Rapid City, SOUTH DAKOTA (Enviro Snowflake Brief)— Gov. Kristi Noem’s Nest Predator Bounty Program, including a giveaway of approximately 16,500 live traps, at a cost of nearly $100,000, is her last-ditch effort to get South Dakota kids off the couch and playing outside.
Eligible species for kids to kill with Gov. Noem’s child friendly program — raccoon, striped skunk, opossum, badger and red fox — to be trapped only by youth residents within the state’s borders. Each kiddie trapper must submit a “snuff film” of taking the animal’s life along with the electronic bounty form (only kiddie trappers under the age of 10 qualify).
“It’s getting South Dakota kids outside,” Gov. Noem told a Rapid City Journal reporter. “If our toddlers find they enjoy killing a coon or a skunk, I think that’s a good thing. But getting kids outside and inspiring an interest to ‘kill shit,’ pardon my language, where they hadn’t been interested before, I think that’s win for the outdoors.”
Gov. Noem said she learned to hunt predators from her grandma. Those days afield with grandma were special times that set me up for a lifetime connection with killing animals that you can’t eat. But many kids today are missing that,” she said.
“We’ve got fewer kids hunting than ever before,” she said, noting that trapping numbers, too, have fallen, something she hopes the predator plan will address with children.
The elephant in the room across newsrooms in the state is the fact the “live trap” giveaway is technically part of Noem’s Second Century initiative, which is aimed at improving pheasant habitat in the state- not saving kids.
Gov. Noem had previously said decreasing the number of predators would improve nesting success for pheasants and other game birds, but the pushback from environmentalists using scientific facts caused the Governor to pivot her strategy.
Multiple wildlife biologists and ecologists have stated pheasants in South Dakota have been in decline since the 1960s because of modern farming practices, the use of chemical fertilizers, mowing road ditches and draining wetlands more than predation.
“Everything points to the habitat for the decline of the pheasant over and over,” Game, Fish & Parks Department Secretary Kelly Hepler said. “It’s the habitat, or lack of it, but the Governor is all about helping kids here.”
Gov. Kristi Noem’s ends every discussion about the Nest Bounty Program with the soundbite, “I want to get kids off the X-Box and out of the house and this is our only hope.”
