Noem, meanwhile, already had a history of bloodlust unparalleled among current U.S. governors.
Among her first actions as the then newly elected governor of South Dakota, her campaign propelled by the endorsement of Donald Trump, was to introduce a “nest predator bounty program” in 2019 with the stated goals of “diminishing the population of animals who eat pheasant and duck eggs, get youth and families outside together, and helping to ensure trapping remains a part of South Dakota’s outdoor heritage.”
Funded with half a million dollars per year, the bounty program targets raccoons, coyotes, striped skunks, badgers, opossums, and red fox, from April 1 through July 1, with a goal of killing 50,000 “nest predators” per year.
To collect the bounty, participants must turn in the tails of the dead animals.
240,000 “nest predators” killed
Through 2023, 240,000 “nest predators” have been killed for the bounties.
The number of pheasants shot increased from 2019 to 2022 by 371,000.
Nonetheless, the 2022 toll of 1.2 million was still 900,000 below the number of pheasants shot in 2007, when no bounties were in effect, but weather conditions and farm cropping choices were more conducive to pheasant abundance.
(For a detailed analysis of the failure of the bounty program, which is to continue at least through 2026, see South Dakota predator bounty program to continue despite opposition, by Bart Pfankuch and Abbey Stegenga of South Dakota News Watch.)
Exposing the Big Game 
Kristi Noem, the puppy killer, is a plague on this earth; the sooner she departs this world, the better.