After working trapping for Delta waterfowl for eight and seeing numbers on nest success and predators taken off a given area, I am of the opinion that the program will not produce measure able results. You have to clean out a very high percentage of the predators in a good sized area for it to make a difference. Other wise all that happens is you change which one gets the nest.
How many people do you think got cage traps and never turned in a tail? That will tell you how much they were used and how successful the program was.

I would sell them the whole coon for ten bucks. Finished with a tail screen dried. LLL

The GFP claimed at the last commissioners meet that over 3,000 trappers trap in SD? That must include trappers on their own land to hit that number and other trap give away programs. We went almost 5,000 predators over the set quota before they ended it early last year.

I have taken care of skunk calls and the people were using the give away traps so they are being used, I don’t think many farms/ranches don’t have some sort of cages on them,

Pheasants Forever has been giving away free cages for years in many places so they become trappers also that may add to that 3,000 number?

LOL you are joking right? Let me see a show of hands on how many gets 5 bucks extra for their critters. I know hundreds of coon that sold at NAFA that brought a lot less than the 5 buck bounty. Think about al the small or damaged coon that are worthless and people either turn loose or dispose of if it's farmers animal control . That 5 buck guarantee sure would go long way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spot on Buck.
Colleges have been teaching the Bounties are bad message to wildlife students for 60 years. I have a National Wildlife publication, Bounties Are Bunk, copyright 1960. One of the main reasons bounties were bad is that it expended money that could otherwise be used for more effective wildlife management programs, i.e. funding State and Federal wildlife management agencies. Is it any wonder that since most studies on the effectiveness of predator control programs have been conducted by those same agencies competing for the funding, predator control is either found to be ineffective, or an inefficent use of wildlife management funding?

Reading that article gave me the impression they liked the bounty program and thought it was successful?

It might get some new trappers going and provide some paid recreation but the best way to help wildlife is put the money into quality habitat.

This is 100% correct. Ducks / ground nesting birds had a higher hatch rate in large blocks of grass compared to small blocks of grass. The larger it was the higher the rate, the small the lower. The hatch rate in the road ditch is as bad as it gets.

THIS IS IT!!

Habitat is #1 in improving any wildlife population.
Predators have significantly less effect when there is quality habitat.

As long as thats where the money goes.Here in Michigan we have a program called DRIP(deer range improvement)that started,I believe,in 1970.About 10 years ago a critic of the DNR dug into the allocation of funds and couldn't find the habitat improvement money.After several attempts and stonewalling,he was told"we have other priorities".All those years produced nothing but a bigger bureaucracy.What this has to do with the bounty system is dept's want to keep the money,they don't want to dole it out.They figure that money is theirs and not the publics,They condemn bounties because they think thats money that they could use for running their bureaucracy and now they have no control over it,even though its part of their budget.I think too many sportsmen put too much faith in what their told by their gov't agency,if they they're told their money's being used for habitat,or restocking,or whatever,they believe it.I thinks its great what South Dakota is doing.

We still have crops in the fields here so habitat will be a bonus along with the sloughs that will have new growth that can’t be cut for hay for a while from the flooding. In many places just getting tractors into the field to plant will be thought to do with the water table being so high. Lots of needed cover is on the way.

So your saying that we as trappers are not helping control the population of predators? Hmmmm, That really helps our cause with the Antis if trappers are claiming that.

55,000 ground nesters taken how many would of pupped that spring? What is the real amount of potential ground nesters really taken with them figures added together, figure the average coon say 2-4 pup. Possums 8-10, skunks 6-8, badgers 2-4, fox 4-5 maybe that would be huge amount removed in that one year. Now continue that for a couple years and the numbers would be huge over time plus the areas that had distemper or other outbreaks.

Seems like some positive impact would come out of it VS doing nothing but talking about it. If the GFP reduces the dollar amount from last year and people lose interest then the failed program will be another bounty that did not work rather the one that was ruined by the way it was managed.

starflakes, if that boggles your mind, look at this, although they'd do the same stunt in MN. Tens of thousand on an investigation and all they got was a three hundred dollar fine and nothing's changed.

https://www.sdnewswatch.org/stories...es-nightmare-for-retired-combat-veteran/

We had a guy just down the road He was from CO that bought a small lot of land he parked a camper on it put up a mail box then ran power to it, he always had a single light bulb going in the camper. This guy never lived there but claimed to be a resident for several years. Not sure if the ever caught up to him or not.

We have a mail box service in town that gives people a SD mailing address it allows them to register their vehicles in SD to save money in the past (not sure it’s as much of savings today) so how they allow that but not allow them a resident hunting license it might be the number of days living in State.

Not with the current price of fur. Been that way since 1987.

Bounties are just a wasteful and ineffective attempt to manage predatory species. Providing large tracts of quality habitat is what works. Bounties are little more than a waste of public funds and encourage illegal activities such as turning in road kills and animals from outside the target area in addition to paying for predators that would be removed during legal hunting and trapping seasons anyway.

Jarhead

How much new wildlife habitat are you going to get for 500k to t0 a million$$ thrown in (yes, DWC, I'm including the cost of the live traps last year). Take out the live trap costs and let's say SD GFP takes 600k and instead of spending it on nest predator bounty, goes to rent farmland in se SD for new habitat. Annual rent for good cropland is averaging $200 (adjust how you like, won't make much difference in the end) so 600k gets the state 3,000 more acres in a state of 77,000 sq miles. Now, let's buy some se SD cropland and put it into wildlife habitat at $6,000 an acre. We get 200 acres of new ownership land by the state (again, adjust the per acre value down if you wish a ways, doesn't change how little land can get bought). The point is you don't get much more wildlife habitat with the cash they have to spend on bounties. Its a political PR thing but it spreads a little cash out around the state, as long as most of it doesn't go to the Hutterites.

jbyrd63- I hate you break this to you but perhaps SD coon on average are worth a bit more than your Kentucky ones. $5 average isn't going to get many lines set up. I think most SD guys would be operating on Beav's numbers of about $12 average or at least north of $10. I didn't set a coon trap at all this year, although I keep getting farm site coon given to me. I have lots of home tanning projects coming this spring and summer...

Why pay bounty on road kills you couldn’t find a coon on the road last year with a tail on it. That was the problem last year even coon on the roads close to South Dakota had tails cut off.