Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources has a chance to approve eliminating one of Kristi Noem’s sillier wastes of money today. The committee will hear Senate Bill 148, which would bar the Department of Game, Fish, and Parks from spending money on the nest predator bounty program.
Since 2019, Game Fish and Parks has been handing out small bounties (usually $10) to South Dakotans who trap and kill raccoon, striped skunk, badger, opossum, and red fox and bring their hacked-off tails to a GF&P office. The state limits the bounties to 50,000 tails taken between March 1 and July 1, with March set aside exclusively for trappers under age 18.
The pretexts for this spring slaughter have varied from Kristi Noem’s original suggestion that killing these nest predators would increase pheasant and waterfowl populations (which hypothesis has no scientific support, especially since GF&P suspended its pheasant counts in 2019 for marketing reasons) to evolving claims that we should support the declining fur industry (maybe Kristi could just trade her camos for a raccoon cap and skunk coat?) and encourage kids to spend time outdoors.
The Prairie Hills Audubon Society supports SB 148 to end this senseless extermination, which they figure includes the death of a million orphaned dependent animals in addition to the nearly 350,000 documented and bountied trap victims. PHAS offers this presentation from Brookings researcher Alexey Egorov, who notes that Minnesota and North Dakota terminated their predator bounty programs in the 1960s, and Nebraska and Iowa recently rejected programs similar to South Dakota’s. Egorov also notes that after five years of trapping and bounties, GF&P Secretary Kevin Robling told House Agriculture and Natural Resources that South Dakota has no data showing that the millions of dollars we have thrown at trapping critters has increased the pheasant population. But GF&P has some data indicating the nest predator populations are not going down: sage-grouse landowner/producers surveyed in late 2024/early 2025 reported mixed impressions of changes in the red fox population but a clear perception that other mammalian predators (the survey mentioned raccoon and striped skunk) are as abundant as or more abundant than they were five and ten years ago:
There’s no sign South Dakota gets any benefit from paying kids to subject wild animals to grisly deaths in traps. Now that Kristi Noem has graduated to trapping and killing innocent humans, let’s at least end her cruel program of killing skunk and opossum. Vote yes on SB 148 and save $500,000 a year.
Recall that during a field hearing in Rapid City back in 2016 South Dakota’s Republican junior US Senator Mike Rounds said, “I agree with the goals of the Endangered Species Act but I am concerned with the low success rate” so he wants to end the ESA. Fact is: according to the Center for Biological Diversity the ESA has been resoundingly successful until the Trump Organization, the Republican Party, Kristi Noem and South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder (GF&P) declared war on the Earth.
The collapse of select Black Hills ecosystems has been evident since at least 2002 but they’re still home to the threatened black footed ferret, northern long-eared bat, the black-backed woodpecker that feeds on bark beetles, and a bird that actually walks underwater – the American dipper.
GF&P may have been interested in science at some point in its past but like Douglas fir, lodgepole pine and as revenues collapse the eventual extirpation of mountain lions from the Black Hills looks like a given, too. Blend the slaughter of apex predators, the resulting rise of mesopredators, increasing numbers of domestic dogs and cats then stir in a melange of industrial chemicals with climate change and voila: red state collapse on parade!
I don’t know about other animals, but skunks are considered a primary
rabies carrier. The less skunks the better.
The Sierra Club has a losing battle in this state.
The introduction of the Chinese ring-necked pheasant to South Dakota is one of most destructive examples of ecoterrorism in US history and has heralded the near eradication of habitat for native wild turkeys and grouse. Now, the extermination of native species to prop up the pheasant industry is in full force after another Earth hating Republican governor and legislature extended bounties on raccoons and skunks known to feed on prolific invasive zebra mussels.
Come on, just turn west river into a buffalo pasture. Make good use of that prairie.
East river just have pheasant farms and turn them loose for hunting season. Oh, and war orange when walking. South Dakota can be useful.
Rewild the west river, and slash the number of counties to 33!
Have you seen the wild pheasant population? It’s the best hunting in 25 years.
Conservation officer told me the real threat to the pheasant population is a lack of mosquitoes. The poults or chicks (or whatever freshly hatched pheasants are called) depend upon mosquitoes, and numbers fall when there aren’t any .
My own observation about mosquito eradication efforts has been that once you spray for mosquitoes, the birds vacate the area and may not return for months, but the mosquitoes have a resurgence within two weeks and, without the birds to eat them, are more numerous than before. Barn swallows and purple martins are a much better solution for mosquitoes.
Doesn’t matter if we don’t have rigorous science showing a connection to the bounty program.
Also, did you see the evidence above showing the predator population has not decreased?