A couple weeks ago, Governor Kristi Noem made a big whoop-de-whoo about National Travel and Tourism Week. Last week she evidently celebrated international tourism by going up to Canada with her niece Chloe Grantham to shoot at bears:
Safari River Outfitters of Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan offers one-week black bear hunts for $3,500 per person, which includes meals, lodging, and the prepping and packing of your bear meat, hide, and skull.
Politico reported in January 2022 that a political donor paid $60,000 to join Noem on this bear hunt:
One Saturday last fall, around the opening of South Dakota’s pheasant hunting season, a crowd of businesspeople and political benefactors who’d come to meet and hunt with the state’s governor, Kristi Noem, trickled back to the Sheraton for dinner and an auction.
The whole weekend had been billed as a business recruiting event for South Dakota, and auction proceeds went to conservation efforts in the state. But the vibe was almost indistinguishable from a typical political fundraiser: an evening, closed to the press, where donors mingled with political staffers, where a governor thanked supporters, and where Tim Laudner, the retired Minnesota Twins catcher and hunting enthusiast, got held up for handshakes at the door — the mix of celebrity and personal access that defines a modern political career.
One donor paid $60,000 for a black bear hunt with Noem in Saskatchewan. (The auction program promised this would include not only “one of the best all-inclusive bear hunts Canada has to offer,” but also “spending time” with Noem.)
…The black bear hunt with Noem in Saskatchewan is scheduled for May 2023, at the start of the presidential election cycle [David Siders, “Kristi Noem’s on a Political Rocket Ship. But Don’t Rule Out a Crash,” Politico, 2022.01.14].
The Governor did get back from shooting bear and schmoozing donor in Canada in time to celebrate White Lake’s ten new high school graduates yesterday afternoon.
The local video of the speech, complete with the superintendent’s tedious recitation of the introduction Team Noem wrote for him, doesn’t show the Governor wearing her new bear skin or mentioning which donor she spent a week in the woods with, but maybe afterward the Governor gave the graduates some fresh bear jerky. Nom nom nom.
Tim Laudner is a product of Mason City, iowa. Noem is buffing up her international chops for when she runs for potus. Like dumbass dubya when he claimed international experience border hopping brothels in Mexico as a teen, or something similar.
Nicely symbolic of the bear market we’ll see if the stubborn and hypocritical fools in her party instigate a debt default.
Ok. What does shooting bears have to do with governing? Is she’s trying to project some apex predator image for some reason?
Egads. What a despicable scheme to raise campaign dollars.
Good for her. Spring bear is better eating than Autumn bear. Way less greasy.
If you read this Outfitters’ own website, they bait the area before the hunt. I guess if you are going to pay $3,500 plus tax and license fees to shoot a bear, you’d better get one. And, of course, she was able to fundraise off this “show.”
Often bear bait is something sweet that’s about to spoil. A friend knew a friend who was a baker at a grocery store. The baker saved all the doughnuts and sweet rolls, spread them under a tree stand and the bear couldn’t resist. Not much sport but good for photography.
These are “canned hunts”. The bear is baited with garbage and when It comes in to eat, they shoot it.
Unsure as to why they call it a hunt other than to feel good about themselves and most people don’t know the difference.
Jesus wept. Kowgirl Kristi is such a waste of space and resources. I’d comment on her hair and cosmetics in a “hunting pose” but I’d be labelled superficial and judgy; every female hunter I know looks just like they stepped out of Kim K’s mansion.
I’m sure she had every edible morsel of that poor bear frozen and sent to food pantries to be eaten by South Duhkoduh’s low income families. No trophy huntin’ here, no sir; this slaughter was purely an act of altruism. Since I could not force myself to read the outfitter’s website, I’ve no idea if the dead bear was a boar or sow, but if there are starving cubs out there Kristi deserves to be gutshot.
I’ll be roasted for typing this, but South Dakota and the entire world would be a better place if that was her worthless carcass and blood in image four. The least bear on this planet is worth more than a thousand Snow Queens.
One reason given for baiting is it keeps the bears in a short area so the sows with cubs can be readily identified and not shot. Baiting is good for photography buffs. Bet it is even funner when bears curiosity gets the best of them and they climb into tree stands or ground blinds with hunters. Mot to worry for Noem’;s pastey white hide. Magats are bitter and sharks, bears and other apex predators won’t bite them.
Here is a challenge to the cowgirl, part time guv… Do like Marlin Perkins and Stran Brock from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdumb and lasso a grizzly bear stock killer. No joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzFPy0_FjAk
I remember seei9ng this when I was in Junior High around 1966 or thereabouts. Powder River and let her buck!
Anyone know where those state planes are at :-)
Wtf. She is a vile little person and she deserves herpes between her teeth and other places. Never thought I could dislike a person more.
Grinning from ear to ear over the carcass of a dead bear that was lured to the site with garbage and I’ll bet she didn’t even really shoot it, just stood there and told the guide, “Get me the biggest one you can find.” All so she can prove that she loves guns, camo, and killing animals, which means, of course, that she’s the obvious candidate for Vice President for [fill in the blank here]. Yeah, right… By all accounts, Melania can’t stand her (she got fed up with Noem’s constant presence at the White House), and my bet is that Casey DeSantis (who is Lady Macbeth by all accounts) has already warned her husband “Nope. Not her.”
did miss addie get one too?
Shooting a large bear over a pile of Bismarcks, eclairs, Snickers, and Milky Ways from a blind is a challenging adventure for some , I suppose. You need not go to Canada for this. There are several fellas in northern Minnesota who take folks out to the woods to kill a baited bear. It’s better than Wisconsin which has the God Awful ethic of hunting bears with dogs. Dogs wearing radio collars roam the woods, tree the bear, and the hunter follows their radio signal and baying, to shoot the bear out of the tree. Take your pick…I think hunting over a sweet garbage pile is more sporting.
I’m pleased Ex-Twin Tim Laudner was appreciated during his appearance at the Noem fund raiser. He’s a grad of Park Center High School, Brooklyn Center, a local boy made good. He was the Twins regular catcher, by default, in their World Championship Season of 1987. He was fifth on the team in Home Runs and RBI’s while hitting a workmanlike .193. Never known for his defense, he was a gritty guy who hit most of his home runs in the friendly confines of the Homer Dome. I doubt he’s much of a political loyalist, but he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to promote a Canadian Outfitter and press the flesh with a few fans with long memories. He may have picked up a small appearance fee. He made 2.1 hard earned dollars in his eight year career.
“The Ranger isn’t going to like it, Yogi.” The late Boo Boo Bear
2.1 million hard earned dollars in his eight year career, I should have said.
Yes, chris, li’l Adder DID get her bear. She promptly made like the Croods baby and ate it all on the spot: pelt, flesh; organs, bones, and teeth’n’claws.
She’s just as adorable as her granny.
Wisconsin and michigan hounds are on the menu for Wisconsin/Michigan wolves when they cross into pack territory. Magats in Wisconsin were compensating hound owners an ungodly amount for each dog killed by wolves.
So much for the Right to arm Bears.
Kristi Noem is a classic slob hunter. This game farm in its own lit guarantees kills 100 percent of the time. Read their website. This is no exaggeration.
Slob hunters aren’t interested in the animals they kill. They only want the rush of taking a photo of the kill to brag to others.
They don’t like to work in a hunt. They only want the kill and the photo.
They don’t want to be bothered with details. Kristi slapped down her $3,500 for her dead bear and another $3,500 for the whelp to have her picture taken with a dead bear. Slobs. She got her chunk of dead bear and another for the whelp.
Was this a hunting experience? No. It was a monetary transaction, two photo ops, a fundraising opportunity and a lot of meat. The baited bears were assassinated.
I’m thinking her dad wanted a boy. Not Kristi. She’s a slob.
Noem and Laudner, maga freaks.
This makes me physically sick and repulsed! Going on a hunting expedition where they BAIT the bears is nothing more than cruel and self-serving! To what end? To kill a beautiful and majestic animal that has had years of life stripped from him. This disgusts me, Kristi Noem! Do better!
I would think people have better things to do than waste time typing all the garbage I read above. And for the lady(used that word very loosely) with remarks about Jesus in his time hunting for your meal was normal. As it was all over the world until all you candy asses arrived in the past twenty years maybe. If you had to provide for yourselves rather than stop at the local gas station for a pizza you’d all starve to death and we wouldn’t have to listen yo your dribble.
Hey, she killed a Black bear, not a Polar bear. She is a Maga after all.
Black bears are very passive beasts, really no threat to man and to few other animals..they are largely vegetarian, though they eat fish, young fawns, bird eggs, and whatever is laying about. If you see one in the woods, look quickly, if it sees you it’s most likely to turn tail and run. Do not get between mother bear and her cubs. Do not store food in your tent. People who are harmed generally do one of those things.
Kristi Noem is a sick person. Maybe it’s phallus worship with the long gun.
I’d be more impressed if she bagged a grizzly (Kodiak) in Alaska.
She wins the Biggest Poser title.
Try hunting bear with a knife. No more of this “guarantee kill 100% of the time.” Although knife vs. bear could come close to that figure.
Kills the sales tax on food, kills vegetarian bears.
Who elected her? A majority who favors her killing.
You are a majority of one. Choose yourself as Governor. Yes you are a Governor right now, if you say you are!
This does not mean get a petition with 3000 plus signatures. No just be the Governor that you are now!
As long as a majority of electors or voters elect Ethics Killer Daugaaaaard and Bear Killing Noem, they will get bottom of the barrel leaders.
The answer? You be Governor right now! Lead, innovate, and live with wisdom!
Motor City Motor Mouth, Nugent, says he is MLK with a Glock. Winder why Noem didn’t take can’t keep it in his pants to Canada?
If you prop up the dead bear ten feet in front of you with its head close to the camera – he looks big and threatening. And you are a giant-killer.
Gary, I’m sure your ancestors grew up on bear meat. You cupboard is still bare.
Gary–people hunt black bears all over the northern states of the USA…in nearly all states various and sundry rules put the bears in vulnerable positions (over garbage piles of “bait”, with radio collared dogs treeing the bears)…rarely is a black bear shot during an actual “hunt” with the gunner stalking the bear in the wild. The reason is simple, black bears in the wild are wary, while they leave plenty of sign and track, they are animals of the deep woods and can easily elude a human being. There is little sport and less skill involved in the shooting of black bears as we know it.
It’s like pheasant, buffalo, and prairie dog hunting here. Outfits set everything up so the prey are easy to kill in a cowardly way. It’s all about the photo ops and we all know that Noem can’t resist attention.
Hunting should be outlawed and hunters should be terminated with extreme prejudice and that includes dumc-nt political hacks.
Black bears are hunted in numerous southern states, as well as northern. They also allow deer hunters to use hounds to pursue Bambi.
Yeah, Arlo is correct. Most bear hunting these days is not really hunting. If you have a big enough ego and the money to match and lack stamina, well, bear hunting has been made into little more than shooting a lamb.
The two best things about this thread are the mostly condemnatory responses to Kowgirl Kristi’s cruelty and bloodthirstiness, and our hero Mike Lee Zitterich hasn’t stunned us into insensibility with his stupid, childish manifestos.
Isn’t baiting big game a crime in South Dakota?
SDCL 41-8-16. Use of salt to attract big game prohibited.
I suppose Noem might rationalize that baiting is okay so long as she doesn’t use a salt lick? If so, it makes one wonder what is so terrible about using salt rather than another substance to bait big game?
Or maybe Noem looks at this more like she looks at traffic laws:
Gary- the LADY you needed to pick on (since that’s what weak men do because they’re too spineless to pick on anyone their own size) could hunt you down, dispatch you before you could beg or plead, and feed you to her birds- if she wanted to. She is a warrior, and you are a soft, limp sock.
People here have a problem with KN wasting a bear for a photo op while she is supposed to be governing. We do not have a problem with hunting to eat. There’s an important and obvious distinction.
… NOEM does her hunting like she runs her campaigns: “Baiting”….
“Please Mr Custer, i don’t wanna die!”
“What god has in store for their lives”? Geez, the preach!! ( Maybe a new State-owned jet for personal use, perhaps, eh?)
Amen.
Kristi likened to the leader who sought glory and violence, finding gold and grizz in the Paha Sapa, prancing around in designer blouses, a lord accompanied by leaping hounds and loyal staff catering to every whim, just to get back from Indian Country in time to patronize White Lake w/staged photo ops. Just about as sincere as her mentor Trump. https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/general-george-custer-and-colonel-ludlow-sit-next-to-their-first-picture-id615307082
If history is any guide, locals will just kill the offending bear like they do with moose, elk, cougars and their kittens.
$20 bucks says the black bears, wolves, and moose sighted in the Black Hills are migrating from the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming down the Tongue River across the Powder to the Pumpkin Buttes where the Cheyenne and Belle Fourche Rivers begin, go up Beaver Creek near Newcastle into upper Castle Creek and down Rapid Creek to the Black Fox/Rochford area or north across Minnesota Ridge on the upper Limestone into Lawrence County.
So, if there are moose, wolves and bears in the Black Hills why doesn’t it automatically make them candidates for endangered species protection?
Because Republicans are evil.
https://www.bhpioneer.com/local_news/bears-once-again-spotted-in-northern-hills/article_725d4f98-f9a5-11ed-81cb-fb2ba96da6b9.html