Mount Blogmore Hunt: 12 Guns, 36 Pheasants, 60 Degrees in Hyde County

I ventured west to Holabird and the Nemec farm yesterday for the annual Mount Blogmore South Dakota Blogosphere Hunt. Most in attendance pursued the wily pheasant with shotguns; a few of us limited our shooting to camera. (Jeremiah Murphy, Kevin Woster, and Todd Epp used both!) Below is my humble photostream of a day well-spent walking fields in greater Holabird.



Perhaps the best moment of the day for the hunters: walking Nick's sunflowers and flushing so many pheasants I probably could have thrown my camera and knocked one down.

The best moment of the day for the birds: when Kevin jumped up on his truck at the east edge of the sunflower field and shouted "Done!" as our twelfth shooter took down our 36th bird. "Done! Limit!" rang the cry across the windless field. And as our voices faded, the pheasants raised their own cry, hundreds of them to the south, cackling, laughing at us and at their escape. It happened exactly that way, honest.

Nick and Mary Jo Nemec are gracious and generous hosts—thank you, Nemecs! And thank you to Kevin Woster of Mount Blogmore for organizing the day.

Tar Sands Oil Kills Ducks; TransCanada Spoils Roads

If you still aren't mad at TransCanada for slurping up $10.5 million in tax refunds that South Dakota could have used to fund education and roads (see Rep. Mitch Fargen's duly indignant comments at the Madison Chamber forum last week), how about getting mad at them for poaching ducks?

Well, I suppose it's not poaching, and it's not TransCanada directly, but they are part of tar sands industry that is killing ducks without a hunting license, ducks that you and your law-abiding, South Dakota license-holding pals could joyfully and legally blast from the sky. Reports Plains Justice:

Just a week after paying a CAN$3 million fine for the deaths of 1600 ducks that landed on its tailing ponds in 2008, Canada tar sands extractor Syncrude had to euthanize 230 ducks that landed on its tar sands tailing ponds this week (there was good coverage of the story out of Calgary). To look at their website, you’d think Syncrude was an environmental organization, but they’ve been unable to resolve the lethal combination of highly toxic tailings ponds and a huge migratory waterfowl corridor. In spite of reassurances from industry and the Canadian government that the 2008 event was a mistake that would never happen again, here we are [Carrie La Seur, "230 More Ducks Dead in Tar Sands Tailing Ponds," Plains Justice Today, 2010.10.28].

TransCanada is more directly responsible for some road wreckage here on the Great Plains. Just as has been the case in South Dakota, Kansas officials and residents are struggling with road damage caused by construction last year of TransCanada's Keystone pipeline.

So thanks to our addiction to foreign oil, you'll have fewer ducks to shoot and you'll burn more gas trying to get to those ducks as you detour around wrecked roads on TransCanada's pipeline route.

Refuting the Noem-bots One Lie at a Time

On Facebook yesterday, one Donovan Wendling attempted to divert attention from Kristi Noem's persistent lies about Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's record on the Second Amendment with this red herring:

Can't say I have ever seen a picture of SHS holding any firearm. Makes me wonder!!

Wonder no more, Mr Wendling:

photo from Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's Facebook page, 2010.10.22

That's Lars Herseth and his daughter Stephanie, out menacing our state bird on an idyllic October day in South Dakota. Yesterday, actually. Happy hunting, everyone.
----------------
Update 2010.10.24 08:40 CDT: Rod Goeman takes the political Rohrschach test and sees a doctored photo. I shake my head and post the other hunting snap Lars and Stephanie's Friday shotgun stroll:

Look like Stephanie's got a pretty firm grip on a pretty real gun. But never underestimate the capacity of Noem apologists to misinterpret reality.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Poachers Filch Fauna, Forfeit $14K

Now that was expensive antelope meat... and they didn't even get to keep it!

South Dakota Game Fish and Parks announced Thursday that eight hunters have been fined $14,000 for a string of hunting violations. Conservation Officer Josh Carr stopped a big group of pheasant hunters in Stanley County for a routine license check. Officer Carr found the party had basically poached a whole bunch of antelope out in Butte and Harding counties. The perps and their fines (as listed by GF&P):

• Randy Malterud, 44, of Watertown, S.D. Fraud to obtain a big game license, unlawful possession of big game and failure to tag big game. Fines and court costs of $852, one-year loss of hunting privileges
• Glynn Grantham, 35, of Houston Texas. Misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act, $525 fine, $8,000 in restitution
• Wesley Grantham, 42, of Hayti, S.D. Five counts of unlawful possession of big game, $500 fine and court costs, 30 days in jail, 30 days suspended, one-year of loss of hunting privileges
• Brian Willard, 42, of West Des Moines, Iowa. Misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act, $525 fine, $3,000 in restitution and forfeit antelope meat
• Kenneth Willard, 68, of Wray, Colo. Misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act, $525 fine and forfeit antelope meat
• Michael Schwartz, 39, of Watertown, S.D. Transportation of big game without head or hide, $127 fine and court costs
• Jonathan Fox, 29 of Cypress, Texas. Improper tagging of game, $135 fine and court costs
• Chad Olson, 38, of Watertown, S.D. Lending a big game tag, $300 fine and court costs, five days jail, five days suspended, one-year loss of hunting privileges

Key point from GF&P's Supervisor John Murphy: "Perhaps the most disturbing part of this incident was the number of youth involved in the hunt.... While none of the youth were charged with wildlife crimes, the actions of the adults in the group set a very poor example for the young hunters."

Poor example indeed. Jerks like this who take kids out to hunt and teach them they don't have to follow the rules make it awfully hard for South Dakotans who do follow the rules to maintain the trust of landowners, voters, and elected officials and continue the great tradition of South Dakota hunting. Hunters have an obligation to teach their kids respect: respect for their weapons, respect for the land, and respect for the law. If you can't handle that obligation, you can't handle a rifle or a bow.

p.s.: A genealogically inclined reader notes that Wesley Grantham of Hayti, S.D., is husband of Cindy (Arnold) Grantham, who is a campaign donor to and sister of South Dakota's GOP candidate for U.S. House Kristi (Arnold) Noem. Now we can't hold stupid behavior by a brother-in-law against a person, but uff da—one must hear some wild stories about run-ins with the law (and morals thereto) at Arnold/Noem/Grantham family reunions.