For those interested in what is currently happening..
Bounty results

How do a few thousand raccoon killed make a difference when the population is in the hundreds of thousands?

Really how many would be females that would pup and then what would you have then and the next year?

Its like that old saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

Thanks for sharing! I wondered if they were going to do any metrics. I looked earlier last week but didn't see this or they posted it later.

So, all the talk about this bounty program going to be "swamped" with people running totally wild hasn't played out, at least not not yet. 7,500 tails is a long ways from 49,000 if 500k is the cap for the program. The kids running wild shining at night haven't turned in their bucket fulls yet or its more localized than what was thought. We'll see what happens in May. I suspect when it gets consistently hot, interest will fall off. Even had $10 a tail, dealing with a 48-hour coni check doesn't sound like fun in 80-90 F temps.

Grinners must have taken hard hits this winter or their pattern changes in the spring. Given how many there were a couple of years ago, I'm surprised their percentage of the toal is so low.

More badgers than reddies is also a bit surprising but then again, we have more diggers than red fox. I suspect that people can also sell other body parts (I certainly do) of a badger that wouldn't be affected by turning in a tail.

I had heard the Huron office was a hotspot and it shows, but the guy who collected the kid's tails said Sioux Falls wasn't that busy but it shows up as #1 here. Then again, 20% of the state's pop lives in that county or the next one south (which doesn't show up as a hotspot).

The lower Jim River county cluster is curious. Maybe some of the Hutterite colonies down there are whacking and stacking (Hutterite places might be showing up in some other places as well, such as Beadle). The Hutts are tight with their money and free stuff is always a draw, and there's a dozen or so families to take in 59 each as a max even though it may only be a 3-4 of the guys doing the trapping. Now if we could just get the Hutterites to leave more than a single row of river trees next to the Jim River on their land, that would be a win!!

Poor furbearer management... it is SD.

Hey Law Dog- I re-engaged the antis on Gov Noem's fb page last night after being off for about a week. One of the main petition ploppers, the guy who runs the animal rescue shelters in Fl, (I didn't engage him directly this time around) said this:

"...You're not equal to "any" living being or animal. You're not normal. You have no compassion respect or morals. You can judge the character of a man by how they treat animals. You are no man. You are a soulless empty shell. I pity you."

My reply:

",,,tell me how you really feel! I think your quiver is about spent there bud. You may pity me but I'll PRAY for your redemption. Have a nice day and try working on some better insults, maybe with a little irony or interesting sarcasm. These last ones were pretty lame..."

The "praying for him" (and I actually mean it because I think most of these antis equate people the same as animals which is not Biblical at all) will probably get him going even more...

He's a busy facebooker. I'll tell him I have to go to work but here's his reply:

"And once again you proved to all of us as you can see by how many posters are agreeing with me. You are a pitiful human being. That's why you keep responding, trying to clear your conscience. Don't bother praying for me, pray for your own soul. You need it. 🙏"

Yes those numbers are not a high percentage of the total I am sure but they are harvested right before the nesting season so there are thousands fewer egg eaters and nest destroyers running around parts of SD and I am just guessing that waterfowl and pheasants are a much,much bigger industry in SD then coons and skunks.
It is interesting however that when fur prices drop by say 50-70% few are harvested, yet you throw in a bounty that is far, far less then a decent fur price and out come the hunters. It is not so much about what the value is from my perspective as it is how easily can I make the smaller amount.

Bryce

It's a lot easier to lop off, carry out, store tails and transport them to a local office, than it is to carry out a whole critter, skin it out, put up it's fur, store the fur and transport it for sale.

Keith

i think its mostly road kills that re being taken with the exception of the few trappers....im not trapping... i may run the hounds a few nights in may, more for dog training tha anything... but will shoot the coon out fro 10 bucks a tail...

The vast majority of those taken were likely males since they are not held in one spot rearing young. That would be true of most of the predators on the hit list whether they were trapped or road kills. (I don't know if sex determination was required of the people turning in tails.)
If the predator population levels are near or at carrying capacity currently, and if this project reaches its goal, there will likely be even more predators one year and two years from now due to the fact that there will be less competition for food for the survivors who will then have increased litter size.
I have witnessed this phenomenon first hand managing a deer herd population on an Island closed to hunting. Significant culling of does resulted in an increase in population one year and two years later.
Prior to the culling, only 2 out of three does had only one fawn. After culling, Every doe had twins, and a few had triplets.
This was due to the fact that the survivors suddenly had more available food, resulting in increased litter size. The significant culling not only did not keep up with reproduction, but actually led to a significant increase in reproduction.

i actually think this program will have a short term positive impact ... i think were at lows of coon and skunk pop ...due to disease and habitat , drought last few years... if they pound down the numbers right now might make a difference.. sooner or later pop will explode again on coon because of the acres of corn planted....foods not a problem for these animals. imhop

It can take YEARS for predator control of any kind to have an impact. Keep going. It will have an effect. Fur prices are not helping, so a bounty may, or may not help.

In years to come I guess they will be injecting coons with distemper and releasing to control population's, cheaper and more effective.

I have yet to see where a bounty on predators has ever been successful, and I have looked far and wide

They will only pay out on trapped critters...……..

Stumper, how do they tell if it was trapped, hunted or picked up from the side of the road?

By forensics, probably can't tell. I guess they're hoping that the threat of a felony (lying to a state official or maybe it would be just plain perjury) hanging over the head of the person who signs the affidavit that the critters were taken according to the rules of the bounty program will be enough. Personally, I don't want a felony conviction, fines, and loss of hunting/trapping privileges for a year or more attached to a few hundred bucks worth of critter tails. But everybody gets to choose which path they will take.

What was the amount given per tail? Just curious.

I'm sure there is plenty of road kill. When there was a bounty on wolves here back in the old days the old timer told me guys used to bounty their sled dogs.