By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-09-22 14:03:43 | Updated at 2026-09-22 14:45:14
44 minutes ago
At least it’s not a dog.
Kristi Noem, the former Homeland Security chief famous for fatally shooting a family dog she hated, proudly showed off an enormous elk she killed during a recent hunting trip in Wyoming.
“Finally had a little time to post a few pictures of my archery elk,” the former South Dakota governor wrote on Instagram with a slideshow of six photos from the outing.
Kristi Noem, former head of U.S. homeland security, posed with a dead giant elk she said she hunted and killed with a bow and arrow. Kristi Noem / Instagram“Super fun hunt,” she wrote, thanking her hunting buddies for helping make sure “the strategy and work paid off” in the successful archery mission.
The lead photo in the carousel shows Noem, 54, triumphantly positioned behind the massive felled beast and gripping one of its antlers with a compound bow leaning against the animal’s bloodied carcass.
She also posed with some of her hunting friends — none of whom were her enormous-breast-loving husband, Bryon, or her not-so-secret secret boyfriend Corey Lewandowski.
The sight of Noem posing beside a dead animal inevitably led critics to recall her revelation that she shot and killed the family dog years ago.
As she accounted in her 2024 memoir, “No Going Back,” Noem dispatched Cricket, a 14-month-old “less than worthless” hunting dog she “hated,” at the bottom of a gravel pit, claiming it had an “aggressive personality” and was “untrainable.”
She called the decision “hard and painful,” but the resulting controversy was said to have torpedoed her chances of becoming President Trump’s VP pick during the 2024 race.
Though most who saw the elk photo congratulated her on her hunting prowess, some Instagram commenters took Noem to task for killing the animal.
“You killed a beautiful animal, wow what a hero,” wrote one objector, while another asked: “Do you think this is a great work? Are you heartless???”
Noem hit back, calling her critics “ignorant and uninformed.”
“Of course this beautiful animal will nourish our family and many others we will share with,” she wrote.
“These majestic animals are incredible and I’ve so loved learning their ways from my father, sharing memories in the mountains with him and my brothers and now my friends,” Noem continued.
“Shame on you who desecrate and don’t understand the stewardship responsibilities God has given us. Go to a store and shop for anything that hasn’t been harvested and you will find bare shelves and your family will starve.”
Noem served as head of the Department of Homeland Security from January 2025 to March of this year, when President Trump announced on Truth Social she was being replaced as DHS chief.
The president simultaneously named her the inaugural special envoy for his Shield of the Americas coalition, an initiative aimed at targeting drug cartels in the region.
