Tell me if I’m missing something here in a key critter-catching part of Governor Kristi Noem’s plan to save the pheasant:
- Game Fish & Parks launched its new Nest Predator Bounty Program yesterday, offering $10 per tail of pheasant-egg-eating raccoon, striped skunk, badger, opossum, and red fox, limited to $590 per household (if the state paid for one more tail, they’d have to issue that household a 1099-MISC).
- The GF&P Commission meets Thursday and Friday in Rapid City to take the last public comment and finalize the rules for, among other things, the Nest Predator Bounty Program.
We’ve launched the Nest Predator Bounty Program, but the rules haven’t been approved or implemented yet.
If you’re in Rapid City Thursday or Friday, maybe drop by the glorious GF&P Outdoor Campus (meeting starts at 1 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time) and ask how the state can be promising money for the expenditure of which we have no rules written.
The Nest Predator Bounty Program is part of Governor Noem’s Second Century Initiative, seeking to restore pheasant habitat after years of over-exploitation of the good Earth with industrial farming techniques. It places no bounty on agrichemical peddlers, dicamba drifters, shelterbelt bulldozers, or corporate exploiters. Governor Noem’s Second Century Habitat Fund will receive one million dollars on June 28 from Senate Bill 176, which, like the Nest Predatory Bounty program, was enacted under questionable legal circumstances.
Meanwhile, the Noem admin denies agri-ecologists the right to grow the best pheasant habitat possible; hemp patches.
Stoned pheasants. My good friend Bob is quite the chef, and has made marinade sauce with some questionable additives before, but never did I think he might get the meat all THCed up before even killing it. Devious as hell.
Will road-kill count ???
https://www.etsy.com/listing/208246011/fox-tail-red-fox-tails-fox-costume-tail?ref=pla_similar_listing_top-4&pro=1
Buckobear, according to the posted rules roadkill tails don’t count, but it’s solely honor system to enforce that: you sign an affidavit, but there’s no way to distinguish a trapped tail from a non-trapped tail. That’s one of the many problems with this program even if you accept the basic premise that killing mammals to increase pheasant population is a worthwhile activity and paying people to do it a worthwhile expenditure of funds. Even if you don’t reject a nest predator bounty program in principle, the one they’ve cooked up is terrible.
Not surprising. A nest-predator bounty, proven by many studies to be ineffective on a regional landscape scale, gives the appearance of “trying to do something” about the problem of declining pheasant numbers. It fails to address the more obvious and effective solution of increasing habitat size and quality.
Of course, this is because advocating for more natural habitat would brand them as pro-conservation and thus anti-farming, and anti-GOP. Partnering with both farmers and conservationists/hunters to come up with mutually beneficial solutions is now totally off the table because of partisan idiocy. This is at the expense of a major industry for SD (out-of-state pheasant hunters).
SMH
Surely it will be worth $10 bill to stop alongside a roadkill oon, coyote or ? in neighboring states and clip off a tail, eh? They don’t brand them in those states either. Well thought out ways of spending taxpayer dollars.
There be dead coons all over iowa county roads. How does one tell a Northern Miss. coon tail from an iowa coon tail? South Dakota needs a border wall with iowa.
Humble apologies, Jake. Your post was not showing when I posted mine. Border walls can’t keep similar thoughts apart.
Free for the first taker, one rather large skunk tail still attached to skunk in Conibear trap next to my house. Fresh tail as of 6:13 this morning. Skunk number 2 gone bye-bye, this one trying to get under porch. Last one was attempting to escape.
Wait—really? Hemp provides better bird cover than other crops?
I wonder if these species can grow their tales back?
Roadkill! Dang! Those guys spending all day picking cans out of the ditch could easily double their money in a half an hour scooping up skunk. Hooray for job opportunities!
This effort truly shows that our fine Gov. Spends time with her head doing self inspection for Hemorrhoids .
Her using DJT logic ( personal unsupported faux scientific opinion) is beyond belief. This action is sufficient enough to cast suspicion on any and all actions pushed by our fine Governor.
There is No Biological evidence to support such action. Since S D State employees are subject to FIRING by our fine Governor may be asking the Game and Fish experts in any of our neighboring states if this action is merited. After all people will take critters from our neighboring states and turn them into South Dakota for bounty.
Sad Sad Sad if I weren’t so nice I’d say,
DUMB A**!