PETITION CLOSED
PETITION TARGET: South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden
Metal jaws pierce a fox’s skin, tearing through muscle and breaking bone as the clamp snaps shut just above the foot — this is the reality of foothold traps used to capture foxes and other furbearing animals in the U.S.
Every year in South Dakota, 50,000 foxes, raccoons, skunks, badgers, and opossums are brutally trapped, killed, and dismembered in the name of “conservation.” A state-sanctioned bounty hunting program incentivizes individuals, including children, to participate in this massacre by offering them $10 per tail collected.
The Nest Predator Bounty Program claims to increase populations of pheasants and ducks by eliminating animals who eat their eggs. However, the state has produced no evidence that the program has been effective, and even hunting-focused conservation groups emphasize the importance of habitat preservation over predator control in maintaining healthy populations of pheasants and ducks.
Furbearers are legally killed in a variety of barbaric ways — from being drowned in underwater traps to having their chests or necks crushed in body grip traps (also called conibear traps). Foothold traps, which snap shut on animals’ limbs, are also used and cause extreme pain and panic, but no loss of consciousness.
In addition, South Dakota law does not require that traps be checked daily, meaning an animal can be left to languish in misery for hours or days before being shot, bludgeoned, or crushed to death.
No animal deserves to die in agony, and no child should be encouraged to kill and dismember animals for money.
Sign our petition encouraging South Dakota’s Governor to end the needlessly cruel and ineffective Nest Predator Bounty Program.
UPDATE (3/15/2026): The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Commission has voted to end the Nest Predator Bounty Program, but it has been replaced with two new initiatives: a youth-only trapping program that will pay children for animal tails and the Coyote Bounty Program, which is open to all residents.
Lady Freethinker thanks the 36,000+ individuals who signed our petition to help end this cruel program. — Lady Freethinker
