Filmmaker Aaron Sorkin was even more critical of the hunting footage, likening Palin to Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who spent nearly two years in prison for being involved in a dog fighting ring.

“You weren’t killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun,” he wrote on a Huffington Post blog, adding that she also did it for political gain.

“That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain,” he wrote.