Palin's hunting trip necessary to "fill her freezer". Cost of the meat worked out to $141 per lb.

[JBoy]

http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2010/12/06/sarah-palin-alaska-hunting-trip-kills-hunts-eats-caribou-family/

Hunting for caribou means “food on the table and in the freezer for a lot of Alaskans,” the former Govenor extolled. She opened her freezer to let us see how the Palin meat pantry was getting bare.

“For many people in remote areas of Alaska, there’s no grocery store nearby, we just got to get out and hunt,” enthused Sarah. The only thing is that getting out and hunting for Sarah turned out to be an adventure requiring three separate airplanes to get her to her hunting spot with her father and family friend Steve Becker.

The grand Palin total to bag a caribou and get it back to the Palin homestead added up to $42,400, or $141.33 per lb. of caribou meat. Sarah shot and killed a female cow which may have weighed up to 300 lbs.

Just to put this is perspective, the Palins could have filled their freezer with ribeye steak at $10.99 a lb. from Alaska’s Mr. Prime Beef, which is based in Anchorage and ships anywhere in the state.

---more

LOL. Alaskan city slicker.

[Oceansaway]

1. K&R...n/t

[niyad]

2. how many millions has she gotten from the gullible reichwingers? and she wants us to believe that

her cupboard was bare?

sarah, your base may be stupid, but the rest of us are not.

ground turkey is $2.00 pound down here, and ramen is 6 for $1.

[Kali]

3. ...

stolen from DU's MiddleFingerMom

[Arctic Dave]

4. Hahahaha. Exactly. Everytime I hear someone say that I just roll my eyes.

That is the biggest bullshit reason their is for most people who hunt. What else is not mentioned is the cost of all the gear, which usually runs in the thousands also.

Hunting to "fill the freezer" pencils out if you are actually out in the village and are within a short distance of the herd.

The next lame ass excuse is that it is healthier then store bought meat, which is true, but you can buy free range hormone free meat for a hell of a lot cheaper.

Face it, most modern hunting is nothing more then a thrill kill activity.

[Kali]

6. gear is reusable and not everybody gets carried away with it anyway

and there are recreational/skill aspects of hunting that are harder to quantify. I don't hunt personally, but to dismiss it as just a "modern thrill" is unfair to a lot of hunters

[Arctic Dave]

8. That is why I said "most".

Gear is reusable until it wears out or gets ruined.

Face it, dollar for dollar hunting is recreational activity with a few benefits.

[AlecBGreen]

12. not for me

"Face it, dollar for dollar hunting is recreational activity with a few benefits"

My rifle cost $180. I have used $40 worth of rounds. I bought a $40 meat grinder and paid a few $ (~10) for baggies. Total cost = $270

I have taken 6 deer with it for a total of about 250 lbs of meat. Cost per pound = $1.08. My wife is a full time student and we live on my not-so-huge income. Hunting provides good food at a very good price.

[Arctic Dave]

13. And what does that cost you for time, fuel and other gear?

Like I said, unless you are close to the herd, then you are not coming out ahead.

[AlecBGreen]

14. I hunt on my property

even if I did drive, I also drive to the grocery store.

ETA: And what does that cost you for time (nothing, its the weekend), fuel (see above) and other gear (I already own the clothes. nothing new required)?

You get my point. Its a cheap source of good food and its especially good in these lean economic times.

[hfojvt]

23. plus you are likely to kill hundreds of deer

before you need a new rifle or meat grinder. Although for baggies, I save old bread wrappers. Not as cool as the ziploc bags, but a free sandwich bag anyway.

[AlecBGreen]

25. excellent tip!

:hi:

[Arctic Dave]

28. Like I said, close to the resource.

Walking around the fence line is a lot different then going out to the bush.

[smiley]

34. I must disagree

If my dad didn't hunt or fish when I was a kid, I'm fairly certain we wouldn't have had nearly the food on our table as we did. Yes, he did do it for recreation, but mainly it was to feed his family. (I'm not talking about caribou hunting - I grew up in rural PA)

:)

[DeschutesRiver]

15. That is the impression people get from watching Palin and seeing Cabela ads but

in my rural community, rural poverty is real. Nobody "outfits" up to hunt. They walk out to their garage, put on the same Dickies jackets and sale boots they use for outside chores that they got at the local Big R, and their old gun. They get a tag when things are flush, and some skip the tag if they have been un or underemployed for a long spell.

They shot a deer, pack it back, hang it, then cut/wrap it themselves and put it in the freezer. So the only annual cost is the tag. It doesn't cost anything near what it would for them to buy meat at the local store. It has been this way out here for decades. None of my neighbors need thousands of dollars of "gear" to put meat in the freezer, nor do they need to drive/fly any real distance at all to fill a freezer - in fact, the grocery store is much further away than the game they get. When times get even tighter, they get road kill when available (there is a word of mouth that spreads about such things).

Palin was just a thrill killing vanity hunter - she is indeed a person who has never hunted before in her life but wanted to put on a show. There is definitely a group of people who only hunt for the "thrill of the kill"; there are also people who do it in order to put away cheap meat for themselves. Two different groups with entirely different reasons, at least in my area of my state.

[uppityperson]

19. Exactly. Romantic hunting vs Pragmatic hunting.

1st one is for "style", 2nd is for function of getting food as cheaply as you can.

[Kali]

22. good post

we get both kinds out here

I obviously prefer the guys that drive out after work, get OUT OF THEIR TRUCK and climb the hills or walk the draws, get their deer and go home.

The clowns with all their toys, generators running 24 hours a day, tearing up the roads, target shooting out of their campsites, driving to town 3 times a day for more beer and ice - they irritate the hell out of me.

guess which ones bring us a 12er or a bottle or even better, some tamales?

[DeschutesRiver]

26. Same here

I can split the thrill killers into 3 groups - there are city peeps who dress the part; they come in 65k+ brand new rigs, with thousands of dollars of gear, and hunt everything that moves (deer, elk, antelope, birds, etc) just for the thrill of seeing it quit moving. People usually go along with this group arriving, because they employ quite a few working people as guides during the various seasons, and the better the hunt, the bigger the tips as well.

Then there are the suburbs guys who come out like you mentioned, with the generators running, their quads running nonstop, and we've even had the ones who put a sofa in the back of the truck along with a keg of beer, and usually end up shooting some rancher's cows (always so out in the open that you know they were drunk as skunks not to know a cow from an elk or deer - not that it made a difference what died, they just wanted to see something die and have a story to tell when they got home).

And then we get the rare local who gets caught having poached multiple deer, leaving the meat to rot - those guys are always turned in by fellow locals, and get tried/convicted for it. But that is rare.

OTOH, you can't easily identify a local who is going hunting just to cut expenses, because once the snow flies, they are dressed just like they were going to work. You might notice an old gun in a rack in their pickup on the way out, or the deer in the back on the way home. But a casual observer from outside our area wouldn't be able to pick out the many local folk going hunting from rest who are doing just about anything else. And out here, where our regional nickname is "poverty with a view", these people feel they are the lucky ones who can still afford to have/run a freezer to stockpile some cheap meat for their families. Everyone has a way they adjust to the realities of being poor, depending on where they live and what is available.

That some people in society always have enough money to play dress up and buy themselves a fantasy hunting "experience" like it was a trip to a theme park shouldn't overshadow the underlying fact that there have always been and will always be many others that do it to make ends meet. Poverty and the hunger that accompanies it doesn't care about whether people live a country or a city life, or what their political beliefs are - it merely exists and people find a way to cope, whether others who are not experiencing it can imagine their particular way of coping or not.

[Arctic Dave]

29. Exactly.

For palin to say she had to do it to put food in the freezer is complete bullshit. That would be the same as a person from the city, which she is, driving out to your place to hunt.

[DeschutesRiver]

31. I guess it depends upon what the word "most" applies to

If we are talking about the sub-category of hunters who are thrill killers, it is probably safe to assume that most, if not all, of them are not hunting with the primary purpose of putting meat in the freezer as a way to cut costs. Palin obviously falls into this category, not only because of the way she approached this particular hunt in terms of monetary cost, but mainly because it was clear that she didn't even know how to hold her gun and needed her daddy to reload it for her in between her multiple missed shots. What she said was her purpose in hunting, ie "to fill her freezer" was at odds with her complete unfamiliarity with any aspect of hunting other than her joy at having supposedly killed something. Once I saw the video of her "hunt", I can say with certainty that she has never hunted in her life. Being around hunters, or just living in a hunter's paradise as she calls Alaska, is not the same as being an actual hunter.

If we are talking about hunters in general, considering all categories, then at least here in Oregon, "most" of them are in fact interested in filling their freezers - whether due to their extreme need to find a cheaper way to get some meat on the table, or the fact that they actually like eating game that they have procured for themselves, without relying on some stranger to do the killing and provide the santized packaging at the store that removes people from the actual reality of what "meat" is and how it ends up there. I have packages of not only antelope and elk in my freezer given to me by hunters I know, but also of halibut and other fish; at other times, they've shared quail, chukar and other game birds.

The other aspect of hunting seasons are the secondary benefits they bring to local economies - out here, our major grocery stores and every small town gas pump with a convenience market attached make most of their yearly income from the hunters that pass through here during each brief season. They buy food, gas, snacks, wood, lodging, and you name it, in quantities that give people enough work to do to get them by - if not for that, many would have to board up their shops, something I didn't realize until I moved here a decade ago. And I don't think we are even as big a name in hunting as a place like Alaska is.

[Crystal Clarity]

24. Umm no... you CAN'T "buy free range hormone free meat for a hell of alot cheaper"

The 130lb buck my SO got on opening day came to a grand whopping total of $24 (for this year's hunting license). Therefore, by my calculation, he's filled our freezer w/venison for *18.5 cents per/lb. There were no further expenses.

The gear he used is the same stuff he's been using for a couple of decades and was not overly expensive to begin with. He didn't even have to pay a butcher since a friend of ours did it in exchange for a couple of packages of deer steak.

I don't know where you get your food, but I highly doubt you can "buy free range hormone free meat" for 18.5 cents per/lb. And this stuff btw is fresh.

We have a tight budget and the meat truly helps supplement our food costs. I don't hunt myself but I'm glad my SO does.

*Note- My calculation was based on the weight of the whole deer as they seem to have done in the OP article, not what we actually ended up w/after it was butchered. We of course ended up w/less then 130lbs of meat but it still is a bargain any way you look at it.

[Arctic Dave]

30. You are the reason why I said "most".

You didn't fly your plane to the bush for a trophy (thrill kill) hunt. Now calculate someone flying out to your place from the next state over.

Give the numbers for that and the cost of FRHF meat.

[Crystal Clarity]

35. I don't disagree w/you on that point

Anyone who hunts that way is indeed a "thrill-kill" type of person and I'd add to that description by calling them fools too. The cost of that type of hunting (if one could even call it that) must be outrageous.

However, though I've heard of people doing that, I don't personally know anyone who does, so there's no way I'd be able to calculate the costs. Which brings me to where I DO disagree w/you...

You say that "most" people hunt that way. Perhaps where you live that is the case. But around here however, everyone I know has at least one hunter in the family. Yet all of them hunt the way my SO does. I personally know of no one who spends a pile of money to do it. No fancy gear, no airplanes, no extra gadgets or expensive firearms.

There are 'out-of-staters' who come to Maine doing just that during hunting season but they are a very small minority and the butt of many jokes among the local population. No one around here would even consider calling what they do 'hunting'. And as I said, they are in the minority... not by just a little but ALOT. I'd be willing to bet that for every one of the dummies who spend tons of many to trophy hunt, there are 500+ who don't.

That hardly equates to your description of "most"... but as I mentioned earlier, maybe it's different where you live? :shrug:

[jmowreader]

37. SHE could have bought free range hormone meat a lot cheaper

Most people don't hunt the Sarah Palin TV way.

[Starckers]

36. What Season is It?

Duck season, Wabbit Season????

[gratuitous]

5. And what's really nauseating?

The people of Arctic Village, Alaska, on the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, really do hunt caribou to put food on their table for themselves and their families. They've done that for time out of mind. And guess where Caribou Barbie thinks we ought to drill baby, drill (and most likely spill baby, spill)? What will the historically negligent oil companies and their messy extractive processes do to the caribou herds? Nobody knows for sure, but I'd be willing to bet it would have a net negative impact. And that means the end of the people of Arctic Village.

You betcha.

[bushisanidiot]

7. "We just got to"? What a MORON. And she was almost VP of the United States.

scary shit!!!!!

[niceypoo]

9. That kid that fathered her daughters kid said they eat most meals at Taco Time

...or Burger King. He said the Palins are phony. I believe him.

[InvisibleTouch]

10. I'm feeding a pack of dogs...

...and my absolute cutoff criterion for meat price is $1/pound. Some of this isn't human-grade meat, to be sure, but those who are feeding themselves can also find ways to do it economically. If you're feeding yourself or someone else, I have no issue with hunting. Big difference between that and someone that just wants to kill animals or wants "trophies."

[progressoid]

11. I betcha most of that meat gets thrown out.

There's no way she cooks that for her family. Not with all her time spent on TV spots and quitting.

[KamaAina]

16. Caribou = reindeer

Next time your kid asks you why you hate Sarah Palin so much, answer, "because she killed Rudolph's mommy."

Who the fsck hunts caribou, anyway? An old friend who had spent some time in Alaska told me the red meat of choice up there was moose!

[KamaAina]

17. Wasilla is so remote that it only has six grocery stores

per Yahoo! Maps, or five if you don't count Ceds Asian Market, which she probably doesn't. :eyes:

[Contrary1]

18. For someone with so much self-proclaimed experience in hunting...

From her latest work of fiction:

"My Dad and I visit with our buddies, the Wallis family, at their locally owned sporting goods store, Chimo Guns. The guys at this Wasilla establishment gave me good advice on firepower before my fall caribou hunt in September 2010. And it worked! I filled half the freezer with wild game a few weeks after this visit."

http://www.theawl.com/2010/12/sarah-palin-book-tv-show-not-sighted-in-correctly

So when exactly was the TLC recorded...before or after she wrote this?

And then there's this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389&topic_id=9729784&mesg_id=9729784

[HopeHoops]

20. The moron can't even cook. It is already in the trash can so the frozen dinners will have room.

[DCKit]

21. $141/lb? Who knew Whole Foods (aka "Whole Paycheck") was a discount grocer? n/t

[Initech]

27. $141/lb??? Man I hate to eat places that are $75 a plate!

[WCGreen]

32. Over spending and claiming that she fiscally responsible makes her

the perfect republican...

[Blue_In_AK]

33. Hunting caribou does mean meat in the freezer for a lot of Alaskans,

but Sarah's not one of them. For many rural and Native Alaskans living far off the road system and hundreds of miles from a grocery store, the caribou, moose and fish are their only protein. on the other hand, Sarah and fam live not five minutes from a Carr's Safeway supermarket store, and they have absolutely no need (especially with their wealth) to kill these animals. Sarah just likes killing animals; it's part of her DNA.