Velo Dog-
It is great we can discuss opposing views openly. I think your "score-centric" view of the Boone and Crockett Club is lacking an understanding of how the history of B&C in intertwined with that of North American conservation itself. B&C (and Pope & Young) is so much more than a record book.
Boone and Crockett began keeping formal records in the 1920s and the idea of recording the most exceptional specimens of big game animals became so popular that the name is now synonymous with large trophies. Although the Boone and Crockett Club is certainly famous for its records program, few people understand and appreciate the rich history of the Club, or their current conservation efforts. The history of the club parallels the history of our great system of wildlife conservation in North America. In fact, in 1960 the Club asked James Trefethan to write a manuscript on the history of the Boone and Crockett Club and by the time it neared completion, he realized it was not a history of one organization, but a book on the history of the modern wildlife conservation movement. The book was renamed the "
Crusade for Wildlife" and remains a classic treatise chronicling how we came to have the most successful system of conservation in the history of mankind. The Club was not only there to help in its development, but the early Club members were the drivers of most major conservation efforts from the beginning.
The story of wildlife depletion following the "settling" of America is a familiar one. Early settlers felt the wilds of the Midwest, and then the West were full of an unlimited bounty that could not be depleted. There were no laws or restrictions on which animals could be used for meat and leather nor under the conditions they could be killed. Trainloads of wildlife and wildlife parts were shipped east to markets and even more were bought, sold and bartered locally to feed those who worked up an appetite carving out a life from the rugged landscape.
In 1887, Theodore Roosevelt held a dinner party for a select collection of men who shared his interests in the outdoors and pursuit of big game. Although details are sketchy, sometime at the dinner party it was suggested they form the nucleus of a club comprised of "American hunting riflemen" who would take note of the conditions of wild game during their hunting trips and report back to the group about conservation actions that might be needed. They agreed this nucleus would consist of only 100 regular members, all of whom had to have harvested "in fair chase" at least 3 species of North American big game. At some point it was deemed fitting to name this new organization after two of the country's most famous hunters: Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.
Roosevelt, who served as the club's first president, never intended this to be a social organization. The early membership was stacked very carefully with people of great influence and an ability to affect legislation and public opinion. The membership included George Bird Grinnell (editor of the influential
Forest and Stream Weekly), Gifford Pinchot, (first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service), William Hornaday, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gen. William Sheridan, and later, Charles Sheldon, and Aldo Leopold. From the start, membership included most of the active conservation administrators and leaders in high-level positions.
The Club immediately began to work on important conservation issues of the day. There were other local conservation organizations, but none that accomplished more throughout history due to the influence and political connections of its members. After breaking his earlier promise and becoming Governor of New York in 1899 and then president of the United States, Roosevelt and the relentless members of the Boone and Crockett Club successfully campaigned for the establishment of state game laws, stopped market hunting, established the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Wildlife Refuge System (including 50 refuges), protected Yellowstone National Park, established Glacier and Denali National Parks, passed the Pittman-Robertson Act (excise tax that now funds state wildlife agencies like TPWD), Duck Stamp Program, the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit Program, and much more.
Since its establishment in 1887, the Boone & Crockett Club has been a leader in most important conservation actions. With the guidance of influential early members, the uncontrolled use of wildlife resources came to an end and the market hunter was replaced by today's hunter-conservationist. Because of their efforts, Americans started to realize that the only way to save wildlife was to build a constituency that would fight against unregulated destruction in favor of regulated use.
The Boone & Crockett Club was the first organization to champion fair chase hunting ethics. In the 1880s few people were concerning themselves with the ethical pursuit of game under standards of fairness. To Theodore Roosevelt and those like him, it was a matter of good citizenship to conserve our natural resources for future Americans. In 1889, Grinnell wrote in Forest and Stream:
“those that boast of their slaughter are now ashamed of it, and it is becoming a recognized fact that a man who wastefully destroys big game, …has nothing of the true sportsman about him.”
Ethical hunting was not a new idea to Roosevelt. In 1902, after several unsuccessful days of bear hunting in the Mississippi Delta, the guides for then President Roosevelt were nervous the president was going to be skunked on the trip. The next day they happened upon an old bear, chased him to exhaustion, tied him to a tree, and brought the president to the bear. Roosevelt refused to kill the bear because it was not in fair chase. A political cartoon titled “
Drawing the line in Mississippi” appeared in the papers heralding his sportsmanship and soon toy companies were selling little stuffed bears under the name “Teddy Bears.”
The Boone & Crockett’s model of “fair chase” pursuit of game served as the foundation for many modern hunting laws. The name of the organization’s magazine (
Fair Chase) sends a clear message that this focus has not faded in importance to club members. The trophy record book that the Club has become well-known for is so much a part of the North American hunting community that it is referred to as “The Book.” Animals of exceptional quality are termed “Book Bucks” or “one for the book.” The origin of keeping trophy records is also intertwined with Boone and Crockett's early conservation goals. With big game species vanishing throughout their range, early conservationists felt it was important to preserve specimens of these species as biological records as to their geographic range and physical attributes. A records committee was assembled in 1902, not to establish a braggart’s list of trophies bagged, but a system to record biological measurements and location data for North American big game species. It was hoped that these records would make the general public aware of these beautiful animals that were in dire need of a system of perpetual conservation.
The first edition of "the book"
Records of North American Big Game was published in 1932, but at that time used a more primitive system involving just the length and spread of antlers, horns or the skull. That relatively small list of animals was followed by a second edition in 1939 that included chapters on a variety of subjects related to North American big game. It wasn't until 1950 that the overall system of measurements was refined into what is widely used today. This scoring system was not a list of
hunters who were good enough to harvest trophies, but rather a list to celebrate the
animals that represented exceptional specimens of their species.
The Boone and Crockett scoring system differs from others because there are deductions from the score for asymmetry and for antler points that deviate from the normal configuration. Some argue that an animal "
ought to get credit for all he grew," but that was not the original intent of the system. According to Eldon "Buck" Buckner, Vice President and head of the Records Committee,
"The Boone and Crockett scoring system was not designed to simply represent the biggest trophy, but instead celebrates the taking of an ideal representative of a species that was taken in fair chase." The idea was that a good hunter has to be more selective to harvest the ideal trophy within legal and ethical means. This element of hunter ethics remains such a foundation of the Club that anyone wanting to enter an animal in the book has to sign a notarized affidavit stating that the animal was taken according to the Club's fair chase standards.
The growing number of records in the database chronicles the success of the North American model of wildlife conservation and remains a valuable source of information on big game across the continent. Currently, more than 36,000 trophies have been accepted for inclusion in the book. The number or density of records coming from different areas of the country tells us something about the environment, genetics, and perhaps the management in those areas. For example, the upper Mississippi River valley and, of course, South Texas have consistently produced more trophy whitetails than other parts of their range. The former because of the rich, black soil and lush habitat; the latter because of the quality deer habitat and lower historic buck harvest rates. Such detailed measurements of physical differences throughout a species' geographic range can help biologists determine meaningful units of conservation and help refine the classification of subspecies.
Through the decades, the Boone and Crockett Club has stayed true to its rich traditions forged more than 120 years ago. Roosevelt would be proud to see the great successes we are achieving in wildlife conservation, built squarely on the foundation of guiding principles he set forth and fostered through the Boone and Crockett Club. Today, the Club is still limited to 100 regular members (they are different members!), but other hunter-conservationists, with skills and abilities desired by the Club, are sometimes invited to become Professional Members. In addition to this core group, anyone who adheres to the Club’s ethical standards can become an Associate which includes a subscription to “Fair Chase” and other benefits. The Club remains at the forefront of conservation through several active programs. Obviously big game record-keeping is a big part of the Club, but guiding conservation policy is still where they make their greatest impact. In 2000, the Club led the foundation of the America Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP) consisting of a coalition of 35 conservation organizations. Just as the Boone and Crockett Club unified efforts of the early Game Protective Associations, so did the AWCP solidify the efforts of these groups representing 4.5 million hunter-conservationists.
The Club’s William I. Spencer Grants-in-Aid Program helps fund wildlife research on North American big game and aid in their conservation on a continent-wide scale. There are also programs for conservation education, hunter and conservation ethics (including a whole website devoted to hunter ethics,
www.huntfairchase.com) and a growing number of Boone and Crockett Club endowed chairs in wildlife conservation at universities to make sure our hunting heritage gains exposure among our educated youth. In 2005, Texas A&M University became one of the latest to establish a Boone and Crockett Endowed Chair for Wildlife and Conservation Policy. Not content to wait until college age, the Club has a very strong K-12 Conservation Program to teach kids how conservation really works and why hunting continues to be vital to conserving wildlife.
The future of hunting will depend heavily on how the non-hunting public views hunters. This is why the Boone and Crockett’s century-old emphasis on ethics and fair chase will be so important to preserve our heritage as conservationists. Hunting will continue to be supported as long as the general public is told the truth, and views hunters as an integral part of past, present, and future conservation efforts. Conservationists are facing a growing list of new challenges that must be addressed with the measured and thoughtful commitment of the early Boone and Crockett Club members.
The second part of your message seems to related to the negative effects of trophy hunting on the gene pool. There is a lot of misunderstanding of this issue. I have just submitted a scientific paper to the Journal of Wildlife Management that will be published as part of a special section related to this topic. I can't share that draft while it is in review but I can share an earlier magazine article you may be interested in. The peer-reviewed scientific paper is much better, but this will give you an idea of my thoughts.
http://www.deernut.com/Documents/IsTrophyHuntingDraining.pdf
Velo Dog, thank you for being open to contrary information and for caring about hunting and wildlife enough to engage other people on the subject.
Jim Deere
