Pike with two heads reportedly caught in Black Hills lake

Back in April State Representative Scott Odenbach (R-Spearditch) shared several graphics at his Faceberg page from the state's 2022 report of impaired waterways in South Dakota with concerns that Spearditch Creek might look like the Big Sioux River one day. With a hundred or more septic systems and acid mine drainage in that watershed leaching into the creek that scenario is not impossible.

The accompanying image of a two-headed non-native pike appears on the FB page of a Rapid City bait and gun shop. Hormones flushed into septic systems or administered to cattle grazing on the Black Hills National Forest, antibiotics, selenium, ag chemicals, heavy metals and pesticides like endosulfan and the fungicide carbendazim can produce these mutations. The admin at the Rooster's page is refusing to tell visitors from which lake the frankenfish was caught although speculation is centered on Sheridan Lake just downstream of Hill City on Spring Creek which has been impaired for at least a century. 

Also upstream of Sheridan Lake is the former Continental Lumber Company which was purchased in 1998 by Neiman Enterprises who renamed it Rushmore Forest Products then shuttered it in 2021. Residual chemicals from those operations add to the pollutants in Spring Creek.

Invasive northern pike can also be found in Stockade Lake just downstream from a town named for a war criminal that is also suffering massive sewage contamination.