DSC’s mission is to ensure the conservation of wildlife through public engagement, education and advocacy for well-regulated hunting and sustainable use.
The vision of DSC is a society that values wildlife, engages in its conservation and understands and supports the role of well-regulated hunting in the sustainable use of wild resources.
To become a member or learn more about DSC, head to biggame.org. See
IT IS THE MISSION OF THE BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB TO PROMOTE THE CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT OF WILDLIFE, ESPECIALLY BIG GAME, AND ITS HABITAT, TO PRESERVE AND ENCOURAGE HUNTING AND TO MAINTAIN THE HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARDS OF FAIR CHASE AND SPORTSMANSHIP IN NORTH AMERICA.
WELCOME TO THE OLDEST WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ORGANIZATION IN NORTH AMERICA.
Established in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, the Boone and Crockett Club was founded by hunters who dedicated their lives to the conservation of wildlife. As the turn of the 20th century approached our nation, these men had to make a choice: stand by and watch our cherished wildlife disappear or work for the protection and propagation of our wildlife resource. Thankfully, they rose to the challenge and chose the latter.
Yielding substantial political influence, members of the Boone and Crockett Club initiated the first laws dedicated solely to wildlife conservation—and established the methods with which to pay for it. This includes legislation such as the Lacey Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Wildlife Restoration Act (known as the Pittman-Robertson Act), and the Federal Duck Stamp Act.
Their work spearheaded efforts to protect Yellowstone, create Glacier, Denali, and Grand Canyon National Parks as well as our National Wildlife Refuge System. Their foresight spawned and supported key wildlife conservation organizations, including the New York Zoological Society (1895), National Audubon Society (1905), Wildlife Management Institute (1911), National Wildlife Federation (1937), Ducks Unlimited (1937), and more recently working with other partners in the hunting-conservation community to form the American Wildlife Conservation Partners (2000).
Today, the Boone and Crockett Club continues to build upon the legacy of wildlife conservation established by Roosevelt and Grinnell. We will continue the fight for conservation so future generations can enjoy the bounty of our wildlife resource.
Learn more about the history of the Club.
BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB AND FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2023 FOUNDED IN 1887 BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Club President – James L. Cummins
Secretary – Richard R. Capozza
Treasurer – Morrison Stevens, Sr.
General Counsel – John P. Schreiner
Executive Vice President – Administration
Anthony J. Caligiuri
Executive Vice President – Conservation
Mary Webster
Vice President of Administration
John P. Evans
Vice President of Big Game Records
Richard T. Hale
Vice President of Conservation Research and Education
Steven Leath
Vice President of Conservation Policy
Simon Roosevelt
Vice President of Communications
CJ Buck
Foundation President – R. Terrell McCombs
Class of 2024 George R. Emmerson
Class of 2025
Class of 2026
Michael L. Evans
Paul V. Phillips
FOUNDATION
Foundation President – R. Terrell McCombs
Secretary – Michael J. Opitz
Treasurer – Charles W. Hartford
Vice President – John P. Evans
Vice President – Paul M. Zelisko
Class of 2024 Gary W. Dietrich
B.B. Hollingsworth, Jr.
Tom L. Lewis
Michael J. Opitz
Paul M. Zelisko
Class of 2025 John P. Evans
Steve J. Hageman
R. Terrell McCombs
T. Garrick Steele
C. Martin Wood III
PRODUCTION
Editor-in-Chief – Karlie Slayer
Managing Editor – PJ DelHomme
Conservation and History Editor
Steven Williams
Research and Education Editors
John F. Organ
Jonathan Mawdsley
Hunting and Ethics Editor
Mark Streissguth
Assistant Editors
Jodi Bishop
CJ Buck
Kendall Hoxsey-Onysko
Kyle M. Lehr
Marc Mondavi
Tony A. Schoonen
Jennifer Schwab
Jodi Stemler
Julie L. Tripp
Editorial Contributors
Craig Boddington
Charlie R. Booher
James L. Cummins
PJ DelHomme
Kyle M. Lehr
Andrew McKean
Jonathan R. Mawdsley
Chloe Nouzille
Mark J. Shutey
Frederick Prince Alexander Sharif
Karlie Slayer
Jodi Stemler
Wayne van Zwoll
Photographic Contributors
Donald M. Jones
Mark Mesenko
Chloe Nouzille
Fair Chase is published quarterly by the Boone and Crockett Club and distributed to its Members and Associates. Material in this magazine may be freely quoted and/or re printed in other publications and media, so long as proper credit is given to Fair Chase The only exception applies to articles that are reprinted in Fair Chase from other mag azines, in which case, the Club does not hold the reprint rights. The opinions expressed by the contributors of articles are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Fair Chase (ISSN 1077-3274) is published for $35 per year by the Boone and Crockett Club, 250 Station Drive, Missoula, MT 59801. Peri odical postage is paid in Missoula, Montana, and additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Fair Chase, Boone and Crockett Club, 250 Station Drive, Missoula, MT 59801 Phone: (406) 542-1888 Fax: (406) 542-0784
NATIONAL ADVERTISING
Phone: (406)542-1888 ext. 215
Chief Executive Officer – Tony A. Schoonen
Director of Big Game Records –Kyle M. Lehr
Director of Conservation Programs –Luke Coccoli
Director of Finance and Administration –Abra Loran
Director of Communications – Jodi Stemler
Deputy Director of Communications –Karlie Slayer
Assistant Director of Big Game Records –Jennifer Schwab
Accounting Manager – Brooke Van Oort
Development Program Manager –Jodi Bishop
Class of 2026
Robert W. Floyd
Charles W. Hartford
Benjamin A. Strickling III
John A. Tomke
Jeffrey A. Watkins
Digital Strategies Manager –Mark Mesenko
Sales and Corporate Relations Manager –Michelle Scheuermann
Graphic Designer – Fletcher Eidum
Office Manager – Kate Thornburg
TRM Ranch Manager – Mike Briggs
Conservation Education Programs Manager –Madison Todd
If you are a hunter, you should be thanked. Hunters are the original conservationists. Too often, the general public doesn’t understand this. Safari Club International (SCI) is the leader in defending your freedom to hunt and promoting sustainable-use wildlife conservation worldwide. We give you and all hunters a voice where decisions are being made by being the only hunting rights organization with a Washington D.C.-based national and international advocacy team and an all-species focus.
I grew up in the 1980s and ‘90s, which sometimes seem like a lifetime ago. Phones had cords and didn’t fit in your pocket. To find a book in the library, you used the card catalog. If you wanted to find a place to hunt or hike, you asked someone older than you or borrowed a paper map. Times have changed.
Maps of any place in the world fit in the palm of your hand. The outside world can always find you, a blessing and a curse. I’m glad I knew a time before too much technology because it has changed the world, including the things we love, like hunting.
This fall, we've chosen to dedicate an entire issue of Fair Chase to the theme of “Hunting: Then and Now.” We invited our members to share their personal stories and photos, capturing moments from the past and present. While the gear may have evolved, the heart of hunting remains in the memories we create. You can find more of these personal stories and photos on page 46.
A few of our professional members also contributed to this issue on hunting then and now. Jodi Stemler discusses technology in hunting, which includes some well-known voices from the industry and the Club. If you’re curious on the Club’s stance regarding tech in hunting, turn to page 26. Outdoor
ASK THE FAIR CHASE EDITOR
Have a question about content? Ask us.
Want to see more articles about your favorite topic? Tell us.
Drop us a line at editor@ boone-crockett.org and see your questions get answered in the next issue of Fair Chase.
writer Andrew McKean goes back to the origins of a scoring system that even predates the Club’s system in his article “The Origins of Keeping Score.” And Jonathan Mawdsley takes us all the way back to Deuteronomy in his article “The Evolution of Game Management.” We have several other stories in this issue that follow the same theme, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
When I think back on my youth, I miss how simple life could be sometimes. It was more peaceful, and I think we can find that peace again if we avoid distractions, even if for short moments of time. This fall, I invite you to experiment by leaving your phone in the truck for a morning hunt, just like in the old days. I promise that you will feel like you’ve stepped back in time. The birds will sing louder, the sunrise will take forever, and you won’t forget a moment of it. n
MISSED SENDING IN PHOTOS AND STORIES FOR THIS ISSUE?
We're still interested. We’re looking for photos of hunters from yesterday and today. For example, do you have a photo of grandpa with a deer from 1950 and a photo of grandpa hunting with his grandson more recently?
Please email us at editor@boone-crockett.org to submit your photos.
– Phil Shoemaker, master guide
Since 1882, we’ve helped redefine what it means to preserve and grow wealth for some of the world’s most distinguished individuals, families and entrepreneurs. Our extraordinary breadth of capabilities, paired with the exclusive access to the Rockefeller network, allows us to help you meet all of life’s opportunities. Life’s grandest visions require thoughtful plans. That’s why we start by understanding your ambitions—taking into account your immediate and longer-term needs—and develop a roadmap designed to help you achieve your goals.
“Love It to Death” is the third album by the Alice Cooper band, released in 1971. Loving it to death is how we, as a nation, seem to be treating natural resources. Loving it to death does not mean overuse; it is more akin to the excessive restriction of a child’s behavior allegedly in the interest of their health and welfare by an anxious, insecure, or domineering parent.
Engagement in natural resource issues is at an alltime high, which is a positive development. However, we have more people in North America than ever, and the population is expected to grow. This will place significant additional pressure on the wildlife resources of the continent. These people will be more urbanized and have little knowledge of land management as they do not have experience growing up in rural America. There will be more ethnic and cultural diversity, including people from places with no experience with North American conservation.
A growing belief suggests that “letting nature take its course” without human intervention is the best way to manage natural resources, often mistakenly (or intentionally) equating this philosophy with conservation when in fact, it is more like preservation. Conserve means to avoid wasteful or destructive use of, while preserve means to maintain something in its original or existing state.
These misconceptions are shifting wildlife and habitat management from a proactive conservation approach to a more passive preservation
approach, leading to negative consequences like the widespread wildfires seen across the United States. Imagine if we applied the same hands-off approach to human healthcare—life expectancy would plummet, and quality of life would deteriorate.
Both conservation and preservation aim to improve the environment. Conservation employs and manages natural resources for human benefit, such as thinning ponderosa pines to create better elk habitat for hunting and wood for constructing homes. Preservation seeks to maintain resources in their original state by restricting use and management, like the giant sequoias in California or the ancient bald cypress in Mississippi. Preservation embraces the belief that human activity often disrupts the natural balance of ecosystems. While distinct in their approaches, the Boone and Crockett Club has consistently seen conservation and preservation not as conflicting ideologies but as complementary approaches. Conservation is the comprehensive, dominant framework, encompassing preservation under its broad umbrella.
Conservation, pioneered and institutionalized by the Club under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt in the late 19th century, emerged in response to the dire state of America’s natural resources during that era. At the time, the conquest of the American wilderness symbolized progress, with no scientific understanding of its consequences.
The Club embarked on a mission to undo the reckless depletion of America’s natural wealth. This resulted in the creation of national parks, forest reserves, and wildlife refuges, the professional training of stewards to oversee this new conservation system, and the development of funding mechanisms for stewardship and management. Coined by the Club, the term “conservation” encapsulated the connection between people and nature; they defined it as “wise and prudent use without waste.” Roosevelt recognized that ensuring the replenishment of what we extract would occasionally demand proactive measures. This insight was revolutionary and laid the groundwork for contemporary conservation practices. Support for conservation was not unanimous. Some individuals criticized the Club’s conservation approach for considering economics in the protection of untouched landscapes of exceptional natural beauty. Among the most prominent voices advocating preservation was John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, who ardently campaigned for Yosemite’s designation as a national park in 1890.
James L. Cummins PRESIDENT
Witnessing the rampant exploitation of nature, Muir and fellow preservationists believed the only viable solution to safeguarding breathtaking landscapes was to restrict human access, reserving them solely for contemplation and solitude. This ideological clash marked the onset of a national debate, pitting Muir’s preservationist philosophy against Roosevelt’s conservationist principles. This debate is still going on today. The post-depression era witnessed significant strides in the scientific understanding of wildlife and habitats, fundamentally altering management strategies and transforming societal perspectives on nature. Among the key figures of this era was Aldo Leopold, a prominent member of the Club. Leopold’s concept of a “land ethic” acknowledges humanity as an integral component of ecosystems rather than distinct from them. It underscores the significance of understanding human interests and the institutions and political frameworks intertwined with ecosystems. This recognition highlights
Regrettably, there seems to be no easy way to halt the preservationist steamroller driven by emotions and perceptions rather than science and rational thought. —Dr. Bruce D. Leopold
James L. Cummins stands next to a giant bald cypress at Sky Lake in the Mississippi Delta. His effort preserved the largest stand of ancient bald cypress in the world.
the equal importance of leveraging informed science and considerations of human dynamics to reach decisions and find compromises regarding ecosystems.
Current forest policy illustrates both conservation and preservation. Effective conservation involves thinning trees and using prescribed burns to reduce fuel build-up and overgrowth. These management practices encourage a variety of successional stages for wildlife, sustain biodiversity, and prevent devastating wildfires. Conservation allows for intensive management in productive areas and less intensive management elsewhere. The resulting habitat mosaic enhances species diversity and localizes the impacts of resource demands.
Preservation as a dominant approach often fails to work in many places. To leave the next generation a healthy national forest system, we must provide the best care possible, much like modern medicine. When forests have economic, aesthetic, or environmental value, they are more likely to be protected, restored, and enhanced. Embracing markets for wood and wood products and increasing their use in construction and energy can help ensure forests are valued and protected far into the future.
Preservation efforts have played a crucial role in safeguarding North America’s
most breathtaking landscapes. There are over 100 million acres of public land in the United States designated for the highest level of protection by the federal government. These are national parks, monuments, wilderness areas, and wild and scenic rivers. Within these protected areas, the goal is to maintain ecological integrity, often by minimizing human presence.
Even in cases where preservation takes precedence, it is not employed as the sole strategy. National parks, for instance, where the primary goal is to safeguard natural wonders, also have the goal of providing recreational opportunities. Hence, infrastructure like roads, trails, campgrounds, and lodges are constructed to enhance visitor experiences. Rather than striving to recreate conditions prior to European arrival, park managers adopt conservation measures geared toward the future.
The crux of the debate lies in finding solutions to address the conservation challenges of our time and the increasing recreational activities, all while
upholding the intrinsic values of the landscape in question. Relying solely on preservation as the primary strategy lacks the adaptability needed to achieve desired outcomes in wilderness areas, national parks, and monuments. A more effective approach is to consider preservation as one element within a flexible conservation spectrum, ranging from intensive management to minimal human intervention.
At the Club’s inception, wildlife in North America faced its gravest threats from market hunting and irresponsible land practices. Today, the foremost challenge is habitat loss, along with a shift toward a more hands-off preservationist approach and avoiding scientific management. This transition is partially driven by decisions moving away from expert wildlife agencies and toward opinions made by judges and voters.
Activist groups frequently employ emotional arguments in voter ballot initiatives (sometimes called ballot box biology), seeking
The Boone and Crockett Club asks that you please thank our Trailblazers with your patronage.
to supplant the recommendations of professional scientists. Moreover, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is often misused by activists to advocate for listing species or keeping them listed under the ESA despite scientific evidence suggesting otherwise or when recovery goals have been achieved. We frequently witness this with wolves and grizzly bears.
Misinformation about the meaning of conservation contributes significantly to the issue. Many groups with agendas contrary to conservation deliberately adopt the term “conservationist” to mask their true intentions or shed negative associations. Additionally, some individuals may mistakenly identify as conservationists or support purported conservation efforts due to a lack of understanding regarding the core principles of conservation. Conservation and conservative have the same Latin roots, and many who call themselves conservationists are certainly not conservative. There are also conservatives who are not conservationists.
Discerning genuine wildlife conservation efforts from other approaches can be challenging. It is likely conservation if the goal is to safeguard a resource through active management or sustainable practices. Conversely, if the goal seeks to protect a resource by opposing or prohibiting all forms of active management, particularly permanently, it is likely preservation. Journalists, educators, and other professionals responsible for conveying information can contribute by accurately conveying the nuances
If natural resource management decisions relied totally on science— which some advocate—and did not consider the needs and desires of people affected and gain their acceptance, or at least acquiescence in the management of resources that directly affects them, it is more than likely that the plan would fail in the longer term.
—Dr. Jack Ward Thomas
between conservation, preservation, and other ideologies, such as animal rights and anti-hunting movements, when discussing them.
When applied on a large scale, conservation principles emphasizing sustainable practices and active ecosystem management offer the best prospects for meeting human needs while safeguarding ecological health over the long term. Through conservation, we gain the tools and understanding to sustainably manage natural resources in highly productive areas to fulfill much of the demand for products derived from such resources while adopting less intrusive management practices across more sensitive natural resource areas. This approach bolsters biodiversity while minimizing the broader impacts of resource consumption. We can align them with conservation goals by strategically locating and regulating things like energy development and urban expansion.
The Boone and Crockett Club is apprehensive about the misrepresentation of conservation as preservation and the growing inclination toward “letting nature take its course” devoid of human intervention and utilizing scientific management practices. The cornerstone of the future of conservation lies with an informed and engaged citizenry. With the application of 21st-century techniques by conservation professionals, rather than relying solely on direct mail specialists and litigators, we possess both the technology and expertise needed to restore America’s treasured landscapes—and the species that inhabit them—to a state of vibrant natural health while meeting the diverse needs of the American people.
Taking care of our natural resources transcends the efforts of individual biologists, hunters purchasing licenses, ranchers providing winter range for big game, or a volunteer picking up trash at a local park—it is a collec tive responsibility. While governmental agencies play
a significant role in shaping debates surrounding natural resources in North America, non-governmental organizations, local community groups, individuals, and private landowners also contribute substantially to conservation efforts. It is imperative for everyone invested in wildlife and natural resources to heed the differences between these fundamental principles, alongside other credible sources, to advance policies and practices that promote positive, constructive conservation outcomes for future generations.
The Club has learned much from more than a century of conservation leadership. It is important for everyone—from government leaders, educators, and the media to hunters and other conservation-minded citizens—to have a common, factual understanding of conservation and preservation. Proper knowledge is crucial for developing better ideas and guarding against
BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB
The Boone and Crockett Club George Bird Grinnell Society welcomes those individuals who wish to support our conservation programs through purely philanthropic, tax deductible gifts of $2,500 or more.
Funds raised from the George Bird Grinnell Society are placed in the Boone and Crockett Club Foundation endowment where the principal remains intact. The annual interest income generated is then dedicated to vital conservation programs.
Special recognition is given via Club publications and with a custom plaque. After your initial gift of $2,500; gifts of $500 or more to the Boone and Crockett Club Foundation endowment will accumulate toward new contribution levels. Please join us by becoming a Member of the George Bird Grinnell Society Today!
LEVELS OF GIVING:
Copper - $2,500 - $4,999
Bronze - $5,000 - $9,999
WILDERNESS WARRIOR
SOCIETY
Anthony J. Caligiuri
Gary W. Dietrich
Michael L. Evans
Robert H. Hanson*
Charles W. Hartford
Remo R. Pizzagalli
Richard D. Reeve*
Marion S. Searle
DIAMOND LEVEL
Butch Marita
Gordon J. Whiting
GOLD LEVEL
Timothy C. Brady*
SILVER LEVEL
Michael J. Borel
Hanspeter Giger
Steven Leath
Timothy C. Shinabarger
Keith I. Ward
BRONZE LEVEL
Scott A. Cooper
Alice B. Flowers
Fritz R. Mason
D. Michael Steuert
Wilson S. Stout
Bret A. Triplett
Brian Wilson
COPPER LEVEL
Patrick R. Bernhardt
McLean Bowman
Lonnie Dale
Evelyn H. Merrill
Joshua J. Millspaugh
Greg Sheaffer
*Deceased
As you take to the field this fall, you’re taking part in something bigger than yourself. In fact, you (and I) are just a few of the several million hunters in the United States who benefit from a century-old unwritten contract with the rest of society.
In the years preceding the Boone and Crockett Club, as many of us know, wildlife of all shape and size were more abundant than they were today. As were their habitats. However, unregulated shooting and commercial harvest led to the decline and extirpation of several species, big and small alike. Before this era of “big raids” (to borrow a phrase from Interior Secretary Stewart Udall), how and where we hunted mattered far less, and the pursuit of wild animals was for survival or profit. That was destined to change, especially at a time when some, not unreasonably, suggested that hunting be taken off the table entirely.
Our ability to hunt was nearly entirely dependent on how hunters behaved in the field. Thus, the concept of Fair Chase was born.
Hunters were the first to know that species were on the brink of extinction and were some of the first to take strides in government to stem the losses. However, much like other issues, no one cared how much our predecessors knew about wildlife—until they knew how much they cared for wildlife and wild places.
For our society to accept hunting as a part of our
system of conservation, hunters had to demonstrate the utmost respect for the wildlife they pursued, often going above and beyond what the contemporary game laws required of them.
Fair Chase ethics still call us to behave in a way that goes beyond the law—to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior. Ethics are about what one does when nobody is watching. That’s still the case, but today, more people are watching, recording, and disseminating information than ever before.
Back then, Boone and Crockett Club members began to distinguish hunters from sportspeople, and they did so in several ways. In the first-ever issue of Forest and Stream magazine, editor Charles Hallock (who preceded George Bird Grinnell at the helm of that magazine) explained that the mere act of hunting or fishing did not qualify a person as a true sportsman. He wrote: “It is not sufficient that a man should be able to knock over his birds dexterously right and left, or cast an inimitable fly.” To be a true sportsman, according to Hallock, required familiarity with “the living intelligences that people the woods and the foundations…. [a] practical knowledge of natural history must of necessity underlie all attainments which combine to make a thorough sportsman.” Regulatory mechanisms based on the best available science from the budding fields of wildlife biology and forestry, as well as our own principles of Fair Chase,
began to emerge with the creation of state and provincial wildlife agencies. Today, our system of wildlife management is much the same in its principles and in its funding, but the ways that we relate to one another, the land, and wildlife have changed.
The Boone and Crockett Club has always been against the waste of wildlife resources, and has further still isolated ourselves from the ‘slob hunting’ that characterized the market-motivated pursuit of animals in the early 20th century. The same is largely true today. Ethical choices in hunting are perhaps more important today than at any previous time. Our values as hunters—including our motivations and our conduct—mold society’s opinion of hunting. And society's opinion—for better or worse—defines our ability to hunt in the days, weeks, and decades to come.
Ethicists call this general, society-wide opinion a “social license,” defined by real and perceived legitimacy, credibility, and trust.
I would argue that it is incumbent on us as a hunting public to occasionally review our social license to ensure we can maintain both our position in society and our rights to pursue wild food. Much of this means that we, as individual hunters, have a responsibility to our community to treat wildlife with the utmost respect and to treat our experience afield with reverence.
We all know that just a few bad apples can ruin a bushel; the same is true of the
POLICY COLUMN
Charlie R. Booher BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB POLICY CONSULTANT
hunting community. We now live in a world where just a handful of distasteful pictures or video snippets can jeopardize the decades that sportsmen have spent building a robust community of conservation advocates. Our social license to hunt requires us to each be vigilant of our own behavior and that of those around us.
Hunters must continue leading on issues affecting all wildlife, even outside of hunting.
No example of this is more pointed than the recent alleged events of the inhumane handling of a live wolf in Daniel, Wyoming, which was made worse by the minimal legal ramifications of these actions. For those who didn’t follow the news last spring, a snowmobiler ran over a wolf, taped its mouth shut, brought it to a bar where several photos were taken, and then killed the wolf behind the establishment—an inhumane and unethical series of events in my eyes and those of many others. However, despite this incident clearly being unrelated to hunting, it was often attributed that way in the press. As hunters, we had the opportunity to clarify the situation, represent ourselves, and show the world how much we care for these wild animals. Tony Schoonen, CEO of the Boone and Crockett Club, issued the following statement in response to this event:
“The alleged events cannot and should not be considered hunting or wildlife management. Respect for wildlife is at the heart of what we do as hunters and conservationists and it’s clear that respect was absent from this situation. The Club has long supported professional wildlife management by state fish and wildlife agencies—including the ethical, regulated hunting of game species—as the most effective way to ensure sustainable populations of wildlife. When we have these laws and regulations in place, it builds value for wildlife and those who violate the laws can be held accountable for their actions. Until wolves are managed within this system throughout their range, we will continue to have conflicts and loss of ethical behavior.”
Even though the perpetrator in this case was not hunting, hunters stepped forward to assume a position of leadership and responsibility for these acts. For the sake of maintaining our position in society, we must continue to take opportunities to lead on other wildlife conservation issues that are largely unrelated to hunting, much as we always have. These include issues of
endangered species, active habitat management, and wildlife migration, just to name a few. This collective behavior, along with ethical behavior of individuals afield, is the only way to maintain our social license.
None of this is to say we can’t enjoy hunting, or that we ought to be at all apologetic for our livelihoods, but we must be increasingly conscious of the way we represent ourselves and our community to the rest of the world. Nothing short of the future of hunting itself depends on it. n
Ethical choices in hunting are perhaps more important today than at any previous time. Our values as hunters—including our motivations and our conduct—mold society’s opinion of hunting. And society's opinion—for better or worse— defines our ability to hunt in the days, weeks, and decades to come.
As North America's oldest wildlife conservation organization, we've spent 137 years building upon our founders' vision, combining hunting with a devotion to wildlife and their habitat.
In early 1909, Club founder Theodore Roosevelt journeyed by steamship to England, down the Atlantic, through the Suez, and then down the Indian Ocean to Mombasa. He traveled by train to Nairobi, then commenced perhaps the most epic safari ever. It was a nine-month odyssey that took the former president and young son Kermit overland through Kenya, into then-Belgian Congo (now Uganda), then north through Sudan to Khartoum. They ventured up the Nile, then back to Europe by steamer, finally returning to the United States in June 1910.
Before WWII, early hunters to Alaska would travel by ship from Seattle up through the Inland Passage, then to Anchorage, and then out into the blue. Things were simpler in western Canada. Railroads carried hunters north to jumping-off points, then into game country by pack train. A month’s hunt was minimal, six weeks more likely.
Time was measured differently back then. Or, more accurately, distant adventures were the exclusive province of hunters who had unlimited time. The Roosevelt Expedition could be described as excessive, but before WWII, an African safari of just 30 days was considered minimal; two and threemonth safaris were common.
In the postwar era, reliable air transportation whisked hunters to almost any destination. Propellor aircraft soon gave way to faster jetliners. Worldwide, hunts got shorter. Robert Ruark’s Horn of the Hunter is probably the best-written and most widely-read account of a postwar safari conducted in Tanganyika in 1952 when I was
A look back in time at how months-long hunts have turned into action-packed, week-long adventures. And frankly, we’ve got it (too) easy today!
born. We writers often take liberties with timelines (trust me, I know). Read the book, and the impression is Ruark’s first safari was lengthy. Perhaps, but his professional hunter, Harry Selby, recalled it as a normal three-week safari.
For at least the next quarter century, including my early safaris, 21 days remained the standard period for an African hunt. Internal and ground transportation improved worldwide. Better roads and light aircraft shortened timelines, especially in North America. The 30-day packstring hunt vanished before my time, replaced by hunts of ten days or two weeks, depending on location and species.
Travel time isn’t just a matter of getting from point A to point B; one still must get from point B to a hunting area. For instance, I just returned from a brown bear hunt on the Alaska Peninsula. Jet travel from home to Anchorage was just a few hours. It took another day to get down the peninsula to base camp. Tack on another day to get to spike camp by
SuperCub. That’s three travel days to get afield. In countries like Namibia and South Africa— with good road networks—I can be hunting 36 hours from home, despite the long trans-oceanic flight. Shortly, I’ll be headed to Mozambique. That requires an overnight in Johannesburg and a connecting flight, but I’ll be checking zero in camp 48 hours from departure.
The worldwide shortening of hunts isn’t just a
matter of reduced travel time, which hasn’t changed much in the last half-century. Other factors are at play. Part of it isn’t just that we are busier. Rather, hunting in distant locations is no longer restricted to people with unlimited time. Instead, most modern traveling sportsmen and women work hard to earn the privilege and need to cram the adventure into a nice, neat package within a twoweek vacation.
Other elements influence shorter hunts, but not all are positive. In the Africa of my youth, a three-week safari included an opportunity at multiple members of the “big five.” The wonderfully productive and inexpensive shorter plains game safari almost didn’t exist. Restrictions, closures, and quotas for key species changed this. Cape buffalo, by far the most numerous of Africa’s dangerous game, can still be hunted on a seven or ten-day hunt. Safaris for the cats and elephants are necessarily longer and more specialized. Today, across Africa’s 20-some hunting countries, there are about 20,000 annual hunting safaris. Some three-quarters of these are shorter plains game safaris, resulting in a
half-dozen to a dozen antelopes, wild swine, and zebras for about the cost of a mid-range guided elk hunt in the Rockies. As Peter Capstick wrote, it’s still “the last great adventure on Earth” and worldwide hunting’s greatest bargain.
Elsewhere in the world, with different models of wildlife management, shorter seasons are generally not a factor. However, for almost any species, certain periods are better than others. Greater kudus rut in June, red stags in early fall—September in the northern hemisphere, April in the southern hemisphere. In Africa, rainy seasons are usually avoided, but international outfitters have the luxury of several favorable months to plan their schedules.
In North America, outfitters must work (and make their businesses profitable) within set, often short, seasons. On our side of the pond, this is a major factor in the shortening of hunts. It’s attractive for today’s busy hunters but not always great for an ideal or successful experience. On the Alaska brown bear hunt I just returned from, the spring peninsula brown bear season was mysteriously cut to just 16 days. Some hunters opt for the full period, but that’s too long for many. So, of necessity, outfitters are obligated to split the season in two, offering two eight-day hunts to make the season work. It sounds like enough if everything comes together. However, many camps are reached only by light aircraft, and the peninsula is famous for its fickle weather.
In 2023, I stayed in spike camp throughout the peninsula’s fall bear season, mostly watching horizontal rain. I made multiple stalks on a big bear and didn’t get a shot. In the 2024 spring season, I was fortunate. I
got in during a break in the weather and got a nice bear on my fourth hunting day. As a bonus, I got out of camp during another break in the weather and got home. Most hunters who booked the full season were likewise successful. My heart hurt for other hunters as I watched them run out of time or season. Some waited a solid two days after the season closed to fly out of spike camp because of the weather.
Light aircraft with balloon tires, floats, or skis in Alaska and Canada enable remote access hunting. Elsewhere (occasionally in North America), helicopters enable some access, less commonly because of cost. When I hunted in Nepal, we needed to reach the last village as a jumping-off point for the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve. We had two choices: a ten-day trek (each way) or a helicopter. The trek sounded awesome, but I’m not one of those guys with much spare time. I took the helicopter. It is best to allow as much time as possible with difficult species. This is
LEFT: Alaskan outfitter Dave Leonard, secures a caribou rack to the struts of his SuperCub. This versatile little airplane essentially enables hunting in much of Alaska and western Canada.
BELOW: In Nepal, Boddington had a choice between a ten-day hike each way or a two-hour helicopter ride to the jumping-off point. The helicopter was more expensive, but few hunters today have 20 days to spare.
especially true in mountains and northern regions, where weather is constantly a limiting factor. The reality is that not all hunts will be successful, but the shorter the hunt, the higher the failure rate.
While hunts have gotten shorter and travel has gradually improved, the biggest difference today is improved communications—and that’s all to the good. When I arrived in Kenya in 1977, my outfitter messed up my arrival time. I was young and scared, trying to figure out a foreign telephone system, when Willem van Dyk arrived, much to my relief. Before cell and sat phones, we were in a trick when flights were delayed. Today, cell phones can be used in almost any airport or city in the world. Make sure you have international coverage and all the phone numbers (and country codes). The free and handy WhatsApp smartphone app allows voice and text; most guides and outfitters use it. Don’t expect cellular coverage in any remote
hunting camp anywhere in the world. Then again, base camps are likely to have some Wi-Fi connectivity. In the last couple of years, conversion to the Starlink system has been almost worldwide in the outfitting community.
Satellite communications and GPS have improved dramatically, both coming out of the first Gulf War. In 1997, Joe Bishop and I were in camp in southwest Central African Republic (CAR), and Joe had one of the first civilian sat phones. It was the size of a briefcase with fold-out aerials that had to be oriented. In one of CAR’s numerous insurrections, mortar shells were falling on the runway in Bangui, and we needed to find a way out. That darned contraption worked. We got a charter plane and exited west through Gabon.
As they got smaller, I carried sat phones for years. Today, Garmin’s compact inReach system provides GPS data and text messaging slaved to a smartphone. Sat phones are still indispensable for voice communications, but since 2019, inReach
RIGHT: Both cellular and satellite communications have improved dramatically. In remote areas, the satellite phone remains a primary tool for emergency communications…or just checking in. BELOW: All hunts depend on time and weather, but especially for difficult animals in northern climes. In fall ’23 Boddington spent two weeks in this spike camp on the Alaska Peninsula, mostly weathered in, didn’t get a bear. He went back in spring ’24, took a nice bear in six days.
has provided all the communications needed on several northern hunts. Do-it-yourself hunters need more information, but it can all be right there in your hand. The onX Hunt app is the premier smartphone navigation app for backwoods hunters, offering satellite 3D and topographic maps, private/public land boundaries, and much more. Today, there’s no excuse for not having communication when needed or being uncertain where you are. n
The reality is that not all hunts will be successful, but the shorter the hunt, the higher the failure rate.
Don’t count on it without checking, but today most base camps will offer some kind of Wi-Fi connectivity
After the Great War, the industry rallied with bolt rifles and cartridges to match.
Then: Nothing.
Jack O’Connor adored the .270, announced in 1925 in Winchester’s first successful bolt rifle, the 54. Read more about Jack O'Connors adventures on page 60.
In 1920 the 18th Amendment nixed alcohol; the 19th gave women the vote. Flappers decried one, cheered the other. By mid-decade, radios and electric stoves changed how Americans got news and boiled eggs. Detroit built 9,000 Ford Model Ts daily and peddled them for $260, $590 less than their 1908 price.
Winchester’s contribution to 1925 was a new rifle. Its earlier bolt actions had not fared well. The tube-fed Hotchkiss .45-70 had armed U.S. troops beginning in 1879 but faded four years later. A few of the 1883 version remained in uniform until benched by the 1895 Lee Navy, which served the Marines and Navy as a first-line infantry rifle until 1907. In civilian form, this .236-bore rifle hung around nine more years.
During WWI, Winchester built Pattern 14 and Model 1917 Enfields for U.S. and British troops. By 1922 a sporting rifle was in the works. It appeared three years later as the 7-3/4-pound Model 54. Its cock-on-open bolt borrowed heavily from the ‘98 Mauser’s, but it had the ‘03 Springfield’s coned breech and a Newton-style ejector. The nickel steel barrel and slender stock with shotgun butt were nicely contoured.
Winchester offered the first 54s in .30-06 and .270 (eight more chamberings to follow). While the .270 was as new as the rifle, some gunrag gurus gave it only a shrug. Jack O’Connor, Outdoor Life Arms and Ammunition editor from 1942 to ‘72, claimed his
predecessor Charlie Askins never wrote of the .270. Ned Crossman and Field & Stream ’s Paul Curtis apparently gave it tepid reviews. An American Rifleman report came three years late. But Townsend Whelen and Sport’s Afield ’s Monroe Goode treated it kindly.
The .270 arrived in an era dominated by 6.5mm cartridges (.264 bullets). The 6.5x55 Swedish and 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer excelled in uniform and out. The 7x57 (.284 bullet) rode the 1892 Mauser to lasting fame. Perhaps Winchester wanted to pitch a truly American cartridge of different measure than ammo that had bloodied U.S. troops in Cuba and France.
O’Connor’s first .270, a Model 54, took a deer in the fall of 1925. At 200 yards, from the sit over open sights, he winced at the sodden tunk – a hit too far back. He tracked the beast, killing it with another shot. Impressed by the effect of the little 130-grain bullets, O’Connor had that 54 re-stocked and installed a Lyman 48 receiver sight.
The stock market implosion of ‘29 sent Winchester Repeating Arms hurtling
toward receivership. In December 1931, Western Cartridge Company bought all assets. Under John Olin, Western kept the 54 alive. T.C. Johnson and his engineers refined the rifle they’d built and added nine new versions. In 1936, their last full production year, Model 54s were priced from $59.75 to $111. Late in 1936, the Winchester Model 70 improved on the 54 with a separate bolt stop, a safety that swung under scopes, and an action long enough for the belted .300 and .375 H&H Magnums. An instant hit, the 70 sold almost as well in .270 as in .30-06 through the 1950s. O’Connor published his enthusiasm for the .270. “I do not know of a better sheep cartridge,” he declared in 1962. It would give him more than 35 game species, most from Model 70s.
In 1925, Western added the .300 H&H Magnum, or Super .30, to its roster. London’s Holland & Holland shop began building hunting rifles in 1835 when tobacconist Harris Holland abruptly changed careers. His nephew Henry joined the business as an apprentice in 1861, becoming a partner six years later. In 1876, “Holland & Holland” replaced “H. Holland” as the firm’s name of record. But Harris held tight to the checkbook until his death in 1896.
At that time in England, cartridge design was part of gun-making.
The Holland shop listed the .300 in 1912, along with the .275 and .375 H&H. They share a belted case with a .532 rim, but the .275’s hull is .35 shorter than the 2.85-inch .300 and .375 brass. The .300 has a gentler 8 ½-degree shoulder than the .375. Compatible with the spaghetti-like cordite powder of its day, that leggy husk glides silkily from magazine to chamber.
Ballistically, the Super .30 performed much like Charles Newton’s sharp-shouldered .30. But the pale cordite strands loaded by the Brits were rich in nitroglycerine. Tropical heat hiked pressures from this fuel. As rifles in .300 H&H were likely to wind up in Africa or India, early charges were conservative, and the bullets delivered speeds we’ve come to expect from the .30-06. Current options are much friskier, with 150-grain bullets approaching 3,200 fps. With 180s at 2,950, the .300 H&H shoots about 15 percent flatter than the .30-06 and boasts a 10 percent advantage in wind. Driving 220- and 225-grain bullets at 2,600 fps, it carries the punch of Rigby’s .350 Rimless Magnum, a British rival introduced in 1908.
Before it appeared as a charter chambering in
Winchester’s 70, the .300 H&H earned its keep as a fast-stepping medium-bore. New York’s Griffin & Howe built rifles for it on Magnum Mauser actions. It got an unexpected boost from Ben Comfort, who in 1935 used it to win the 1,000-yard Wimbledon Match at Camp Perry. His 13-pound G&H rifle had a Remington 30S action, a prone stock by the shop’s Ernest Kerner. Winchester supplied the heavy 30-inch barrel. Comfort fired his top score of 10014V with a 10x Lyman Super Targetspot scope and Western factory loads.
In many ways, the mid1920s and early ‘30s left hunters adrift, as if engineers and factory floors had delivered for a decade in 1925. The Remington Model 30 and Winchester 54 were arguably the first successful bolt rifles for both firms. But the .30-06 was the only cartridge available in both models that took full advantage of the strength and accuracy potential of those actions. Include, in all charity, the grizzled 7x57 (late to the Model 30S). The 54 alone offered the .270. For most shooters, the 1920s bumped along toward their finish like an empty wagon.
There was some logic to this vacuum in rifle and cartridge design. Military contracts had dried up, and hunters could not float the industry at the level supported by war. Hills and hollows affected greater society, too. Movies got sound as Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in record time. But Prohibition powered underworld brutality that tested even aggressive new FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In 1926, the Bureau tallied 12,000 murders. Across town, industrialists and Wall Street piled up profits.
The crash of ’29 swept $26 billion in market value from stocks—this when a billion dollars was a lot of money. Depression defined not just the years to come but the national mood. Dust trailed drought across corn belt and prairie, obliterating horizons and, it seemed, a decade.
Wayne’s .270 M70 with Lyman Alaskan took this buck in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains, about 1978.
You’d have thought him an unlikely island of cheer. “… Only an ignoramous,” he declared (his spelling), “would use loaded cartridges in a Scheutzen rifle [instead of] one shell … reloaded for each shot.” Furthermore: “A scope does not make a rifle shoot any more accurately; [it] only puts the old man with defective sight [on level footing with] younger men having good sight.”
He was born in Goffstown, New Hampshire, the year after Lee surrendered to Grant. Bringing a passion for firearms into the cartridge era, he became an authority on single-shot rifles using black or low-pressure smokeless cast-bullet loads in 200yard offhand matches. “The Germans call this the ‘Schuetzen’ rifle,” he harrumphed, pointing out that as “the Germans started [both world wars],” he would write of it as a “match” or “target” rifle. Ned Roberts was a man of his time.
He readily dispensed advice, leaving little to the enquirer’s imagination: “You ask for good loads, [so] hunt up a Pope .32-40 bullet mold casting [Pope’s] 200-grain taper bullet [and use] 1 to 25 or 1 to 30 tin and lead. Next, get some Remington No. 2-1/2 primers … these are the best [for] small groups. Use only
one shell, reloading it for each shot with 20, 21 or 22 grains bulk of DuPont I.M.R. #4227. [Insert] a sheet cork wad in the mouth of the shell to keep powder from spilling… breech seat the bullet 1/16 inch ahead of the case, and there you have a load that will make from 5/8- to 1-inch 10shot groups at 100 yards [from a bench or] machine rest.”
Bullets, he insisted, “must not be sized but shot as they come from the mold; you will have to try different bullet lubricants to get the right one ….” In a book on Roberts and Schuetzen rifles, G.O. Kelver listed this recipe: “Three parts mutton tallow, one part wax … a teaspoonful plumbago to a pint … thin [if needed] with a little sperm oil….” Or: “Vaseline and [just enough] paraffine to make the Vaseline hard enough [or a piece] the size of a goodsized duck egg to one pound of paraffine….”
Meanwhile, a new generation of shooters was firing service-rifle matches with Krag-Jorgensen and Springfield bolt-action repeaters and hunting with them. There was no need for cork, sperm oil, or sheep tallow!
Major Roberts was crusty but not hide-bound. Gun Editor for Hunting and Fishing magazine, he wrote too for American Rifleman and contributed to Phil Sharp’s
“Complete Guide to Handloading,” an exhaustive book in its day. Roberts followed the work of custom rifle-builders and wildcatters. Adolph O. Neidner of Dowagiac, Michigan, was both.
Neidner’s sense of line and proportion helped define the “classic” look in pre-war sporting rifles and endures in fetching contemporary bolt actions. His wildcatting included work on the 7x57 necked to .25. (Some reports date efforts in this vein to 1909 at Griffin & Howe.) Neidner is credited with birthing the .25-06 decades before
Remington adopted the cartridge in 1969.
Roberts and Neidner surely discussed other .25 options. Bullets of that diameter were shackled by the .25-35 in 19th-century lever actions and the .25 Remington in pre-WW I autoloading and pump rifles. Charles Newton’s .250-3000 had more spunk than those cartridges and, at its 1913 debut, a bright future in Savage’s Model 1899. But that rifle’s short action limited bullet types and velocities. By some accounts, Newton nudged Roberts toward the 7x57. His view was in line with Franklin
In 1934 Remington adopted the .257 Roberts (left) as a necked-down 7x57 with the original shoulder.
Mann’s, whose trials with powders of the day pointed to a case like the .30-40 Krag’s. Or the 7x57’s. A .25 on either made sense for hunters craving a U.S. cartridge with the game-killing zip of Austria’s 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer. It would also send lightweight bullets on flat arcs over ‘chuck pastures.
In 1928, after Roberts reduced the 7x57’s shoulder angle to 15 degrees (reportedly at the urging of Townsend Whelen), Neidner chambered rifles for this .25 wildcat. Remington restored the original 20-degree, 45-minute shoulder six years later to catalog it as the .25 Roberts. In 1936, it appeared as the .257 Remington-Roberts. In those innocent days, before cartridge rosters became as dense as listings in phone directories, arms and ammunition companies took care not to confuse shooters. Remington didn’t wish its new quarter-bore to be mistaken for its old .25 or for Roberts’ original slope-shouldered round—let alone Winchester’s .25-35! By the mid-‘40s, it had become the .257 Roberts.
ROBERTS
The first commercial rifle to chamber the .257 was Remington’s Model 30S, a rifle that appeared in 1930 in .3006. (Its predecessor, the 30 Express, an improvement on the unpopular 30A of 1921, had appeared in 1926.) The rifle’s .30-06-length Enfield-style action could well have accepted .257 loads with pointed bullets seated out. Alas, Remington offered only a blunt 117-grain missile seated deep. It ate into powder and held exit velocity to 2,650 fps. The bullet’s round nose braked it quickly in flight. Neither did the pressure of that load (50,000 psi, or 45,000 CUP) test the .30S’s stout action.
In 1941, the Model 30S gave way to the Model 720, which also chambered the .257 Roberts. The 720 died early. In 1948, Remington announced its new, more economical 721/722 long—and short-action bolt rifles, listing the .257 in the 722. Four years later, the Model 760 pump rifle arrived. Shortly after, the .257 joined eight other chamberings in deluxe 760s. It sold in standard versions from 1955 to ’58.
Winchester was not to be left without a .25. In 1935, it offered the Model 54 in .257 Roberts. A year later, as the Model 70 went into production, the .257 became a charter chambering in that rifle. By then the cartridge was getting attention from commercial rifle-makers offshore. A couple of years after its arrival, the 1952 Mannlicher-Schoenauer Carbine (in my view, one of the most desirable M-S models) appeared in .257, 6.5x54, 7x57, and .270. Surely, these rank among the best deer and sheep cartridges ever! The .30-06 and the then-new .308 were listed too. That year an M-S Sporting Carbine (or Rifle) fetched $205.75, a steep sum compared to prices for U.S. rifles. A Winchester 70 in .257 Roberts cost $120.95, a Remington 760 pump $104.40, a Remington 722 $82.80.
In 1955, Winchester unveiled its .243 on the .308 case, while Remington announced its .244 (later renamed the 6mm Remington) on .257 Roberts brass. Both launched 100-grain bullets at over 3,000 fps. The .257 had a 100-grain spitzer at 2,900 but was still tethered to the
old 117-grain round-nose at 2,650. The 6mms, more than Remington’s adoption of the .25-06 in 1969, put the skids under the .257 Roberts. It was absent on chambering rosters for Remington’s Model 700, new in ‘62, and for Winchester’s post-’64 Model 70. In the 1960s and early ‘70s, Browning chambered the .257 Roberts in its lovely FN High Power series and later in its A-Bolt and BLR lever-action. Ruger gave the Roberts a nod in 1972 in the Model 77 bolt rifle, later in the No. 1 single-shot. During the ‘80s, Remington and Winchester brought it back briefly in turn-bolts. Kimber has offered its 84M in .257.
A .257 Roberts “+P” won SAAMI approval in 1974. Heavier brass with more ambitious powder charges bumped pressures about 10 percent, to 58,000 psi (50,000 CUP); +P loads weren’t recommended for pre-’98 Mausers or Remington 760s. SAAMI figures for velocity increases reflect the boost.
Some factory loads beat these figures. Nosler catalogs a 110-grain AccuBond at 3,000 fps, a 115-grain Ballistic Tip at 2,800. Not long ago Federal
LEFT: The Winchester that gave Wayne this group was then nearly a century old. Buy a new deer rifle? Why? RIGHT: This Coues deer fell to a 6mm (.244) Remington. After their 1955 debut, the .244 and Winchester’s .243 put the skids under the .257.
had a 120-grain Nosler Partition at 2,800. Hornady sells a Superformance load with a 117-grain SST at a scorching 2,946 fps. At 400 yards, that bullet still clocks over 2,000 fps, its remaining 1,100 ft-lbs of punch edging that of many 140-grain 7x57 spitzers!
The .257 Roberts shares the “in-between” curse of its sibling, the 6mm Remington. Both evolved from the 7x57, a mid-length round Paul Mauser developed for his 1892 rifle. Case length is 2.24 inches, overall (loaded) length 3.06. The .30-06 case and those of its offspring are roughly 2.50 inches long, OAL 3.34. Actions for the .30-06 are under-served by mid-length cartridges. While short actions for the .308 and kin (2.02 cases, OALs of 2.75) accept some midlength loads, Pinnochio-nose bullets must be seated deep, gobbling powder space. Handloaders get the most from this
child of the Depression (and the sharp-shouldered .257 Ackley Improved) in Mauser actions or those for the .30-06.
The .257 Roberts deserves more field time than I’ve given it. A Henriksen-stocked Mauser took a blacktail buck for me at 150 yards, as can many cartridges. But none as lethal are more civil! At the range with a new rifle, I turn to my Serengeti in .257 to ensure lousy groups aren’t my fault. Gently, routinely, that rifle shoots into 3/4 inch.
Though there are better choices for big hoofed game in cover, a 110- to 120-grain .257 bullet, bonded or Partition, at 2,900 fps makes my short list of elk rounds.
Ned Roberts lived in a wonderful time to be a rifleman. But his contributions to the industry long out-lived him. Most notable: his civil, versatile .25. n
A tide of Japanese Model 38 infantry rifles arrived with GIs returning from WWII. Arms dealers bought some in quantity to peddle at bargain prices. The stout 38 fired the semi-rimless 6.5x50 Arisaka, developed in 1897. The shortest of several military 6.5s hatched around the turn of the century, it wasn’t then loaded stateside, so ammo was hard to find. Full-jacket bullets were useless on game, and Berdan-primed military brass thwarted handloaders. But the .471 case rim all but duplicated the .473 rim of the Roberts, and the Arisaka cartridge was .020 longer, so .257s fit the magazine nicely. A reamer for the .257 Roberts “cleaned up” the Model 38’s short chamber. Bumping the necks of .257 brass up to seat .264 bullets was a cinch. Thus, handloaders got an inexpensive, effective hunting rifle!
get anywhere you need to go in total comfort.
“A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.”
- Aldo Leopold
Hunting regulations can’t keep pace with advancing technology. What does that mean for the future of Fair Chase hunting?
Aldo Leopold’s quote about wildlife ethics being dictated by a hunter’s own conscience has been referenced widely. The quote, pulled from Leopold’s renowned book, A Sand County Almanac , is part of an essay titled “Wildlife in American Culture.” What many who haven’t read the treatise in years (or ever) may not realize is that this quote immediately follows a paragraph focused on technology.
“There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called ‛ sportsmanship.’ Our tools for the pursuit of wildlife improve faster than we do, and sportsmanship is a voluntary limitation in the use of these armaments. It is aimed to augment the role of skill and shrink the role of gadgets in the pursuit of wild things.”
Even in the 1940s, conservationists grappled with the development of new technologies designed to improve the hunting experience. While the technology of Leopold’s day pales in comparison to the tools that are now available to the hands of hunters, the vision of self-restraint and ethics remains the same.
Do these tools take unfair advantage of the wildlife that we seek? Does our use of these “gadgets”
JODI STEMLER
B&C PROFESSIONAL MEMBER DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
increase our success rates possibly leading to even greater restrictions on the number of tags available? Are we losing the fundamental skills of the hunter by relying on technology?
As we look forward to a future with an even greater variety of gadgets at the ready—as well as a generation that has grown up with technology in their hands starting as young children— our role as mentors and advocates for Fair Chase and hunter ethics will become even more important.
While many of us today think about technology in our digital world, the truth is technology has always been around us and has been constantly advancing throughout history.
Today, we have technical clothing that allows us to stay out longer in variable weather, electric bikes and ATVs that take us deeper into the landscape, handheld devices and apps that pinpoint our exact location, and much more. But the development of new technologies in hunting certainly did not start with the rise of satellites, drones, and long-range shooting equipment. From humans’ first days of different knapping techniques to improve spear points through the creation of bows and then to the invention of the first firearms, humans have been innovating techniques that would make them more successful in their hunts. And such advancements are both expected and adopted without much consideration of their consequences— both intended and unintended.
B&C Professional Member Tony Wasley, former director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife and current president of the Wildlife Management Institute, refers to this as technology creep. Throughout history we have become comfortable with new technologies that are taken for granted now, and with it develops a rise in even greater advancements at our fingertips.
Looking back to the beginning of the last century reminds us of what unrestricted use of these technologies can do to wildlife. Punt guns mounted to the bow of boats in the Chesapeake Bay could kill hundreds of ducks with one shot. Trains advancing into the West opened access to these vast herds that hastened the demise of the buffalo as did rifles mounted with optics.
Technology advancements in our not-so-distant past aided the rapid decimation of wildlife. It was at this time that the Club spearheaded and galvanized the rise of hunting ethics and personal restraint among hunters across the nation, which drove the recovery of wildlife populations.
One of Fair Chase’s foundational tenets is to “enhance the hunter’s experience of the relationship between predator and prey, which is one of the most fundamental relationships of humans and their environment.”
Respect for wildlife includes the methods and means with which we choose to kill them. Technology has the potential to improve that deeply personal connection, but it also has the potential to fundamentally alter the playing field in our favor. This choice also affects the social acceptability of hunting—anything that gives the impression of unfair advantage in hunting may tip the scales against public support for our pursuits. This issue gets to the core of the Boone and Crockett Club’s Technology and Hunting Position Statement that states that the Club “supports the use of legal technology to the extent it does not take an unfair advantage over the animal.” However, it continues to note that making these decisions is both personal and complex.
“Hunting, at its most fundamental level, is defined by the unpredictable relationship between predator and prey. This relationship is built upon many complex components that differentiate hunting from simply shooting or killing. It is a profoundly personal and human connection with wildlife that cannot be shortchanged, manipulated, or otherwise compromised if the hunter is to maintain the sanctity of this relationship and any credible claim that hunting is challenging, rewarding, respectful of wild creatures, and a positive force for wildlife conservation.”
Mary Webster, the Club’s executive vice president of conservation, coleads the subcommittee that develops
position statements. She notes that the Records Committee develops the Fair Chase guidelines for entry into the B&C records, but the Technology and Hunting position statement helps explain how the Club generally approaches this issue. She notes, “It’s not so much about the technology or piece of equipment itself being unethical—a lot of times it’s about how it’s used. Some uses of technology in some situations just create too much advantage, and we need to think about where that line is drawn.”
An essential element in this decision-making process is the potential implications for individual animals as well as the population as a whole. Improvements in rifles, scopes, and ballistics mean we can take a shot at an animal over 1,000 yards away, but is this the right choice? The Club has taken the position that long-range shooting takes unfair advantage of the game animal because it effectively eliminates the natural capacity of an animal to use its senses and instincts to detect danger, thereby diminishing the importance and relevance of the animal and the hunt.
Club executive vice president of administration and president of Boyt Harness Company, Tony Caligiuri, notes, “Having optics technology that enables me to be proficient at ranges that were unheard of ten years ago has undoubtedly made me a better shot at more normal hunting ranges. Even though I routinely practice out to 700 yards, I would never under any circumstances shoot at a game animal anywhere close to those distances.”
While we often lament the potential downsides of technology for wildlife, there is no doubt that it can also be a boon for conservation. The rise of ever-faster, more powerful computers has improved modeling capabilities. Machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms can help process millions of data points into patterns to understand wildlife conservation needs. Researchers use GPS collars to pinpoint big game migration corridors and wildlife seasonal use, allowing managers to direct limited funding to the most critical areas. Managers use drones to spray invasive weeds or plant seed, and researchers use them for population surveys. Camera traps (trail cameras) provide information on when elusive animals use certain areas. Thermal imaging devices help find newborn fawns bedded in hay fields before harvest and help identify and control feral animals devastating landscapes. Satellite imagery, remote sensing, and GIS applications allow for critical evaluation of ecosystem management or habitat fragmentation. For conservationists, these technological revolutions have opened a much greater understanding of wildlife species and improved habitat management options. We live in a time when the cell phones we carry daily offer even greater computing power than would have fit in an entire room at the end of the last century. Our children don’t know what it was like to live without them—not to mention the information available with just a click. Technology can be used for good in many ways, but the future of our outdoor experience depends on how we use these technologies to sustain or even improve our wildlife and wild places.
As Leopold’s essay notes, “contraptions… are offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often function as substitutes for them.” The practice and skill development of shooting, coupled with improvements in ammunition, can ensure a clean, quick kill—but overconfidence in this technology can result in wounding an animal.
CJ Buck, vice president of communications of the Club and fourth-generation owner of Buck Knives, says that taking a longer shot comes with the ethical component of being willing to ensure the shot. “If you’re considering taking a shot at a distance that you’re not willing to walk to in order to verify whether you hit the animal, then it’s probably too far.”
The Club takes the view that long range is “more defined by a hunter’s intent than any specific distance at which a shot is taken. If the intent of the individual is to test equipment and determine how far one can shoot to hit a live target and if there is no motivation to risk engagement with the animal being hunted, this practice is not hunting and should not be accorded the same status as hunting.”
IMPLICATIONS
If technology is making us more effective in the field, hunters need to recognize that it could ultimately affect our hunting opportunity. Wildlife professionals manage populations based on the concept of a “harvestable surplus” of
animals and make decisions about tag allocations based on hunter success. For example, if they believe 100 deer can be harvested out of a population and data from previous years of hunter success shows a 10 percent success rate, they will issue 1,000 tags. So, what happens if hunter success increases to 50 percent? Those managers will have to reduce the total tags allocated to 200, meaning a significant decrease in hunter opportunity. Another example is with early archery or muzzleloader seasons where harvest allocations are set recognizing the challenge of having to get close enough to an animal to take a shot with the more primitive tool. What happens when crossbows or muzzleloaders can be lethal at over 100 yards? This might not be an issue in areas where managers are trying to reduce populations. Still, higher success rates in other areas might result in regulation changes prohibiting technology within those seasons or reducing tags overall.
B&C’s position statement speaks to this challenge: “From a wildlife management perspective, if technology increases hunter success rates too much, it will limit the options wildlife managers have to stay within harvest objectives. This could mean shorter seasons, fewer tags, or both, which will reduce hunting opportunities. This in turn, will likely decrease hunter participation, hunter retention, and new hunter recruitment, which will threaten the funding model on which wildlife management relies.”
This is the pivotal issue for Buck. “We have to look at everything through the lens of wildlife health,” he says. “There isn’t a better tool to manage wildlife than hunting, so we need to be mindful of and responsive to anything that changes that balance.”
The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Mule Deer Working Group is chaired by B&C Professional Member Jim Heffelfinger, the wildlife science coordinator for Arizona Game & Fish. This committee of the top deer biologists in all the Western states and Canadian provinces recently released a fact sheet on technology and the effects on hunting mule deer and black-tailed deer. Their summary notes:
“Hunters must understand that improved hunting success from advances in technology may reduce future hunting opportunities. How agencies manage technological advancement will continue to be an issue for mule deer hunters across the West. In addition to what is legal, hunters must consider what is ethical and considered fair chase. With inevitable increases in technology, we will need to determine the right mix of hunting opportunity versus freedom to use technology.”
This is not new and not unique to the West. State wildlife management agencies have passed regulations on using certain technologies since their beginning. For example, we don’t use punt guns anymore. And, of course, different technologies have different implications in different parts of the country. In the West, one tree near a watering hole on public land might be strapped with dozens of trail cameras, which is very different from the use of trail cameras on private lands in the dense forests of the upper Midwest.
But as Heffelfinger notes, the rate of technological change in the last 20 years has been almost exponential, and it’s difficult to put the genie back in the bottle once it has been released. Former agency director Wasley agrees, noting that technology creep is here to stay. “If people invest the time, money, and effort in gear, it is very difficult to come in later and take them away,” he says.
If wildlife professionals believe 100 deer can be harvested out of a population and data from previous years of hunter success shows a 10 percent success rate, they will issue 1,000 tags. So, what happens if hunter success increases to 50 percent? Those managers will have to reduce the total tags allocated to 200, meaning a significant decrease in hunter opportunity.
“It’s not so much about the technology or piece of equipment itself being unethical—a lot of times it’s about how it’s used. Some uses of technology in some situations just create too much advantage, and we need to think about where that line is drawn.”
-Mary Webster, Boone and Crockett Club Executive Vice President of Conservation
Professional Member and renowned outdoor writer Andrew McKean is no stranger to technology. His position with Outdoor Life magazine allows him to test some of the latest and greatest gear introduced to the market. To him, the overall question is what we owe to the animals we hunt and our overall experience. Hunting is profoundly personal, and most hunters note that spending time in nature to enjoy the peace of the outdoors, where they can disconnect from the pressures of technology in their everyday lives, is a core part of their experience in the field. Does the use of technology defeat this quest?
Leopold’s essay ponders this challenge for the American sportsman. “Bigger and better gadgets are good for industry, so why not for outdoor recreation? It has not dawned on him that outdoor recreations are essentially
primitive, atavistic; that their value is a contrast-value; that excessive mechanization destroys contrasts by moving the factory to the woods or to the marsh.”
He also notes: “I do not pretend to know what is moderation, or where the line is between legitimate and illegitimate gadgets.”
What do we, as conservationists, owe the subjects of our pursuits? What gained advantage crosses that line of respect and begins to look more like disrespect for the life of our prey? What will widespread use of any particular technology mean for the future of hunting, our ability to recruit new hunters, or the social acceptability of hunting?
This is the ultimate conundrum of technology in hunting—the choices that we make to hunt Fair Chase and our respect for wildlife may be the most important way that we can preserve our traditions. n
a measurement of both abundance
It’s become customary to describe the various methods of assessing a big-game animal’s trophy parts as a way to quantify the dimensions of a particular specimen while celebrating the conservation successes that produced the animal.
But if that narration rightly celebrates abundance in one form or another, there’s another, more downbeat way to assess our big-game records and scoring systems, instead, as exhibits of a vanishing world.
The dozens of big-game scoring systems, many of which have been lost to time or have faded into obscurity, share origin stories. They rose during the developed world’s transition from a mostly rural population to one in which humans—in the northern hemisphere, at least—moved to cities, either because they wanted to, or because that’s where the work was, or because they no longer had a place on their farms, homesteads, shtetls, and bourgs.
To a contemporary watching the rapid industrialization of whole landscapes in the days before we had adequate institutions to conserve and preserve wild places, the future must have looked bleak, indeed. Some naturalists of the
poverty of the natural world
latter half of the 1800s, from Charles Darwin to John James Audubon, devoted themselves to cataloging this fleeting world. Painters like German-born Carl Rungius depicted heroic American landscapes conspicuously without the railroads, fences, and roads that were, year by year, carving them to human scale.
Historians describe this unsettled time in vastly different ways, with some extolling progress and all the ways humans embraced and adapted to change. Others look back fondly, with a sense of nostalgia for old ways lost in the headlong sprint to the future.
The truth is industrialization wasn’t all bad for big-game hunters. It gave us accurate rifles, reliable gear, and the means to travel to places yet untouched by industrialization. And it gave us the impetus to quantify and catalog wildlife specimens that were being discovered and exploited at about the same rate.
Capitalizing on the sudden accessibility of African safaris, British taxidermist Roland Ward published the first Records of Big Game in 1892. Ward did a lively business as a travel consultant to get clients in the field, and then mounted and stuffed (and measured) their trophies on their return. His record book was at first mainly a catalog of dangerous-game horns and skulls, but it was read at the time as a directory of places to go if you wanted to encounter remarkable animals.
“The Book is a valuable source of knowledge on the distribution of game,” Rowland Ward noted, “and it gives taxonomic features as well as a historical, geographical, and biological record of all game.”
Importantly, it was never intended as a Who’s Who of trophy hunters, though various editions included entries from such luminaries as kings Edward VII and George V, the Rothschilds, and even Winston Churchill. Instead, the forward of “The Book,” states that it was meant to “celebrate the animal, not to glorify the hunter. It does not matter whether the animal’s horns, tusks, or teeth were picked up in the veld from one that died of natural causes, was killed by a predator, or was shot by a hunter. By establishing the benchmark for what constitutes a trophy, The Book makes a most valuable contribution to conservation. By setting the standards high, The Book ensures that trophy hunters will concentrate on those big, old, lone males that have long since passed on their genes to younger generations.”
It’s worth noting that the high-water mark of this records-as-conservation-yardstick, the Boone and Crockett Club’s Records of North American Big Game, hews much to that same ethic.
Ward’s records—the 31st edition will be published in 2025—now include pretty much every big-game species imaginable, from tahr to the tur of the Caucasus, water deer to pronghorn antelope, and American bison to Asian wild cattle. But Rowland Ward scoring has always been a relatively simple affair. For deer species, for instance, scoring accounts for main-beam and tine length, basal measurement, and spread, but only one circumference measurement. For Cape and Nile buffalos, add the sum of both bosses and the greatest spread to arrive at the score.
It’s an indication that there’s more than one way to measure a rack. In fact, quantifying wildlife anatomy is an old idea with lots of variation. We see reflections of hunters’ preoccupation with trophy parts in cave paintings and Medieval heraldry. One way of assessing antler size, the water-displacement method, borrows heavily from Archimedes, a 3rd-century B.C. physicist who lived in the Sicilian city of Syracuse. Archimedes famously used a principle that’s now known by his name to determine the fraudulency of a royal crown. According to chroniclers, Archimedes determined that the buoyant force
on an object submerged in liquid is equal to the weight of the fluid that’s displaced by the object and that a more dense object displaces more liquid. In other words, it’s possible to accurately measure the volume of irregularly shaped things—say, a roe deer’s antlers or a king’s supposedly golden crown—by weighing the water that the antlers displace.
Though this measurement method is more than 2,500 years old, it’s still the preferred scoring method for those who want to account for every bit of bone and tusk of a trophy, and who think that “measuring air,” as they call the inclusion of antler-spread measurements, is as meaningless as methods that reward symmetry in their calculations.
Along the way, from the classical age up through the Industrial Revolution, hunters have used methods as varied as mass weight to total points to quantify their trophies. In Europe, as biggame hunting became the exclusive domain of the ruling class, outsized antlers were given majestic names as a way to describe their specialness. Hence, we have “crowns” on the top beams of mature red deer
stags, elk with six points on a side are called “royals,” bulls with seven points are “imperials,” and eight-pointers are “monarchs.”
But language is notoriously imprecise, and scoring methods were so arbitrary that pitched arguments and sometimes physical fights were sparked over which hunter’s trophy was the more “worthy,” according to subjective standards.
The idea of an aesthetic ideal shows up in what’s called the Nadler System of big-game scoring. In the late 1800s, as Europeans moved to cities in great waves of relocation, Hungarian naturalist Herbert Nadler was developing a system for measuring the antlers of red deer, fallow deer, and roe deer, all of which were abundant in the forests and on the estates of central Europe’s ruling class. Nadler’s scoring system, which is still used in large part by the CIC,
or Conseil International de la Chasse, considers beam length, the dry weight of antlers measured 90 days after the kill, and deducts points for “defects,” such as irregular beam length or non-typical tines.
Nadler’s system was the first to incorporate “beauty points,” features like antler “pearling,” dark coloration, and intact tine tips, to arrive at a score. Nadler’s system also rewards symmetry.
In America in the late 1800s, most scoring methods simply considered the length of the longest beam. But that rewarded “freaks” that, due to an injury or genetic mutation, grew outlandishly long headgear on one side and puny spikes on the other, hardly a “trophy” either from an aesthetic standpoint or as the product of healthy habitat.
The urbanization and industrialization of North America, which followed that of Europe by about 20 years, may have razed forests and encouraged settlement of wilderness areas, but it also had an important effect on Americans’ consideration of big-game heads. For much of the country’s settlement phase, when a whitetail deer’s main value was its ability to feed a family, antlers were considered superfluous adornments. But as industrialization gave Americans more leisure time, and as markets for foodstuffs replaced subsistence hunting, the emergence of “the sport” defined a hunter who pursued animals not because he had to but because he (and it was nearly always a male) wanted to. For the sport, trophy parts were everything, and roughly at the turn of the 20th century, the rise of local big-game contests created a new imperative for a consistent scoring method.
On the way to widely accepted standards, regional variations had to be resolved.
You can still spot many of these regionalisms. The Virginia Peninsula Sportsmen’s Association, which claims the Old Dominion’s first big-game contest, penalizes “non-symmetry, random prongs, and excess spread” in their scoring. Hunters in many Great Lakes states and provinces reward the heaviest carcass, not the animal’s headgear, with trophy status. And, of course, there’s still the issue of how to differentiate the larger antlers and horns of pen-raised animals from those that have to survive in the wild, living lives that are often “nasty, brutish, and short.” Not unlike the way human lives were once characterized at the dawn of the industrial age.
But at the turn of the 19th century, as big-game contests offered increasingly hefty purses, organizers struggled to find a uniform and fair method of evaluating horns, antlers, and skulls of animals.
The first super-sized big-game contest in America was the 1895 Sportsmen’s Exposition, held in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. By this time, the Boone and Crockett Club was
nearly a decade old and had started to develop its reputation as a serious voice in matters of big-game hunting, classification, and promotion. Possibly to give the exposition’s contest the luster of respectability, judges were Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and Archibald Rogers, all Boone and Crockett Club founders.
The topic of big-game heads as a way to memorialize a depleted wild kingdom must have been top of mind for these early conservation leaders. That same year, 1895, B&C members Roosevelt, Madison Grant, and William Hornaday established the New York Zoological Society and lobbied for the creation of a zoological park, or zoo.
We now think of zoos as venues for field trips where visitors learn about wildlife and the natural world in tightly managed environments. But early zoos established in the larger cities of Europe and North America were considered essential for the preservation of species vanishing under the tide of progress.
In the first decade of the new century, both in Europe and North America, the
majority of citizens lived in urban areas. The 1920 U.S. Census revealed that, for the first time in the country’s history, more Americans lived in cities than in rural areas. In these years before fish and wildlife departments or federal land management agencies, the few protected areas were—thanks to Roosevelt’s administration—national parks, forest reserves, and national monuments.
Zoos had been established in larger European cities by the middle of the 19th century, but they were slow to come to America. The Philadelphia Zoo, the nation’s first, opened to the public in 1874, followed by zoos in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Baltimore, and Cleveland in the next couple of years. The Bronx Zoo, founded by the New York Zoological Society, aimed to house animals whose wildness seemed to be perishable. Early residents of the Bronx Zoo were the last remaining wild bison shipped from Yellowstone Park and western rangelands.
But the Bronx Zoo is remarkable for another reason. It’s the first repository for the National Collection of Heads and Horns, an
The New York Times article was published May 26, 1922.
assemblage (at that time) of over 700 trophies representing all the big-game species of North America, plus a few from other continents. It’s worth noting that when the collection was officially consecrated in 1922, it was dedicated “In Memory of the Vanishing Big Game of the World.”
The National Collection, plus the growing number of big-game contests, and a rising interest in the conservation status of America’s remaining huntable biggame populations, all combined to focus the Boone and Crockett Club’s attention on the matter of big-game scoring, which had been percolating among club members for at least 25 years.
The club’s first record book, compiled in cooperation with the New York Zoological Society, was published in 1932, the work of long-time member Prentiss Gray. Titled Records of North American Big Game, the publication listed trophies based on that old American ideal of objectivity: the length of longer horn or antler, plus the length of the skull, and a basal circumference.
But the book also included a chapter from Grancel Fitz, a commercial photographer and hard-bit big-game hunter who had his own ideas about how to measure and quantify trophy heads. Following World War
II, as professional wildlife managers turned their attention to conserving wildlife habitat and inventorying big-game species, the democratization of trophy hunting resulted in more records and a dizzying variety of antler and horn configurations coming to the measuring table. How to appropriately deal with not only the qualities that make a trophy a trophy—size, maturity, representative conformation, and the methods of take— but also how to deal with outliers brought Fitz back to the fore.
The Club leaned on Fitz, Samuel Webb, and taxidermist James Clark to consider creating an objective scoring system that emphasized a species’ most normal or common antler or horn configurations and bilateral symmetry.
Fitz brought a number of considerations to the Club’s system, including accounting for antler spread, tine length, and abnormal points. But none was as influential as his belief that scoring a trophy should be easy and accessible for every hunter. He pushed for inexpensive and widely distributed copies of the Club’s measuring guides, a volunteer corps of certified scorers, and stressed that all measurements could be made at home or in the field with a commonly available ¼-inch steel tape.
With a few modifications since it was adopted by the Club in 1950, Fitz’s system forms the basis of the Boone and Crockett scoring methods and the Club’s extensive records. But, just as hunters have been doing for millennia, there are vocal critics of the system. Some consider deductions for asymmetry to be punitive. Others quibble about its de-emphasis of antler mass.
As has been happening for centuries, new systems pop up periodically to address these perceived shortcomings. The Buckmasters Full-Credit Scoring System, developed over the last decades, doesn’t require a drying period and intends “to measure every inch of antler and classify it accordingly, rather than forcing it to conform to a standard of perfection.” Similarly, the SCI System, developed by Safari Club International, doesn’t deduct for asymmetry but does allow high fence entries. The Boone and Crockett records prohibit entry of game taken on game farms or high-fence enclosures.
As much as the Boone and Crockett system’s emphasis on symmetry is criticized, it can also be celebrated as a
return to the origin of various scoring systems. Symmetry, noted drafters of the B&C system, isn’t just an aesthetic consideration. It’s also a reliable indicator of the best representation of a big-game species. A trophy’s score, they stressed, shouldn’t simply celebrate an individual outsized animal. It should also give future humans an idea of the appearance and even behavior of a species of wildlife that could disappear from the planet at any time.
After all, one of the original reasons the Club established a record-keeping system was to memorialize the bounty of wildlife that our young country was losing to indiscriminate slaughter and headlong industrialization of habitat. Once Club members worked to establish rules and regulations, the records became a way to measure the progress of their conservation efforts. Today, world’s records are broken frequently and the number of entries continues to grow. While there is still plenty of conservation left to accomplish, the records indicate that we’re heading in the right direction. n
A Joint Official Measurers Manual for the Boone and Crockett Club and Pope and Young Club. The most up-todate scoring techniques with easy-to-follow instructions for the categories recognized by each organization.
n Softcover, spiral bound edition
n Over 150 drawings, photos, and maps
n 9.5 x 11.375 inches
n 280 pages
n Full color
Over the last two decades, the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation has become a catch-all term for a conservation system built more than a century ago. The Club and its members were integral in its creation.
With a hunting license and elk tag in my pocket, I park at a trailhead at the end of a Forest Service road. I’m on the hunt for a brow-tined bull because that’s what the regulations say that I can shoot. If I manage to kill one by divine intervention, I will carve it into manageable chunks and pack it out to my truck, leaving only a gut pile and rib cage behind. When I get it home, I’ll hang the meat in a cool garage for a few days, take it down, and cut it up into more manageable pieces. My family of four will dine on elk steaks, burgers, jerky, and meatballs for the rest of the year. This is how hunting— and wildlife management— work here in Montana, the United States, and Canada.
That opportunity to bring home hundreds of pounds of meat courtesy of a well-placed shot, some sweat equity, and public land is made possible by a number
of conservation principles that set the U.S. and Canada apart from the rest of the world. Those principles are lumped together under one name: the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. To be clear, the principles preceded the “Model,” and the term is simply a way for us to conveniently talk about conservation in the U.S. and Canada.
The Model is not a topic you’ll likely discuss at a Super Bowl party or hunting camp. It’s not an algorithm wildlife biologists use to write their management plan, and it doesn’t prescribe any action. Nor do you find this Model in jolly old England, the rest of Europe, or the balance of the world. But to understand the Model is to understand why hunting as we know it exists in North America. today. The Model exists to synthesize these core tenets of our system of
wildlife conservation and to differentiate wildlife management and conservation in the U.S. and Canada from other forms worldwide.
GENESIS OF THE MODEL
Much of the credit for creating the Model goes to the late Boone and Crockett Club Professional Member Valerius Geist. He was born in Ukraine in 1938, raised in Austria and Germany, and immigrated to Canada in 1953, earning a Ph.D. in zoology at the University of British Columbia in 1967.
“To understand the genesis of the Model, you have to go back to Geist,” says Club Professional Member John Organ, Chief Emeritus of the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units. Organ was Chief of Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Cooperative Wildlife Research Units of the
U.S. Geological Survey. “Geist lived under totalitarian regimes, then moved to Canada, which helped prompt him to examine what was different in North America.” Organ and Professional Member Shane Mahoney, colleagues and close friends of Dr. Geist, collaborated with him and wrote extensively on the Model. Organ emphasizes that the Model itself has no legal standing. Still, the seven principles that comprise the Model are embedded in law or legal policy—much of which was created by early Boone and Crockett Club members.
To illustrate those seven principles that comprise the Model, let’s return to the mountains of Montana for my fantasy elk hunt. There are elk on the landscape for me to hunt because those elk belong to the people of Montana—not to any one individual, like a
king or a president, for instance. This legal doctrine, the basis of which comes from our state constitutions and from 19th-century case law, places wildlife resources in a public trust. In other words, those elk are managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks for the general public, the beneficiaries of that trust. The elk, along with marmots, grouse, pronghorn, and all fish and wildlife species, don’t belong to the governor, a game commissioner, or a private landowner. This concept of the public trust doctrine is the bedrock principle on which all the other principles build.
This public trust doctrine in the United States dates back to an 1842 Supreme Court ruling in which a landowner claimed exclusive rights to oysters in a New Jersey mudflat. The landowner claimed rights over water, land, and everything in/on it because the King of England said he could have it back in 1674. In reviewing the case, Chief Justice Roger Taney drew heavily from the Magna Carta, which drew from Roman laws of the
second century, which drew on Ancient Greek law. In short, the landowner lost the case because the court ruled the public maintained a common right to fish in navigable and tidal water because those waters and their underlying lands were kept in trust by the state for the common use of the people.
What do oysters and mudflats have to do with elk?
That ruling built case law, and in 1896, Geer v. Connecticut cemented the notion that wildlife is a state resource. A hunter named Edward Geer legally killed some birds and wanted to sell them in another state. The state argued Geer could not transport birds over state lines, and Geer disagreed. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled again in favor of the state’s authority to manage wildlife for the common good.
Let’s pretend that on my hypothetical elk hunt, I have two tags and kill two elk, a bull and a cow. While my family only needs one elk, I better have a plan for the second one—and it can’t include selling the meat. Another vital principle in the North American system is that markets for game, shorebirds, and songbirds have been eliminated.
When the Boone and Crockett Club was founded in 1887, the founding members knew that the nation’s desire for decorative
feathers to adorn ladies’ hats and meat to supply western mining camps and restaurants was unsustainable. Through the efforts of Club members, Congress passed legislation like the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act (1894), the Lacey Act (1900), and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918) to stem the annihilation and sale of wildlife. I can give my second elk away to a food bank or neighbor, but I cannot sell it to a restaurant down the street.
Two more principles of the Model reflect why I was able to buy a tag for a bull and a cow. First, through a series of public meetings with hunters, landowners, and other members of the public, the fish and game commissioners decided how many elk tags of each variety would be issued and to whom. Through the lens of the Model, this is considered the allocation of wildlife by law. Wildlife is a public resource managed by the government. Hunting regulations set seasons, bag limits, and license requirements and are the ways in which the government allocates access to that wildlife. My state’s regulations this year allow me to kill a cow and a bull. In other years, these same laws might not. In addition, the law also says it would be illegal for me to kill a grizzly bear that I glass on the other side of the drainage. For the time being, that bear is
The Impact Series is dedicated to showing how sportsmen, members of the Boone and Crockett Club in particular, saved the wildlife and wild places of the United States. Early members of the Boone and Crockett Club comprised the movers, shakers, and initiators of the American conservation movement. They were hunters, anglers, explorers, lawmakers, soldiers, and, above all, conservationists. These members established laws that allowed our wildlife resources to flourish. They also protected landscape-scale geologic marvels and American icons like Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Denali, and many, many more. These members may no longer be with us, but their legacy remains. This series aims to honor their accomplishments and remind us of the good work still to do.
READ MORE FROM THE IMPACT SERIES
protected under the Endangered Species Act.
But what if every hunter who has two tags actually kills two elk? Wouldn’t that destroy the elk population? To begin with, only 10 percent of hunters actually kill an elk in Montana. But this question brings up another principle of the Model, and that is science is the proper tool upon which to execute wildlife policy. In the 1930s, wildlife managers, in particular Aldo Leopold, emphasized and encouraged the application of science to guide wildlife management decisions.
Let’s say a graduate student (perhaps from the Boone and Crockett Club’s University Programs) spent two years researching the area where I had two elk tags in my pocket, and they found that there were indeed too many elk on the landscape. Using hunters like me as a tool, managers hoped to reduce the elk numbers a bit.
The fact that I was using the elk to fill my freezer and feed my family follows another principle, which is that wildlife can only be killed for a legitimate
purpose. That purpose is to eat. I also buy a wolf tag. I never see, only hear, wolves where I hunt. But I buy a tag anyway. Should I kill one, I trust that the wildlife managers have based their tag allocations on sound science, to achieve specific management objectives. But the principle dictates that I will only kill that wolf if I will use it in a legally responsible manner, such as for its fur.
While elk hunting, I heard a flock of snow geese honking well above a layer of clouds. They were coming from Alaska and heading to warmer climes in Arizona or New Mexico. Around 1900, there were maybe 3,000 of these honkers in the entire world. Today, there is an estimated population of 6 million. Why the resurrection? Mainly because these wildlife species are considered an international resource. Some species, such as migratory birds, cross international boundaries. The Boone and Crockett Club recognized this early on and worked to establish the National Wildlife Refuge System to ensure these
migratory birds had sufficient habitat across their range in 1903. Then in 1916, the Club helped ratify a treaty with Great Britain (Canada), which led to the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) to establish federal control over the hunting of migratory birds.
And finally, the Model addresses access to wildlife. I don’t mean trespassing on private land to kill an elk. I mean the fact that I am allowed to hunt wildlife even though I do not own a farm or descend from nobility—as far as I know. In many countries across the world, access
to hunting was and still is restricted to the elite, royalty, wealthy, connected, and/or landowning. In the U.S. and Canada, Joe and Josephine Public have the right to access and hunt public wildlife. Under the North American Model, this equitable access to wildlife (and hunting) is called the democracy of hunting. Boone and Crockett Professional Member John Organ has written and lectured on this principle, citing both Roosevelt and Leopold, who champion the rights of all citizens to hunt—regardless of title, economic status, or acres owned.
THE MODEL TODAY
It’s been more than a dozen years since I’ve brought home an elk, which might explain my need to play make-believe in this article. During those years of unpunched tags, political administrations have come and gone, both at the state and national level. With those shifting tides, the Club and its members have been involved in legislation and regulations underpinning all aspects of the Model.
The principles of the Model are always being tested and evaluated within our society today. Increasing political and societal pressures challenge our system of wildlife conservation, including “ballot box biology” on predator control and reintroduction efforts. While this flies in the face of a science-based approach to wildlife management, it’s not the only principle that is challenged.
Let’s say that on my elk hunt, I happen to kill the new World’s Record elk. I told you it was make-believe. I could not sell the meat, but those antlers would fetch six figures—and it would be legal to sell them. Is that not a market in big game even though I took the elk in fair chase and with the proper license? What if I killed that elk with a special tag that allowed me to hunt 365 days out of the year? What if that tag cost me $400,000? Is that equitable access to wildlife (and hunting)? These are modern-day challenges to the Model and topics for which the Club has taken positions. Markets in hunting might actually be a boon to the hunter's image. In a discussion with Organ about the Model, he brings up urban deer hunts in places in and around big cities where an abundance of whitetails have taken over the
landscape. Instead of employing sharpshooters, hunters could, with certain credentials, kill these urban deer and sell the meat to locavores who crave locally-raised meat and veggies. Hunters feed the community and provide a public service. Win-win. “But that’s a slippery slope,” Organ warns. “Markets can only be considered as a last resort.” Again, the principles of the Model are based in law; the Model itself is not law.
But, Organ warns, don’t get hung up on the Model. Don’t allow it to become a bigger distraction to the bigger problems that hunters— and all of humanity—face today. “What we really need is to focus on the things that we don’t have any legal means to address, such as climate change and its effect on wildlife, landscape-level issues like habitat protection, energy development, both renewable and nonrenewable, and invasive species,” Organ says. “Maybe one of the biggest issues is society’s detachment from nature. If we’re to sustain viable wildlife populations in a culture that appreciates wildlife for consumptive and nonconsumptive purposes, we must look forward, not backward.”
With a basic understanding of the Model, hunters, bird watchers, anglers, and anyone else who enjoys wildlife can understand what makes North American wildlife management unique. Hunting plays a large role in that, but it’s not the only role. If we simply take a moment and stop to think about what we are doing regarding wildlife management, then we can move forward on true conservation work that will keep wild land and wildlife healthy for generations to come. n
Edited by Bruce D. Leopold, Winifred B. Kessler, and James L. Cummins
A basic understanding of wildlife law and policy is essential knowledge for anyone who aspires to work in wildlife management and other natural resource fields. Now, for the first time, students and professionals have all the information they need in one comprehensive volume.
Since its founding in 1887, the Boone and Crockett Club has been a major force for laws and policies to secure the future of North America’s wildlife and wild places. The Club’s contributions run like indelible threads throughout the fabric of North America’s conservation history. It is most fitting that this comprehensive treatise was conceived and created by the Boone and Crockett Club.
The book begins by examining the need for, and history of, wildlife policy and law; wildlife and gun ownership; wildlife law enforcement; constitutional authorities and jurisdictions; how laws and policies are made; statutory law and agency rule-making; relationships of Indigenous peoples to natural resources; and subsistence resource use. Building on this foundation are detailed sections addressing:
n The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation
n Jurisdictions in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with detailed coverage of key federal laws
n The roles of state and provincial agencies, Native American tribes, and conservation organizations
n International wildlife conservation
n Policy jobs in conservation
n Roles of politics, professionals, and the public
n The book’s extensive coverage makes it an excellent reference for anyone interested in natural resource management, public policy, or environmental law.
n 8x10 hardcover
n 648 pages
n Full color
n Over 250 photos, tables, figures, and maps
We’ve just awarded over $20,000.00 worth of free prizes! A random drawing was held July 10, 2024, to select winners. Your number of free, automatic entries in the drawing was based on your level of membership. It’s just another way we say thanks for supporting conservation and the Boone and Crockett Club!
First Place Winner
Roger K. - New London, WI
Ravin R29X Crossbow in Kings XK7 Camo
Third Place Winner
Second Place Winner
Jarred E. - Norwood Young America, MN
Bergara B-14 Squared Crest Rifle
It did not take long for Cindy and I to make the decision to establish the Boone and Crockett Club Foundation in our estate plans soon after I became a regular member back in 2011. After all, the Club met all our requirements for responsible wildlife conservation, and we were both honored to make that decision. It’s one we’ve never regretted. It is our hope that you will join us in this endeavor by putting aside something in your own estate for the future of wildlife in North America.
Due to the stresses of climate change on our planet, we can no longer assume that wildlife and their wild places will remain as they are today without our help. I look at it as a small down payment for our future generations, so they can continue to experience the joy of the outdoors in their lifetimes as we have. Please join us in working to ensure this future for them.
The Boone and Crockett Club Foundation can help with your plan. Call today: Winton C. Smith, J.D. 1-800-727-1040
Each book was authored by a member of the Boone and Crockett Club in the late 1800s or early 1900s and hand-selected for digital re-mastering by a panel of experts on vintage hunting literature. Readers will be taken back to a time when hunting trips didn't happen over a weekend, but were adventures lasting weeks or months. High-quality photographs and drawings from decades long gone are scattered throughout these titles.
Acclaimed wildlife artist John Seerey-Lester takes you on a historic journey in words and paintings that will make you feel as though you were there, sharing the exciting adventures with the former president.
This book features over 50 true stories devoted to Roosevelt’s most spectacular hunts on three continents. Complementing SeereyLester’s fascinating text are some 120 of his paintings and sketches, which altogether provide a fascinating glimpse into the life of the former president and his passion for wildlife and adventure.
n Includes exclusive Boone and Crockett Club content, not found in the regular edition. LESS THAN 50 BOOKS LEFT!
n Special tipped-in signature page autographed by John Seerey-Lester.
n Comes with a signed giclée print, “TR and Skip Headin’ Home” by John Seerey-Lester.
n Gilt edges, and a gold foil stamped cover in a matching slipcase.
LIMITED TO 1,000 COPIES! ONCE THEY ARE SOLD OUT, NO MORE WILL BE PRINTED.
RECORDS OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME, 15TH EDITION
| $200
n Listings of more than 36,000 native North American big game trophies in 38 categories—an increase of over 4,500 trophies from the previous edition—including B&C final and gross scores, detailed measurements, plus location and year taken.
n Two new World’s Records since the previous edition— musk ox and bighorn sheep.
n Stories, photos, and score charts for the World’s Records in all 38 categories, plus over 300 photographs of the top-ranking animals.
By Robert M. Anderson
Content is classic Great Rams style with stories of legendary sheep hunters and guides, and features on hunting adventures in Alaska, Colorado, and Yukon, women hunting guides, and a four-part section on translocation efforts, not to mention an in-depth look at yesterday’s—and today’s—sheep hunter in an extensive field photo chapter. Bonus material includes a complete list of official B&C trophies for wild sheep from the beginning of B&C’s record-keeping activities in the early 1900s up through September 30, 2018.
n Numbered and signed by author Robert Anderson
n 10.75 x 10.25 inches
n 416 pages, full color printing
n Hardcover with dust jacket
Visit www.Boone-Crockett.org to see a complete list of the
n Over 600 color photographs of hunters in the field.
n Entertaining chapters and photo essays that every outdoorsman will enjoy including updates on the current status of desert bighorn sheep and Columbia blacktail deer, a special photo essay about wildlife artist Bob Kuhn, plus special sections on Betty and Grancel Fitz, the Club's National Collection of Heads and Horns and stories about trophies lost to history.
hats, shirts, and gifts available, or call 888/840-4868 to order.
MARK J. SHUTEY
Hunting and participation in the great outdoors have evolved over the years. For many, an outdoor legacy passed from older generations to younger ones has built a strong foundation of conservation and mutual respect. However, today’s landscape is much different. Hunters and anglers make up less than 30 percent of all outdoor enthusiasts. New sports and endeavors, as do new sportsmen and women, fill our waters and fields. The inheritance of knowledge once assumed has slowly been lost over time. The result is a gradual loss of tradition and deference.
As a native Montanan, I was blessed at a young age to have a grandfather and uncles who showed me the ropes even before I was of legal age to hunt. They taught me simple things like how to place my feet with each step, how to hold a knife, and how to safely load, carry, and unload a firearm. My family’s guidance created the foundation for my 28-year career as a professional big-game hunting guide.
As a professional guide and outfitter, I found that one’s education in the Rocky Mountains never truly ends. In fact, with each day, each week, and each passing season, there is always more to learn and more to be shared. In the spirit of sharing and teaching the next generation of hunters the unwritten rules of hunting camp—or any camp— here are my top 10 rules for the modern hunter.
If you happen upon a sportsman or woman afoot in the field, do not step on the gas and leave them in a cloud of dust. Stop your rig. Ask if they need assistance. Maybe they are lost or stuck. Perhaps they need a ride to town. Always treat others as you would like to be treated because it could very well be you who popped a sidewall and neglected to bring a jack. It could be you walking 15 miles to reach cell service.
There’s no excuse for leaving anything behind in the backcountry or in the frontcountry—be it a tin can in a fire ring or a spent shell casing. Leave No Trace principles apply to hunters just as much as they apply to backpackers, climbers, and other outdoor enthusiasts. This means minimizing the impacts of campfires by using established fire rings, camping on durable surfaces (not riparian areas), and the list goes on.
8.
There are prime hunting spots, better mushroom crops, preferred camping areas, and superior fishing holes. However, nothing defeats the purpose of your trip—hopefully to relax—more than creating a lose/lose scenario from the start. If someone beats you to your favorite trailhead, don’t try to race them up the trail. Simply execute a backup plan. Serendipity often rules in these scenarios and it is possible that plan B may produce a better result. Needless competition over public access has ruined many family outings and even resulted in fisticuffs.
Don't invite yourself to investigate if you are out and about on your ATV and happen upon an empty camp or an unlocked Jeep on an old two-track. It's not a rummage sale. In the backcountry, even the smallest items are essential to survival. A lantern is not a high-ticket item, but its light when one returns to a dark camp is critical. A first aid kit, pistol, and chainsaw can all mean the difference between life and death. Plus, it’s not yours.
All outdoorsmen and women take great pride in their knowledge of particular areas, especially when studying the local herds and memories of past success takes years. When an individual personally invites you to join in their sacred activity and openly shares that knowledge with you, it is not an open invitation for you to return to the same spot with your friends and their friends. Appreciate and respect the opportunity because it was a gift.
Whether in pursuit of a game animal, fish, flora, fauna, or the perfect photograph, always respect your quarry. Do not take low percentage shots at game, nor wipe the slime off every fish you catch and release. Do not stomp the flora and fauna in pursuit of mushrooms for your steak. Reverence for the land and its inhabitants is key to conservation. Waste not want not. This reverence should continue through the processing, preparation, and consumption of the harvest.
4.
UTVs, electric bikes, vehicles, and horses all share the primitive roads in the West. Know the laws, but more importantly, understand the damage that can be done. Keep to designated routes, be aware of your surroundings, and utilize caution. Road restrictions are in place to prevent motorized vehicle access and protect the land. Just because an e-bike has an electric motor does not exclude it from these same regulations. UTVs can get to offroad areas easily, but that does not mean they should. Knowing who has the right of way on a crowded two-track is also essential. The vehicle or UTV traveling downhill on an icy mountain road should always pull aside and allow the uphill vehicle to pass because a vehicle can always gain momentum going down.
Obviously, it is against the law to trespass or hunt on private property without permission, but we should not stop there as sportsmen and women. We should respect the rights of others on public land, too. If an outfitter or family camp sits over the next ridge and you know a dozen people will be hunting that area, you probably want to find a new hunting spot. If you see an angler on the river hauling in trout, do not crowd them. Ask what they are hitting on and find your own hole up or downstream. If we all do our best to accommodate one another, we can collectively improve each other’s outdoor experience.
The technology available today is astounding when compared to just ten years ago. Phones, GPS devices, trail cameras, map apps and tracking systems have opened a new world of adventure. Hunters, hikers, fishermen, and bird watchers have adopted these new technologies and gained a new confidence when it comes to exploring deeper into the wilderness. This is not necessarily a problem. However, when one ventures into the mountains with their head down they’re typically not paying attention to their surroundings. They are not finding landmarks to guide them home. Both extreme cold and heat negatively affect batteries, clouds and a thick timber canopy can block satellite reception, and when one falls head over teakettle into a creek, water can put an end to electronics. Being too reliant on technology can and does endanger lives.
Emotions can get the best of us under certain circumstances, but being upset at another hunter who filled their tag should not put us in a bad mood. Instead, celebrate the accomplishments of others when they achieve their goals. If you come across a hunter hauling out an animal, offer a helping hand or a kind word of congratulations. One day it will be your turn. Outdoor pursuits are meant to be entertaining and enjoyed. It’s not a place for competition and envy. Leave the egos at home.
This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good start to ensuring that we all enjoy our time afield. Lucky for me I had mentors who took the time to share their knowledge of and respect for the outdoors. Hopefully this list can help others on the trail to becoming a lifelong hunter. With a little luck, the next generation can turn down the noise, and open their ears and hearts to fully appreciate and conserve our unique gift of hunting. n
I learned deer hunting from my father, Earl Waters. He started deer hunting with his brother Bob in the 1950s. On his first hunt, he took a nice 150-class typical whitetail. The older picture is, left to right, of his brother Bob, my brother Jim, Dad, and my sister LouAnn. Dad talked me into trying deer hunting again in 1987 (I had tried as a teen but never harvested a deer). Dad worked with me on my hunting techniques, and I drew a buck tag. Because of my father, I was able to harvest my first deer, a new Kansas state record firearms non-typical (280-4/8 points). – Joseph Waters
How can you not love old photo albums of hunting trips? The vintage clothing, gear, cars, and looks of pure joy on people’s faces are a window into hunting’s rich heritage. They remind you of a time when things were a bit slower and simpler. Yet as much as we cherish those classic nostalgia-inducing shots, it’s also exciting to think that the photos we capture today will one day evoke that same sense of wonder in the next generation. They might laugh at our camo and wonder why we rode horses instead of strapping ourselves to a drone.
want to see more vintage field pHotos? CHeCk out our vintage Hunting galleries online!
This is a photo of a buck that either my grandfather or his brother shot in 1935. They hunted for years near Crater Mountain in Northern California, east of Eagle Lake. This photo appeared in a hunting magazine in December 1935. The article was from a person doing a write-up on California deer hunting. My grandfather told me that his brother killed the deer, but that he did not want his image in a hunting magazine, so they gave a photo to the man writing the article of my grandpa. The hunters took many photos of their hunts out of the same camp they hunted for 10 or so years. According to the magazine article the outside spread of that deer was 35-7/8 inches. – Ray Papa
Steve Boero sent us these shots of his wife's family from Bieber, California, in the 1930s. Both bucks were shot in Northern California close to Bieber. The ladies in the picture, (Mary and Gertie) married brothers, Oral and Orie Gerig. "The young man is one of the brothers, but I’m not sure which. The wide buck is in my collection and scores 203," says Steve, who is no stranger to hunting. He took a Columbia blacktail deer in 2013 and a Coues' whitetail deer in 2003.
MAY 2024 - JUNE 2024 -JULY 2024
boone-crockett.org/adventures-archives-mel-johnsonsworlds-record-archery-whitetail
Mel Johnson’s World’s Record Archery Whitetail
Armed with a crewcut, a plaid coat, and a recurve, Mel Johnson hunkered down in a homemade ground blind on the edge of a soybean field hoping to get a shot at a big buck he’d seen cruising the area.
boone-crockett.org/big-game-records-live Antler Analytica is an antler geek's dream and the newest addition to Big Game Records LIVE. It’s the latest in a suite of research tools members receive with their Big Game Records LIVE subscription. Slice and dice antler data like never before!
boone-crockett.org/news
Club Statement on Wyoming Wolf Situation | May 2024 | The Boone and Crockett Club is saddened and dismayed by recent alleged events of the inhumane handling of a live wolf in Daniel, WY, as well as by the minimal legal ramifications of these actions. Read the rest of the Club’s statement.
Do State Wildlife Councils Work? | June 2024 | In states that leverage a small surcharge on fishing and hunting licenses, public support for hunting and fishing appears to be high.
Club Receives Major Grant | June 2024 | Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund recently provided a $100,000 grant to the Boone and Crockett Club to support policy development and enhance conservation education programs.
Waste Not - An Anti-hunter Rebuttal boone-crockett.org/waste-not-hunt-fair-chase Numerous surveys over the years have shown that the non-hunting public is generally okay with hunting as long as it's for food. However, approval nose-dives when the survey asks them about trophy hunting. Why?
Defining Modern Hunting
www.boone-crockett.org/defining-modernhunting
You cannot say that you are living out an ancient ritual of survival, but you can say that you are part of a 20th-century sustainability movement. Read Simon Roosevelt’s thought-provoking article about Fair Chase and its place in hunting today.
Record-book Royalty
boone-crockett.org/record-book-royalty
Over the years, North America has hosted more than a few hunters with sovereign titles and royal lineage. A few have entered their game into the Boone and Crockett records. Here’s a look at just a few.
Is Trophy Hunting Draining the Gene Pool?
boone-crockett.org/trophy-hunting-draininggene-pool
Take a fresh look at an ill-informed argument from anti-hunters who claim that hunters negatively affect the gene pool of the species they strive to conserve.
Wisconsin Vs. Alaska
boone-crockett.org/state-state-rankings-boone-and-crockett-trophies Which state has the most record-book entries since 2017? You can find out that answer and see how your state stacks up in the latest state-by-state rankings for Boone and Crockett Club trophies.
If you don't receive the Boone and Crockett Club's In the Field e-newsletter, you're missing out on some excellent articles that are published exclusively on our website. You can access an online archive of the most recent In the Field e-newsletters on the Club’s website. Visit www.boone-crockett.org and click on COMMUNITIES, then look for the card pictured at right to find the archive page. Or, scan this QR code to be taken directly there. If you're not receiving the e-newsletter, access SETTINGS under MY ACCOUNT, and make sure the SUBSCRIBE button in the bottom left is checked.
It’s Hot Out There, But Not as Hot as This Installment boone-crockett.org/more-score-volume-15
If you like big elk and you cannot lie, then take a gander at what we have for you. There’s a state record, a near Montana state record, and a Nevada beast that comes in as number four for the state.
Photo Bombers oone-crockett.org/wildlife-caught-camera-volume-13
The animals that roam the 6,000acre Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front know every inch of their habitat. So when researcher Chris Hansen sets out dozens of cameras, those critters take notice. We pulled together some of the more amusing close-ups and candid shots of wildlife on the ranch, from grizzlies to ground squirrels.
boone-crockett.org/tags/provincial-big-game-records
Alberta
In 1926, Ed Broder killed the biggest mule deer ever to grace the records. It remains in the pole position today. As if that wasn’t enough to entice hunters to hunt the “Energy Province,” there is a solid chance hunters will encounter record-book bighorns, cougars, pronghorn, bison, musk ox, elk, and moose. Let’s face it, the place pretty much has it all. Check out the records and see for yourself.
Chances are you will kill a bigger alligator than deer here, but that doesn't mean you can’t try because non-typical entries are solid. In 2020, a hunter killed a buck that scored 275-5/8 points in Richland County in the northeast corner. The odds, though, are best if you hunt a little further south—just keep an eye out for the reptiles.
boone-crockett.org/tags/bc-member-spotlight Philip Crowe
Magnificent Mule Deer
boone-crockett.org/vintage-hunting-gallery-volume-12
Mule deer are just cool. Hunters have appreciated their coolness for a long time— as you can see from this gallery. Enjoy this trip down memory lane.
Before spearheading international conservation efforts as director of the World Wildlife Fund, this member was busy gathering secret intelligence during World War II.
As the coalition commander who drove Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait in 1991, General Norman Schwarzkopf was also an avid hunter and advocate for grizzly bears.
Conservation is a positive exercise of not merely a negative exercise of abstinence or caution.
—Aldo Leopold
Read more about mountain lion ecology in South Texas on page 58.
The field of game management has ancient roots. Hunting, of course, has a long and distinguished history and pre-history across human civilizations, and antecedents of modern game management practices can be found in many ancient societies worldwide. In the Bible, Deuteronomy 22:6 describes a prohibition on the killing or take of female nesting birds. In the sixth century A.D., the Roman emperor Justinian recognized the right of landowners to prevent trespassing on their property for hunting purposes. And the adventurer Marco Polo (c. 1254-1324) notes the presence of a fairly robust game management system in the lands governed by Kublai Khan (reigned 12601294), complete with closed seasons on most of the big game species, provision of feed for partridges, quail, and other game birds, and numerous professional gamekeepers whose job it was to prevent poaching and to scatter food for the game birds in winter.
In Europe, game management dates back at least to medieval times when royalty and landowners hired wardens and gamekeepers to combat trespass and the poaching of game species on their lands. Restrictions on hunting and the closure of seasons to hunting were among the earliest management tools applied to game populations. Many of the earliest game laws in Europe were quite strict. For example, at the time of William the Conqueror (reigned 10661087), killing one of the king’s deer was considered as serious a crime as killing one of the king’s subjects. Early game laws in many European countries also severely restricted the hunting of game species and access to game lands to royalty, members of the nobility, and landowners.
By the onset of the American Revolution in 1776, 12 of the 13 original colonies had enacted some form of harvest restrictions on game species in the United States. In Great Britain, the Game Act of 1831 established closed seasons on game birds and
made it lawful to take game species only when in possession of a game license. Resident game licenses were introduced in the United States by New York in 1864 and non-resident licenses by New Jersey in 1864.
Further refinements of game management in the United States and Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries included forms of predator control; the establishment of formal “game lands,” parks, forests, and refuges; game population enhancement through captive propagation and restocking; and attempts to control environmental factors related to habitat quality and quantity. However, despite the best intentions in enacting and applying these provisions, many game species continued to decline.
Advances in forestry helped catalyze a scientific revolution in wildlife management in the early twentieth century. In the late nineteenth century, European foresters recognized that certain management practices could help restore forest
Jonathan R. Mawdsley B&C PROFESSIONAL MEMBER CHIEF OF THE COOPERATIVE FISH AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH UNITS
stands to robust health through the “wise use” and judicious harvest of the existing timber resources, promotion of new growth and forest regeneration in harvested areas, active reforestation when needed, and the implementation of techniques to control erosion and promote overall soil health. By introducing scientific principles and practices, it was possible to improve forest health while at the same time ensuring a continued supply of high-quality harvestable timber from the forest. These and related concepts of what became known as scientific forest management were introduced to the United States through new university programs such as the Yale School of Forestry, which was founded in 1900 through a generous gift from Boone and Crockett Regular Member Gifford Pinchot.
A new generation of biologists, trained in these new perspectives of scientific forest management, realized that many of the same principles could be applied to wildlife management. Wildlife populations could be managed directly to provide a surplus of animals which, in turn, could support harvest by the hunting public on a regular and sustainable basis. New scientific
A hunting scene relief on a quartz tile from the 13th or 14th century.
Aldo Leopold wrote Game Management in 1933, which still provides excellent reading and a sound perspective on the subject matter to this day. TOP: Matt Kauffman, Unit Leader, USGS Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, second from left, works with Wyoming Game and Fish Department and University of Wyoming collaborators to release an elk fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) RIGHT: An avian ecologist holds a GPS logger used on robins to collect migratory data.
approaches could be used to collect data on population status and trends, evaluate the effectiveness of habitat management activities, and estimate sustainable harvest levels. Even traditional management interventions such as closed seasons and harvest restrictions could now be evaluated using scientific approaches. Key to this new vision was the management of habitat—defined broadly as places for animals to live, obtain food and water, and raise their young—with the recognition that judicious habitat management could directly benefit wildlife species and lead to a surplus of individuals supporting harvest programs. And if these manipulations were set up as scientific experiments, it would be possible for wildlife managers to learn from these experiments and thereby improve their management recommendations in future years.
A new field of science— known variously as game management or wildlife
management—quickly arose to meet the needs of this new brand of wildlife managers. Many Boone and Crockett Club members played significant roles in the early development of this new science. Our illustrious co-founder, President Theodore Roosevelt, eloquently expressed the importance of science as a tool for discharging public responsibility for the management of game species.
Member Aldo Leopold wrote the first textbook for this new field, 1933’s Game Management , which still provides excellent reading and a sound perspective on the subject matter to this day.
Honorary Life Member Jay “Ding” Darling pioneered the university-based research and training programs that became today’s Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units and also worked to establish separate research stations and centers under the auspices of the federal government, such as the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland.
With this framework firmly in place, wildlife science grew rapidly throughout much of the twentieth century. Wildlife programs were added at colleges and universities, and the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Program grew from an original 9 to the current 43 Units in 41 states.
Wildlife scientists rapidly adopted new advances in other fields of science for wildlife management purposes. Many developments in statistical biology and ecological science found ready applications in the nascent field of wildlife management. Following World War II, developments in radio communications and the ongoing miniaturization of electronics made it possible for wildlife biologists to use radio collars and microtransmitters to track wildlife species. Initially applied to big game species, radio transmitters are now regularly used to study movement patterns of animals as small as hummingbirds and bats.
Advances in satellite technology have also made it possible to study animal distributions and movement patterns more precisely than ever before. The availability of high-resolution satellite imagery of the earth’s surface from the Landsat series of satellites and others has led directly to the development of sophisticated maps of vegetation, land cover, and animal species distribution, such as those produced through the federal and state GAP Analysis programs. And the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network is widely used by hunters, anglers, and many others who enjoy the great outdoors, in addition to the wildlife biologists and scientists who find GPS signals essential for their work in studying wildlife.
Advances in computing power and computer technologies have also driven major advances in wildlife science. In the earliest days, computers filled entire rooms and could be used to solve simple equations related to
wildlife population dynamics. The development of increasingly sophisticated and smaller computing devices—workstations, personal computers, laptops, and smartphones—has revolutionized the ability of biologists to collect, analyze, and share data, as well as communicate research findings to key audiences. Smartphones today provide more computing power than the giant computers of the past. And citizen science apps such as eBird and iNaturalist provide opportunities for hunters, anglers, and other outdoors enthusiasts to contribute in meaningful ways to wildlife science.
The discovery of DNA and the development of increasingly sophisticated DNA extraction and analysis methods are technologies that are finding increasing application in wildlife management and conservation. Developments in these fields are so rapid that what was considered cutting-edge just a few years ago is now regarded as routine. Whole genome extraction and analysis is becoming a routine laboratory activity, and we are only just beginning to
understand the potential value of these techniques for wildlife science and management. The possibilities we understand are exciting. For instance, genomic analysis makes it possible for wildlife biologists to study population structure and identify past bottlenecks in population size, all from a relatively small number of DNA samples, sometimes even a single individual.
The growth in scientific wildlife management during the twentieth century coincided with some of the greatest accomplishments in the management of wildlife species by humans. We need only look to the recovery of migratory waterfowl species, whitetail deer, beaver, turkey, black bear, and many other taxa whose populations had been decimated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by uncontrolled and/or unsustainable harvest. For many of these species, the use of scientific information and scientific principles contributed in meaningful ways to their recovery. But we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. Wildlife today continues to face significant
challenges, including invasive species, disease, increased rates of habitat loss, illegal harvest, and changes in weather and climate.
The good news is that wildlife scientists are actively studying these areas and identifying possible management interventions that could reduce or ameliorate the effects of these threats and stressors on wildlife. Wildlife science has an important role in helping wildlife managers understand the challenges ahead and ensuring a future for all humanity, which includes robust and healthy wildlife populations. n
Wildlife science grew rapidly throughout much of the twentieth century. Wildlife programs were added at colleges and universities, and the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Program grew from an original 9 to the current 43 Units in 41 states.
BX-4 RANGE HD FIND IT. RANGE IT. FASTER.
The buck lay before me, shot through the heart at seven paces. It was a beautiful buck with graceful, high, white antlers. There were eight points if counting one short brow tine—a point “you can hang a ring on,” my uncle explained to me when I first started hunting. According to the official Boone and Crockett criteria, it was only a seven-pointer. Still, it was so satisfying to have this fine buck. It was my first New Hampshire buck. It was déjà vu. I was living out my dream.
I found the deer population in the mountains of central New Hampshire to be a far cry from the Pennsylvania woods of my youth or the southern Ohio hill country that I was used to hunting. The year was 1989, and I entered my fifth season in my new territory. The four prior seasons yielded no bucks in the freezer. I needed a buck. Hunting was in my blood. I
grew up in a hunting family in a hunting community in a hunting state. Deer and the deer woods were an integral part of my life. I was still at an age when having a buck hanging overshadowed other aspects of the hunt. That would change over time, but it had not yet.
A wildlife biologist from a Midwestern university was offended when I disagreed with his statement that a whitetail deer has a one-square-mile home territory for life. I mentioned how the deer where I grew up would migrate from the high plateau in northeastern Pennsylvania to the Delaware River valley in winter, 15 miles or more to the east. He knew the published literature and informed me with an air of total expertise. I was quieted by the tone of his words and their religious acceptance by the room full of scientists. New Hampshire deer studied from a different
textbook, traveling miles from ridge to ridge, dictated by seasonal food distribution, mating season, and coyote densities.
These big woods deer were challenging and required serious commitment to patterning their routine. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, I was accustomed to seeing runways that rivaled the caribou migration trails of the far north. In New Hampshire, I did not find the hint of a runway. These woods held their secrets well.
One of my prime early fall scouting spots was just across the river valley from where we lived. A couple of years before, I had purchased a small parcel of land on which to build a house eventually. There was a modest level area not far off the dirt road, but the rest of the land was the very steep side of a ridge. Immediately to the north were many thousands of acres of undeveloped land
managed for timber. This continued into the White Mountain National Forest. They were big woods in every sense of the word. I wandered near and far. Slowly, feeding areas and travel routes registered in my mind. One preseason outing, just below the ridge, I had the strong premonitionthat someday I would shoot a buck right where I stood.
Those were busy years for me, prepping for a heavy teaching schedule and setting up an ancient, used electron microscope. Like an old truck, loving care was needed to keep it running. Other duties aside from college were there, too. I had a family, and I still needed to clear trees at the future building site. I would spend an hour or two at the lot with the chainsaw in the evenings. I’d park the truck along the dirt road, grab my chainsaw and fuel can, and walk up the old, faint tote road to the clearing.
Modern life can pull us away from our connection with the natural world. Sometimes, nature has a way of pulling us back in.
This column is dedicated to the system that supports the public hunting of public wildlife for all fair chase sportsmen, and the stories and trophies that are the result. Theodore Roosevelt strongly believed that self-reliance and pursuing the strenuous activities of hunting and wilderness exploration was the best way to keep man connected to nature. We score trophies, but every hunt is to some extent a way of measuring ourselves.
Once, before deer season, a deer spooked ahead of me. I saw the body well, moving through the thicket, but did not see the head. I knew that the deer would dress close to 300 pounds. The tracks in the ground added an exclamation point!
The 1989 deer season came, and I spent more time hunting than clearing. I had learned much about my new hunting territory but still lacked pieces of the puzzle. The wilderness character of the country was taking root in my being, though, and I was aware of a growing feel for the woods. This was a good sign.
After a couple of weeks of taking a stand until dusk without any sign of a living deer, responsibility caught up to me. I got back to work.
The night I shifted my focus away from hunting, I had a vivid dream, which would prove a vision. The buck came to me out of the darkness, walking into daylight. He was so close. All my attention was on the rack with high white tines and narrow spread. It was all so clear, except for one hazy brow tine.
Morning came, and my plan for the day was to cut trees. I packed my old .30-30 with iron sights. I had recently purchased a new .308 with iron sights, but I’ve had the .30-30 since I was 12 and felt a bit out of place in the deer woods without it in my hand. I drove to the lot, parked in the usual spot, and followed the now well-worn trail up to my modest clearing, chainsaw in one hand and .30-30 in the other. I rested the rifle on a log, picked up
the chainsaw, and grabbed the handle to start it. Then I stopped. I straightened up and gazed toward the ridge to the north, the boundary of my land. I took the .30-30 from its rest and put in the clip. For some reason, the clip would not feed a round into the chamber, so I slid in a 170-grain soft point by hand, checked the safety, and started up the hill.
It was mid-morning, the frost fading as the sun broke out from the early overcast. The smells of fall surrounded me. I walked slowly until reaching a narrow, previously logged shoulder beneath the cliffs of the ridge top, dense hemlocks to my left and open hardwoods to my right. It was the exact spot where, a month previous, I had the premonition that I would shoot a buck. I stopped, listening. No time passed. I heard the deer, hidden by the hemlock thicket. Its pace was betrayed by the fresh, fallen leaves of autumn. The approach was steady, rhythmic, and in my direction. It was the movement of a buck in rut. I put the rifle to my shoulder with the barrel pointed toward the ground before the thicket.
White antlers broke through the hemlocks into daylight only 30 yards away. I raised the sights to the buck. It was large-bodied, with a swollen neck, and steadily walking directly toward me. The antlers swayed from side to side, and its body bobbed up and down with each step over the uneven ground. I could see the eyes clearly, intent and focused. I stood there in the open but remained undetected.
It was the buck in my dream. I was flooded with emotion but also strangely calm. I understood I had experienced something primal and accepted the buck as a gift.
The buck was so close it seemed an apparition. I felt like a ghost. At seven paces, the buck turned left, and my iron bead settled behind the shoulder. At the shot, I saw hair part over the heart, and the deer fell almost at my feet on bloodless leaves.
It was the buck in my dream. I was flooded with emotion but also strangely calm. I understood I had experienced something primal and accepted the buck as a gift.
I cannot explain the experience. The distractions and routines of modern life clouds our senses, blunts perceptions and dulls our minds. Being alone in nature hones the senses and develops an awareness, a finer sense. Perhaps this relates to
magnetic waves, which birds utilize as they navigate the planet with their biological GPS. Over time, a union of all the senses can produce a vivid appreciation of one’s surroundings.
I believe intuition is very real and results from a synthesis of sensation and past experience stored within the brain’s infinite possibilities. Intuition has been part of my personal experience my entire life, most strikingly when hunting or fishing.
A vision is transcendent and hard to understand, like the moon pulling tides from a quarter million miles away. One can only wonder. Primitive people were acutely aware of their place in the world. In their cultural landscape visions did exist. As a witness, this I know to be true. n
CHLOE NOUZILLE
BOONE AND CROCKETT FELLOW
CAESAR KLEBERG WILDLIFE
RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT TEXAS
A&M UNIVERSITY–KINGSVILLE.
Large carnivores have indirect and direct impacts on their communities, often serving as a keystone species, which has a cascade effect on the landscape. Carnivore management is challenging due to the animals’ low densities, wide-ranging behavior, and the need to navigate complex viewpoints on human-carnivore coexistence. Carnivores require large, continuous habitat spaces to access resources such as prey and mates. As such, carnivores move more than smaller or more generalist species, making them more likely to interact with barriers. Structural barriers (e.g., fencing) represent an additional challenge and can affect wildlife worldwide. Several studies have examined the effects of barriers on movement and connectivity, yet few studies have quantified their effects on carnivore population viability. Understanding the potential impacts of barriers and creating an appropriate management plan can be further complicated when little information exists about the population’s distribution and population dynamics.
Mountain lions ( Puma concolor), a.k.a. cougars, pumas, or catamounts, are popular among hunters and other wildlife enthusiasts. They are the second-largest cat in the Americas, second only to jaguars, and range from the Canadian Yukon to southern Chile. Aside from a small population in Florida, they were extirpated from the eastern U.S. by the early
1900s. As states began ending the bounty on mountain lions and several reclassified them as game animals, populations began to recover.
Texas is the only state that classifies mountain lions as non-game. Hunting is allowed year-round, and reporting harvest is optional. However, recently, Texans called on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to create a lion management plan. In response, TPWD put together the Mountain Lion Stakeholder Group, which consists of 19 members of various backgrounds, including private landowners, ranch managers, houndsmen, researchers, private wildlife biologists, and subject matter specialists. TPWD asked the group to create a report on six items: 1) abundance, status, distribution, and persistence of mountain lions in Texas, 2) development of a management plan, 3) harvest
reporting, 4) trap/snare check standards, 5) harvest/bag limits, and 6) canned hunts.
In January 2024, the group presented their report to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. A clear outcome of the stakeholder’s report is that the scientific community knows little about South Texas lions, including information about their abundance, distribution, and population viability. In May, TPWD commissioners addressed two of these objectives and voted unanimously to ban “canned” hunting of mountain lions, meaning it is no longer legal to capture and later release a mountain lion for the purpose of hunting. Moreover, the commission mandated that live mountain lions be removed from traps within 36 hours. While the stakeholder group agreed that TPWD should develop a mountain lion management plan for Texas, the lack of
data to inform any management changes remains.
While mountain lions are present within West and South Texas, the species has not been formally studied in South Texas in over 20 years, so their current population status is unknown. Additionally, the population faces the construction of a 30-ft tall metal border barrier system separating the United States and Mexico. This barrier can potentially fragment the population by cutting off a source of genetic inflow from Mexican lions. The impact this presents is compounded in this population because it has one of the lowest reported densities of lions in North America and has low levels of genetic diversity. These compounding factors put this population at risk of extirpation. Fortunately, a new research project will identify adverse effects, if any, and suggest possible solutions.
Through the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute (CKWRI), the South Texas Lion Project (STXLP) is working with TPWD and private landowners to study mountain lions in South Texas. Funding for the contract came from Customs and Border Protection through the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Under the guidance of Drs. Lisanne Petracca, Michael Cherry, and David Hewitt, a B&C professional member and director of CKWRI, graduate students are evaluating the potential impacts of the border barrier system on large carnivores. The project assesses transboundary movements, genetic connectivity, and population dynamics of mountain lions. Specifically, we aim to characterize movement behavior and space use near the border barrier system to identify crossing corridors between Mexico and South Texas. We are collecting genetic samples from Texas and New Mexico to analyze the genetic
structure and effective population size of South Texas lions. Lastly, we are investigating foraging behavior and quantifying lion distribution and abundance in the region.
The STXLP started fieldwork in February 2024, and trapping efforts have focused within the “Golden Triangle” between Eagle Pass, Cotulla, and Laredo. Given that Texas is around 95 percent privately owned, the team is especially grateful to the landowners who grant us access to roughly 300,000 acres. In February, the STXLP team placed the first GPS collars on lions in the South Texas region. Lion “P01” is a three-year-old male who weighed 118 pounds at the time of capture. Lion “P02” is roughly 1.5 years old and weighed 116 pounds at capture. Both animals
The mission of the Boone and Crockett Club University Programs is the development of a diverse community of high-impact wildlife conservation leaders.
As a Boone and Crockett fellow and Ph.D. student, I study mountain lion ecology in South Texas through the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University—Kingsville. My goal for the South Texas Lion Project is to calculate lion density, characterize movement behavior and space use near the barrier system, and characterize foraging behavior.
After completing my Ph.D., I will pursue a research-based career in wildlife conservation through a university, NGO, or agency, where I can answer questions that contribute to our understanding of conservation.
I grew up in California and received my B.S. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of California, Irvine. As an undergraduate, I worked as a veterinary technician and a laboratory assistant, but there were few opportunities to participate in nature. After my third year, I was privileged to work as a research assistant at Mabula Game Reserve in South Africa, where I studied the behavior of elephants, rhinos, and lions. This was a pivotal moment that solidified my desire to work with wildlife. Following graduation, I interned with the National Park Service, studying mountain lions in a fragmented landscape, and gained valuable field skills. My M.S. at the University of California, Los Angeles, focused on mammal recovery and recolonization following one of California’s megafires.
were released and are traversing the ranchlands of South Texas while the team closely monitors their movements.
The collars use geofencing, which means they are programmed to switch from a normal fix rate to a high fix rate when the lion moves near the border. This fine-scale data will allow us to characterize lion behavior near the border barrier system, identify corridors critical to gene flow, and investigate clusters that will teach us about habitat use, feeding, and denning behavior. The research team also uses camera traps to survey mountain lions more broadly in the borderlands from Del Rio to Brownsville. We can provide density and distribution estimates using a partially-marked population, photo data, and statistical modeling.
If adverse effects of the border barrier structure are found, we can then identify mitigation strategies. One existing strategy is the installation of crossing gaps measuring 8.5” x 11”, intended to allow lions through the border barrier system without allowing human passage.
The STXLP represents one of the first evaluations of the potential impacts of the border barrier system on a large carnivore. It is important to investigate
ABOVE: An opening in the border barrier system between the U.S. and Mexico that may allow for the passage of wildlife. One of our research goals is to determine if mountain lions use these crossing structures placed every half-mile along the border barrier system.
the current population status of South Texas lions to assess how a barrier might affect a potentially fragile population. In addition to proposing mitigation strategies, we will provide landowners and state agencies with information about lion distribution, abundance, and ecology that can inform potential changes to lion management in Texas. Lastly, our study will reveal the effects of projects to secure the international border on large carnivore conservation and act as a case study for the partnerships required to confront this developing issue. n
The American Sportsman is the most powerful force for conservation in history. Bass Pro Shops® and Cabela’s® is proud to stand alongside our customers in partnership with the Boone and Crockett Club®. Together we are advancing responsible wildlife management, habitat conservation, and ethical fair chase.
Learn more at basspro.com/conservation
- A 50-year quest in Jack O’Connor’s footsteps
I will never forget the first article I read by Jack O’Connor. The year was 1972, and the article “Paradise in Turkistan” was translated from English to my maternal Farsi language. Even though it was a translation, the article struck a chord with me because of how Jack articulated his experience in the Kopet Dagh mountains of northeast Persia. In my family’s hunting culture, proving the hunter’s prowess meant hunting wild chukars in flight. This was considered the royal game (not sheep nor Ibex). After reading his article, I was in love with how Jack romanticized his time afield in my native land, particularly how he described his chase for the wild sheep.
At the time, I could not possibly realize how much the writings of Jack O’Connor would influence my hunting pursuits later in life. I am not just talking about the .270 Winchester as his favorite caliber but rather how he approached hunting the wild sheep with utmost respect and enthusiasm, how he would try and penetrate their comfort zone for a close, clean shot, how he would always choose age and maturity over length and girth, how he would sight-in his rifle to eliminate the guesswork on range estimation and how through his stories, he would transport the reader to the saddle of his packtrain somewhere in the mountains of northern British Columbia. As most of us know, besides his full-time position as the editor of Outdoor Life and Peterson’s Hunting, Jack would eventually become not only the man who popularized sheep
The white sheep of the North…splendid.
hunting but also the honest and vocal advocate/spokesman for wild sheep and one of the first pioneers of the wild sheep conservation movement in North America.
And then life happened. In the following years, I pursued an education in the United Kingdom and the U.S. I worked and started raising a family, which temporarily changed my focus. In 1997, I moved to Alberta and saw the hunting opportunities available for sheep and mountain goats with over-the-counter tags. This opportunity rekindled that passion.
At the same time, I was fortunate to meet my late mentor, Dr. Valerius Geist, at a lecture on mule deer. That lecture transformed the way I looked at hunting and conservation. We connected through a series of lucky events, and I became his lifelong student, learning and implementing his North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Our relationship continued until death took him away in 2021, but his teachings shaped my hunting ethos. Geist himself was an O’Connor student and told me how much Jack had influenced his own prose, and that later in life, had even dedicated one of his last books to Geist.
Enamored with sheep hunting, I was determined to get my hands around the horns of a mature ram, but I was a rookie when it came to sheep hunting in North America. I spent seven seasons with buddies or alone in my beloved Canadian Rockies, looking for a legal ram. Even though I couldn’t connect with a mature legal ram, I had a lot of fun doing it and learned a lot about sheep habitat and how to look for mature rams. Being a mountaineer all my life, besides my love for God and my family, I realized that sheep hunting provided the ultimate high amongst all my outdoor pursuits and that no other activity truly compared.
My first North American hunt for a ram came to fruition in August 2010 on an opportunistic cancellation hunt in northern Yukon Territory. It was a tough, 10-day backpack hunt. When the airline lost my gear, I borrowed some from my guide. Then there was the weather, a grizzly sow and her cubs that bluff-charged our party, abundant wolves, and many mosquitos. The ram
I eventually killed near the end of the hunt was a 10-yearold, doubly broomed Dall’s, which I was lucky to kill at 10 p.m. on a very steep slope. Upon reaching camp at 1 a.m., I made a bonfire, set the ram’s head next to me, and celebrated the major milestone. I also killed an old mature caribou. There were times on that hunt that I would rub my eyes while in the saddle to make sure it was real and not another dream after reading one of Jack’s late-night stories in the Yukon. Having read all of O’Connor’s sheep hunting stories, I had taken my .270 Winchester, convinced that it would do the job well, which it did.
“He has amber eyes and horns the color of dried lemon peel.”
- Jack O'Connor
That hunt taught me several things. I had read the accounts of Charles Sheldon, who hunted in that same area several decades before me. He described abundant sheep, moose, and caribou populations, which we did not encounter. That made me wonder where the game had gone. Upon discussing my findings with Dr. Geist, I realized firsthand that I had been hunting in a predator pit. In the old days, trapping was a lucrative
trade, but it also had the benefit of controlling predators, resulting in higher game numbers. I connected the dots and saw the big picture. We saw five grizzlies on that hunt and heard several packs of wolves in different drainages.
My next successful high mountain hunt came in late October 2011. In an area very close to my hometown of Calgary, I killed a nine-year-old billy. This was a relatively easy hunt compared to my experience in Yukon Territory, as we hunted out of a comfortable camp and had access to horses. It nevertheless had all the elements of a classic O’Connor pack train hunt, and I indulged in it. With what I had learned on my Dall’s sheep hunt, I paid more attention to the habitat and the predator situation. There was a resemblance, but I found more goats and fewer signs of predators over the seven-day hunt. I narrowly escaped death as rocks tumbled down a steep slope while I caped my goat. Incidentally, on that hunt, I used a .300 Winchester Magnum, the caliber O’Connor had used to
“A beast the color of snow.”
- Jack O'Connor
There was another O’Connor connection, too. I confirmed what Jack had experienced in the Canadian Rockies in his later years. The construction of seismic roads for oil and gas exploration eased access to prime sheep habitat, changing the landscape and the declining sheep population numbers.
For the next six years, I hunted sheep every fall in Alberta and came across a couple of legal rams. Having taken an 11-year-old monarch already, I had set the bar high for something older. My son accompanied me on one of those hunts and even though he was sheepless, I discouraged him from shooting a barely legal ram that we found in late 2018.
kill his first mountain goat in British Columbia.
Two seasons passed without a legal bighorn ram in my home province of Alberta. I studied and tried to learn from my mistakes in the Canadian Rockies. Finally, in late October 2013, with help from buddies who had horses, I killed a mature 11-year-old bighorn on the last day of my 10-day hunt.
This was my best trophy ram, and I cherished the experience. I used my .280 Remington to kill that ram, a caliber that O’Connor would become partial to in his later years. And as for the shot, the ram never gave me a chance to range him, yet my O’Connor system of sighting in three inches high at 100 yards with a trifle of hold over his back did the trick as I watched him tumble down into a steep chute like a sack of potatoes.
hunt, one that I think O’Connor would have also used for taking his favorite desert sheep. After all, that’s who got me into sheep hunting in the first place.
Rocky Mountain bighorns are truly North America’s royal game.
In 2019, the stars lined up, and I drew one of two non-resident tags for a desert ram in Arizona. This hunt came as a gift from my dad, who had been promoted to heaven several years prior but had come to my dream the night before I found out about the draw results. In the dream, he told me that he had a piece of good news.
“North America’s royal game”
- Jack O'Connor
I took my younger son and two close buddies on that hunt. We found a 12-year-old broomed ram and killed it on opening day. Lots of laughter and good stories followed. I returned home with a smile the size of Manhattan. Our camp was set up in a dry arroyo on the shady side of a tall mountain with cholla trees surrounding us and desert quail calling in all directions. We also had set up a fire pit and had an ample supply of single malt with Mexican grub—a setting that Jack would have undoubtedly approved. Once again, it was the .280 Remington that barked on that
I am certainly not the only sheep hunter whose hunting métier has been so profoundly shaped by Jack. Jack taught us that as sheep hunters, our primary focus should be only to harvest mature rams to ensure future generations can enjoy the same liberties we enjoy today. He taught us to participate in the sport of sheep hunting because of the challenging habitat they live in, not for bragging rights about having a Grand Slam title.
Wisdom comes with age, and Jack was certainly a master of it. Even though he was the first “grand slammer,” he never bragged about it. In conclusion, it disheartens me that some sheep hunters have no clue who Jack O’Connor was, nor have they read his captivating stories and books. Perhaps reading this article will entice readers to delve into the life of this veteran storytelling sheep hunter, whose values and traits on sheep hunting, together with his rudimentary yet sophisticated ways of handling the rifle and the shotgun, hold true today as they did 80 years ago and are forever timeless. n
Divine interventions are possible!
SETTING NEW STANDARDS IN WARMTH AND LIGHTWEIGHT PACKABILITY.
A RIPSTOP FACE FABRIC PROVIDES ADDED PROTECTION FROM RUGGED GLASSING TERRAIN.
This quarter, the records department had a busy schedule with two Special Judges Panels and two Official Measurer workshops. The first-ever Special Judges Panel occurred on August 15, 2001, in Missoula, Montana. This panel was convened shortly after the records committee created the Special Judges Panel to promptly verify potential World’s Records. Previously, trophy owners had to wait until an Awards Program Judges Panel convened every three years before a World’s Record could be declared. This meant those who harvested a trophy at the beginning of an Awards period might have to wait up to three years for verification, which the new Special Judges Panel aimed to address by providing a more timely process.
When a trophy entry score meets or exceeds the current World’s Record, the owner can opt for verification through either a Special Judges Panel or an Awards Judges Panel to determine the final score. The purpose of these panels is to verify the
LEFT: The inaugural Special Judges Panel in 2001 verified Guinn Crousen’s 208 3/8-point bighorn sheep and Vincente Sanchez-Valdepenas’ 127 2/8-point musk ox as the first two trophies through this process. The Official Measurers involved were Fred King, Jack Reneau, Bob Hanson, Stan Rauch, and Randy Byers.
RIGHT: The Special Judges Panel convened at Boone and Crockett Club’s headquarters this year to evaluate Aron Wark’s musk ox included Fred King, Rebecca Spring, Jennifer Schwab, and Kyle Lehr, who served as chair.
original entry score. A Special Judges Panel consists of a chair and three to four judges—all with extensive knowledge of measuring procedures and policies. The chair is the arbiter for the panel and is also responsible for selecting the measuring team and managing the flow and logistics. Two teams of two Official Measurers independently score the same trophy, and their panel score charts are compared to the entry score chart to ensure adherence to scoring procedures and policies. Any identified mistakes are corrected, potentially resulting in a score change. Since its inception, eleven World’s Records have been declared through Special Judges Panels. The inaugural panel in 2001 verified Guinn Crousen’s 208-3/8-point bighorn sheep and Vincente Sanchez-Valdepenas’ 127-2/8-point musk ox as the first two trophies
through this process. The Official Measurers involved were Fred King, Jack Reneau, Bob Hanson, Stan Rauch, and Randy Byers.
The most recent Special Judges Panels were held to verify two new potential World’s Records—one in Missoula, Montana, and the other in Verdi, Nevada. The musk ox panel convened at Boone and Crockett Club’s headquarters on March 26, 2024, to evaluate Aron Wark’s entry with a score of 131-4/8 points, surpassing the previous record of Alex Therrien’s musk ox verified at the 31st Big Game Awards Judges Panel in 2022. The panel comprised Official Measurers Fred King (who participated in the inaugural 2001 panel), Rebecca Spring, Jennifer Schwab, and me, who served as chair. After comparing all score charts, the panel declared Mr. Wark’s musk ox the new World’s Record at 131-4/8 points.
The next trophy to be panel measured was Timothy Carpenter’s Roosevelt’s elk. Carpenter chose to convene a Special Judges Panel held in Verdi, Nevada, on April 29, 2024. The panel members included John Capurro, Slade Sanborn, Tim Humes, Jeff Simons, and Victor Clark (chair). With an accepted entry score of 439-7/8 points, the entry exceeded the previous World’s Record Roosevelt’s elk, which was taken by Rick Bailey, scoring 419-6/8 and declared the World’s Record at the 30th Big Game Awards Judges Panel in 2019. After the Special Judges Panel finished measuring Carpenter’s
Roosevelt’s elk, they determined the accepted entry score of 439-7/8 points needed to be corrected. With all three score charts considered, the final score for Carpenter’s Roosevelt’s elk would retain World’s Record status with a score of 455-2/8 points.
We also conducted two Official Measurer workshops this spring, a longstanding tradition since the first such workshop was held in 1976 at the Webb Wildlife Center in South Carolina. These workshops provide structured classroom training for measuring all North American big game recognized by the Club, maintaining the standards set at that inaugural event. Traditionally, Boone and Crockett Club and Pope and Young Club conducted separate workshops, but we have combined efforts in recent years. Successful completion now certifies Official Measurers for both clubs.
In April, we held a workshop in Ogden, Utah, in conjunction with the Pope and Young Club’s Bowhunters Bash, certifying 21 new Official Measurers. Then in May, we traveled to Minnesota to conduct another workshop, certifying 18 more. These Bowhunters Bash events present an excellent opportunity to socialize with like-minded individuals and support a great organization. We encourage all members to welcome our newest Official Measurers and introduce themselves to those nearby. n
The 32nd Big Game Awards period closes on December 31, 2024. Any entry received after this date will be entered into the 33rd Big Game Awards program. For trophy entries, here are a few reminders:
n Mailed entries must be postmarked by December 31, 2024.
n Online entries must become a “New Entry” before midnight on December 31, 2024, meaning if there are trophy entries still in “Draft” status in “My Trophies” make sure to advance them to New Entry status.
n Emailed entries must be received before midnight on December 31, 2024. Please send emailed entries to records@boone-crockett.org.
n Entries received after the deadline will still be processed but entered into the 33rd Awards period. Accepted late entries will appear in the 33rd Big Game Awards book, published in fall 2028. The 32nd Big Game Awards book, covering 20222024, will be released in fall 2025 after the current awards period concludes.
The 32nd Big Game Awards Program will take place in Springfield, Missouri, with the trophy display featured as an exhibit at Johnny Morris’ Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium from May until the end of July 2025. The festivities will kick off with a Welcome Reception on Thursday, July 24, followed by the Jack Steele Parker Generation Next Banquet on Friday, July 25, highlighting youth trophy owners. There will also be events for Official Measurers and members. The program will culminate with the Big Game Awards Banquet on Saturday evening, July 26. The trophy exhibit will remain on display at the Wonders of Wildlife Museum from May through the event’s conclusion on July 26.
Official Measurers, members, and all trophy owners are encouraged to join the festivities in Springfield!
April 3-7, 2024 — Ogden, Utah
Alex AbshireWashington, WV
Jeffrey Simons - Reno, NV
Andrew MillerHenderson, NV
Joey Dianda - Reno, NV
Benjamin ElliottWellsburg, WV
Matt BrownGrants Pass, OR
Chuck Blome - Custer, SD
Kenneth CorriganFrenchtown, NJ
Connor BohachWashoe Valley, NV
Nolan Young - Reno, NV
Cory Pritchard - Prescott, AZ
Steven DavidArnaudville, LA
Dallin Durfee - Payson, AZ
Terry Andersen - Elko, NV
Daniel H. Clark - Vail, AZ
Tristan MorrisJohn Day, OR
Brian Curtis - Guymon, OK
Tucker LivengoodReedsville, WV
Jacob Jones - Oceana, WV
Taylor ComettoSandpoint, ID
Jasper Coutu - Bradford, RI
May 15-19, 2024 — Alexandria, Minnesota
P&Y Bowhunters Bash
Cody Johnson – White, GA
David Leon – Sharpsburg, GA
Josh Adams - St. Ansgar, IA
Anthony Scarlin – Redford, MI
Luke Seedorff –Kalamazoo, MI
Trevar HansenValley City, ND
Scott Rehak – Williston, ND
Trenton Kissee –Claremore, OK
Jacob Rippy – Henryetta, OK
Kyle SeippDripping Springs, TX
Benjamin Tilberg – Arpin, WI
Jeremy Vogel - Eau Claire, WI
Jeffrey Sperry – Salem, WV
Jarred EhrenbergNorwood Young America, MN
Kurtis Vigliaturo –Blaine, MN
Kristopher LundellNew Hope, MN
Chad HenkeMineral Point, WI
Tino Pruneda - Del Rio, TX
15
85%
300
160
96%
400 Yards
997 Yards
99%
300
BLACK BEAR
21 1/16 Delta Co., MI Andrew W. Coyer 2023 R. Banaszak
20 14/16 St. Lawrence Co., NY Joseph R. Schrodt 2023 M. Cooper
TYPICAL WHITETAIL DEER
185 4/8 187 7/8 Henry Co., IN Duke M. Neal 2023 T. Wright
167 6/8 183 3/8 Fountain Co., IN Caiden Dodson 2022 C. Coble
NON-TYPICAL WHITETAIL DEER
228 1/8 233 1/8 Mississippi Co., MO Preston J. Burger 2023 J. Hindman
207 7/8 214 2/8 Nelson Co., KY Kaylee M. Rogers 2023 D. Weddle
187 3/8 190 5/8 Hughes Co., OK Haden Hoofnagle 2022 T. Cartwright
The Boone and Crockett Club celebrates young hunters who have embraced the outdoor way of life and embody the spirit of fair chase hunting. The following is a list of the most recent big game trophies accepted into Boone and Crockett Club’s 32nd Big Game Awards Program (2022-2024), that have been taken by a youth hunter (16 years or younger). All of the field photos in this section are from entries that are listed in this issue and are shown in bold orange text
This listing represents only those trophies accepted since the summer 2024 issue of FairChasewas published.
All youth hunters 16 years old or younger, who have a trophy accepted in our 32nd Awards (2022-2024) will receive an invitation to our Generation Next banquet, which will be held in Springfield, Missouri, the summer of 2025.
WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!
The following pages list the most recent big game trophies accepted into Boone and Crockett Club’s 32nd Big Game Awards Program, 2022-2024, which includes entries received between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2024. All of the field photos in this section are from entries that are listed in this issue and are shown in bold green text .
This listing represents only those trophies accepted since the Summer 2024 issue of Fair Chase was published.
SPONSORED BY
In 2023, B&C Member David K. Antonini harvested this 20-point black bear while on a hunt near Emma Lake, Saskatchewan. He was shooting a 7mm Remington Mag.
- MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 20
22 6/16 Lenoir Co., NC Barry K. Price 2023 J. Shaw
21 10/16 Huntingdon Co., PA Joshua A. Kirsch 2016 B. Pfister
21 8/16 Garrett Co., MD Melissa S. Pysell 2023 R. Newton
21 7/16 Hyde Co., NC John A. Stone 2023 R. Medford
21 3/16 Albemarle Co., VA Delton J. Banton 2019 R. Burnham
21 2/16 Cameron Co., PA Richard W. Merlo 2023 M. Weinzen
21 1/16 Carlton Co., MN Jerry H. George 2005 J. Berggren
21 1/16 Clearfield Co., PA William N. Swoope, Sr. 2022 M. Blazosky
21 Bell Butte, SK Charles W. Tholl 2023 J. Lesser
20 15/16 Rutland Co., VT Jed S. Danyow 2021 C. Smiley
20 14/16 Polk Co., WI Joshua N. Bartholomew2022 D. O’Brien
20 14/16 Steuben Co., NY Luke J. Kilmer 2023 C. Route
20 12/16 Clarion Co., PA Steven M. Best 2023 J. Ohmer
20 11/16 Bertie Co., NC J. Shane Townsend 2023 A. Martel
20 10/16 Swan River, MB Elizabeth A. 2023 S. Zirbel Kennedy-Geurts
20 9/16 Placer Co., CA Shelly D. Sayer 2022 S. Sanborn
20 8/16 Warren Co., NJ Craig S. Lemon 2023 M. Madonia
20 7/16 Hyde Co., NC Daniel L. Parrott 2022 J. Shaw
20 6/16 Elk Co., PA Brent L. Genevro 2023 P. Layman
20 6/16 Polk Co., WI Jeffrey A. Holdt 2023 J. Lunde
20 5/16 Idaho Co., ID Dustin B. Thompson 2022 B. Harriman
20 4/16 Wirt Co., WV John W. Halstead 2023 N. Huffman
20 4/16 Carbon Co., WY Eric J. Hardzog 2023 B. Wilkes
20 4/16 Lebanon Co., PA Robert R. Troutman 2022 R. D’Angelo
20 4/16 Nez Perce Co., ID Matthew T. Weibler 2023 D. Michael
20 3/16 Carswell Lake, SK Edward D. Pylman 2023 S. Pitsch
20 2/16 Aitkin Co., MN Michael V. Berg 2020 B. Goebel
20 2/16 Wood Co., WI Ryan W. Carolfi 2023 P. Jensen
20 1/16 Lamoille Co., VT Dustin J. Martin 2023 C. Smiley
20 Emma Lake, SK David K. Antonini 2023 W. Gray
20 White Mountain Douglas A. Sayer 2023 S. Sanborn Apache Res., AZ
20 Meagher Co., MT Barry D. Vaughn, Jr. 2023 J. Kolbe
GRIZZLY BEAR - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 27-13/16 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 23
26 5/16 Prince George, BC Burkhard Nav 1981 P. Martin
24 6/16 Tanana River, AK Allen E. Bird 2004 R. Smith
ALASKA BROWN BEAR - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 30-12/16 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 26
28 3/16 Kodiak Island, AK Douglas A. Sayer 2022 S. Sanborn
27 8/16 Tikchik Lake, AK James E. Naveran 2020 G. Hernandez
27 7/16 Kodiak Island, AK Shelly D. Sayer 2021 S. Sanborn
27 3/16 Deadman Bay, AK James C. Newton 2022 B. Harriman
POLAR BEAR - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 29-15/16 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 27
27 8/16 Southern Hudson J.W. Qavvik 2017 P. Martin Bay, NU
COUGAR - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 16-4/16 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 14-8/16
15 1/16 Hood River Co., OR Nicholas R. Plattner 2022 R. Evans
15 Dunn Co., ND Joseph J. 2012 J. Schneider Hammerschmidt
14 10/16 Las Animas Co., CO Gary M. Ahalt 2022 L. Gatlin
14 9/16 Carbon Co., WY Amy D. Johnston 2021 P. Malone
372
365
363
362
This Alaska brown bear, scoring 27-7/16 points, was taken by B&C Lifetime Member Shelly D. Sayer while hunting on Kodiak Island, Alaska in 2021. She was shooting a 7mm SAUM.
Gary M. Ahalt took this cougar, scoring 14-10/16 points, in 2022 while on a hunt in Las Animas County, Colorado. He was shooting a .35 Remington.
This typical American elk, scoring 374-7/8 points, was taken by B&C Member Mike A. Carpinito while hunting on the San Carlos Indian Reservation, Arizona in 2022. He was shooting a .300 Remington Ultra Mag.
B&C Member Jeffrey G. Hacsi was hunting in Rio Grande County, Colorado, in 2023 when he harvested this non-typical mule deer scoring 239 points.
Bridget B. Rotticci was hunting in Monterey County, California, in 2023 when she harvested this tule elk scoring 300-4/8 points. She was shooting a 6.5 PRC.
132 3/8 Linn Co., OR Jacob L. Peterson 2023 J. Knoebel 125 3/8 128 5/8 Lane Co., OR Micah L. Parham 2023 T. Rozewski
TYPICAL SITKA BLACKTAIL DEER
RECORD
189 1/8 Webb Co., TX Nash D. Fulgium 2023 N. Ballard 180 198 5/8 Saint-François Olivier Coiteux 2023 R. Groleau River, QC
179 3/8 193 Clay Co., IN James A. Switzer 2023 J.
Co., OK Timothy D. Bonnewell 2023 M. Reigh
175 5/8 178 6/8 Cass Co., IL James R. Damotte 2023 T. Yetter
174 187 7/8 Spalding, SK Picked Up 2023 B. Reiter
173 3/8 186
Winona Co., MN Raymond A. Manion 1958 N. Thesing
Coburn
Murray River, BC Kyle Shallard 2021 R. Berreth
Rappahannock Allen W. Alger 2023 B. Trumbo Co., VA
LEFT TOP TO BOTTOM
This typical mule deer, scoring 197-3/8 points, was taken by Kaydence R. Potratz on a hunt in Lincoln County, Nevada, in 2023. She was shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor.
In 2023, B&C Member Cody G.A. Emmons harvested a 140-5/8 point typical Columbia blacktail deer while hunting in Trinity County, California. He was shooting a 7mm-08 Remington.
This typical whitetail deer, scoring 171-1/8 points, was taken by B&C Member Jarett P. Donohoe while on an archery hunt in Iowa County, Iowa, in 2023.
RIGHT TOP TO BOTTOM
Larry J. Knight III took this non-typical whitetail deer, scoring 199-5/8 points, in 2023 while on an archery hunt in Parke County, Indiana.
This non-typical American elk, scoring 409-1/8 points, was taken by Lifetime Member Henry K. Flatow, Jr. while hunting in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, in 2023. He was shooting a .300 Remington Ultra Mag.
Carl J. Wohlfert, a B&C Member, was hunting in Park County, Colorado, in 2023 when he harvested this Shiras' moose scoring 143-7/8 points. He was shooting a .300 Weatherby.
Alfred H. Sawatzky was hunting near Nejanilini Lake in Manitoba, in 2023, when he harvested this Central Canada barren ground caribou, scoring 413-2/8 points. He was shooting a 7mm-08 Remington.
In 2023, Ryan K. Hochstein harvested this 210-1/8 point AlaskaYukon moose while hunting near the Kanuti River in Alaska. He was shooting a .338 Winchester Mag.
RIGHT:
Kelly L. Simpson was hunting near the Tuchodi River in British Columbia in 2021 when he harvested this Stone's sheep scoring 164-2/8 points. He was shooting a .300 Winchester Mag.
TYPICAL WHITETAIL DEER CONTINUED
170 180 4/8 Poweshiek Co., IA Hobey M. Holder 2023 C. Coburn
168 3/8 176 Howard Co., IN Rodney K. Ellis 2022 R. Graber
168 3/8 187 5/8 Portage Co., WI Kevin A. Yenter 2023 P. Jensen
167 7/8 178 6/8 Woodford Co., KY Dylan W. Hill 2023 D. Weddle
167 6/8 177 5/8 Adams Co., IL Picked Up 2022 J. Schmidt
167 5/8 170 Patrick Co., VA Roger W. Joyce 1990 H. Hall
167 3/8 185 3/8 Christian Co., KY John L. Starks 2023 R. Britt
166 5/8 189 6/8 Lyon Co., KS Chad Priest 2021 D. Razza
166 4/8 169 Waushara Co., WI Todd J. Schroeder 2023 S. Zirbel
166 175 Lenawee Co., MI Daniel D. Myers 2023 J. Kinsey
166 172 6/8 Thayer Co., NE Quinlan G. Vondra 2023 S. Woitaszewski
165 1/8 171 4/8 Marion Co., KY James C. Smith 2023 D. Weddle
165 177 6/8 Union Co., IA Jesse M. Ashton 2023 J. Lunde
164 6/8 182 6/8 Page Co., IA Jonathan W. Hughes 2023 M. Miller
164 6/8 176 1/8 Putnam Co., IL Kyle R. Lilley 2023 A. Shofner
164 4/8 177 3/8 Cooking Lake, AB Sean J. Cahill 2021 L. Rayment
163 3/8 167 4/8 Crawford Co., WI Dwayne A. Kepner 2023 T. Holmes
163 3/8 178 4/8 Chippewa Co., WI Shane R. Larson 2016 K. Rimer
163 167 7/8 Northampton Co., PA Daniel E. Lichtenwalner 2023 M. Titus
162 4/8 167 4/8 Chippewa Co., WI James W. Stobb 2023 S. Ashley
161 1/8 180 4/8 Boone Co., IN Jamal A. Hamed 2023 J. Moore
160 1/8 166 3/8 Worcester Co., MD Ethan B. Doctor 2023 R. Newton
160 1/8 178 2/8 Knox Co., IL Patrick A. Hohenbery II 2023 M. Umholtz
160 1/8 163 5/8 Adams Co., WI Jeffrey L. Koepp 2022 P. Gauthier
NON-TYPICAL
WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 333-7/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 185
240 3/8 251 7/8 Ottawa Co., KS Jesse T. Williams 2023 J. Dowd
236 5/8 244 6/8 Zavala Co., TX Alejandro Bailleres 2023 D. Brimager
228 5/8 233 6/8 Hancock Co., IN Robert A. Roland 2023 T. Wright
219 2/8 227 4/8 Wapello Co., IA Robin D. Pudil 2023 P. Farni
217 5/8 226 5/8 Wise Co., TX Thomas L. Messenger 2023 J. Barrow
217 226 7/8 Calling Lake, AB Roger Medal 2021 D. Powell
214 3/8 223 Henderson Co., KY Robert L. Farris 2023 D. Weddle
213 7/8 227 6/8 Cooke Co., TX Nathan L. Martin 2023 E. Stanosheck
210 6/8 217 3/8 Sullivan Co., IN Dustin W. Cox 2023 J. Fields
208 5/8 211 6/8 Dunn Co., WI Michael J. Reitz 2023 S. Ashley
205 214 1/8 Rockcastle Co., KY Ray D. Chaney 2023 M. Peterson
204 2/8 216 1/8 Wayne Co., NY Jason B. Wing 2023 M. Parah
202 2/8 208 3/8 Houston Co., MN Lucas W. Onstad 2023 D. Boland
201 7/8 204 7/8 Hamiota, MB Dave Gladu 2023 A. Beaudry
201 2/8 223 4/8 Cooke Co., TX Matthew B. Hunter 2023 E. Stanosheck
201 206 7/8 Zavala Co., TX Juan P. Bailleres 2023 D. Brimager
199 5/8 206 1/8 Parke Co., IN Larry J. Knight III 2023 J. Fields
199 204 1/8 Roseau Co., MN Jeffrey L. Davidson 2023 R. Dufault
198 2/8 208 1/8 Coffey Co., KS Jerame L. Hugunin 2023 L. Lueckenhoff
NON-TYPICAL WHITETAIL DEER CONTINUED 1
97 7/8 201 5/8 Caldwell Co., MO Zachary B. Tannehill 2023 J. Martin
197 6/8 203 7/8 Seneca Co., OH Jack A. Daniel 2023 W. Ogden
195 2/8 201 6/8 Wayne Co., OH Troy D. Cummins 2006 R. Pepper
193 2/8 201 5/8 Oconto Co., WI Hunter J. Nelson 2023 A. Sternagel
192 1/8 197 2/8 Lawrence Co., KY James A. Link 2023 H. Vickers
190 7/8 204 Parke Co., IN Peter J. Krivas 2023 J. Fields
189 3/8 196 5/8 Montgomery Co., IN Roger A. Azar 2023 G. Howard
189 2/8 195 6/8 Crawford Co., WI Nathan E. Welter 2023 A. Sternagel
188 7/8 193 5/8 Osage Co., OK John D. Hendrix 2019 J. Aldrich
188 2/8 192 2/8 McHenry Co., IL Jeffrey P. Ankley 2023 R. Tastsides
187 2/8 192 7/8 Pottawattamie Co., IA Dusty W.E. Rhodes, Jr. 2023 K. Wohlers
186 7/8 193 Barry Co., MO Jacob D. Ralph 2023 G. Davis
186 6/8 189 4/8 Warren Co., IL John D. Taylor, Jr. 2023 R. Willmore
TYPICAL COUES' WHITETAIL DEER
WORLD'S RECORD SCORE 144-1/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 100
110 7/8 113 Grant Co., NM Steve J. Herriges 2023 S. Zirbel
108 5/8 116 4/8 Sonora, MX Douglas C. Garner 2023 E. Boley
108 4/8 111 3/8 Cochise Co., AZ Jorge Valenzuela 2022 C. Sheley
100 1/8 107 Greenlee Co., AZ Ryan L. Zimmerman 2020 R. Spaulding
CANADA MOOSE - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 242 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 185
221 6/8 228 3/8 Blackbirch Lake, ON Party Taken 2021 P. Martin
214 6/8 222 Turtle Lake, BC Stephan Behrens 2022 C. Sjodin
189 1/8 192 Réserve faunique Mathieu M.T. 2023 E. Tremblay de Matane, QC Tremblay
ALASKA-YUKON MOOSE - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 266-4/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 210
237 4/8 244 1/8 Yukon River, AK Samuel P. Herzog 2022 T. Kalsbeck
223 5/8 229 1/8 Lloyd Mountain, AK Michael A. Heck 2023 P. Barwick
221 6/8 229 Klikitarik River, AK Todd J. Orullian 2023 B. Wahlin
216 5/8 221 4/8 Beaver Creek, YT William B. Stewart 2023 J. Squires
210 1/8 214 7/8 Kanuti River, AK Ryan K. Hochstein 2023 R. Pesek
SHIRAS’ MOOSE - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 205-4/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 140
175 6/8 177 5/8 Latah Co., ID Brad D. Grieser 2023 D. Michael
169 3/8 177 3/8 Beaverhead Co., MT Robert W. Jenni 1994 P. Wright
165 7/8 170 4/8 Cassia Co., ID Shaun H. Devine 2023 R. Addison
155 5/8 161 4/8 Stillwater Co., MT Cody E. Abbott 2023 T. Shinabarger
149 6/8 151 5/8 Teton Co., WY Rick A. Weis 2023 P. Jensen
149 5/8 154 7/8 Shoshone Co., ID Paul A. Terry 2022 L. Finney
143 7/8 151 1/8 Park Co., CO Carl J. Wohlfert 2023 L. Gatlin
142 3/8 149 4/8 Lewis and Jordan S. Weaver 2023 L. Coccoli Clark Co., MT
140 143 Routt Co., CO Logan J. Rushing 2023 L. Gatlin All the data for More To The Score is compiled using B&C's Big Game Records LIVE! This program gives you searchable access to B&C's entire database of accepted trophies for all species.
TOP TO BOTTOM
This desert sheep, scoring 166-4/8 points, was taken by B&C Member J. Douglas Giffin while hunting in Sonora Mexico in 2021. He was shooting a 6.5 PRC.
B&C Member Katherine A. Rozich took this pronghorn, scoring 80-2/8 points, in 2023 while on a hunt in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. She was shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor.
WASHINGTON GOAT
Deep in the Washington wilderness, Tyler Beasley had his sights set on filling a coveted Rocky Mountain goat tag. After a week of hiking and hunting, he filled that tag with a dandy. Using a .270 with a 4x Weaver scope, Beasely would have made Jack O’Connor proud.
HUNTER: Tyler F. Beasley
SCORE: 48-2/8 points
LOCATION: Whatcom County, Washington YEAR TAKEN: 2023 See all MORE TO THE SCORE online.
Courtney Mays was hunting on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, in 2023 when she harvested this bighorn sheep scoring 183-4/8 points. She was shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor.
This bison, scoring 119-6/8 points, was taken by B&C Lifetime Member Chad W. Lenz while hunting in Custer County, South Dakota, in 2022. He was shooting a .45-70 Government.
This Dall's sheep, scoring 161-3/8 points, was taken by John Della Croce in 2023 while hunting the Nutzotin Mountains in Alaska. He was shooting a .300 Winchester Short Mag.
WOODLAND CARIBOU - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 419-5/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 265
325 5/8 335 7/8 Guns Pond, NL Robert M. Ament 2023 P. Herrnberger
BARREN GROUND CARIBOU - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 477 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 375 407 416 2/8 Dusty Mountain, AK Marc E. Stratmeyer 2023 M. Mauney
CENTRAL CANADA BARREN GROUND CARIBOU
WORLD'S RECORD SCORE 433-4/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 345
413 2/8 441 7/8 Nejanilini Lake, MB Alfred H. Sawatzky 2023 J. Hayduk
PRONGHORN - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 96-4/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 80
88 4/8 90
3/8 Sweetwater Co., WY Katherine A. Rozich 2023 S. Sanborn
BISON - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 136-4/8
Elko Co., NV David V.E. Raynor 2023 H. Grounds
7/8 MacColl Ridge, AK Gary H. Wilcox, Jr. 2023 T. Shinabarger
48 4/8 48 6/8 Kittitas Co., WA David B. Lee 2022 R. Spaulding
48 2/8 48 4/8 Whatcom Co., WA Tyler F. Beasley 2023 S. Duchow
47 6/8 47 7/8 Pelly Peak, BC Gary A. Stamper 2022 H. Giger
BIGHORN SHEEP - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 216-3/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 175
184 5/8 186 7/8 Lewis and David L. Backfish 2023 J. Fields Clark Co., MT
184 2/8 185 4/8 Nez Perce Co., ID Kevin S. Small 2023 J. Capurro
183 5/8 184 1/8 Missoula Co., MT Erik A. Ogren 2023 K. Lehr
183 4/8 184 3/8 Sanders Co., MT Courtney Mays 2023 B. Krebs
183 2/8 183 5/8 Missoula Co., MT James E. McKee 2023 K. Lehr
181 2/8 181 6/8 Carbon Co., WY Tim Barkhurst 2023 P. Malone
175 6/8 177 1/8 Ravalli Co., MT Patricia L. Jenni 2023 J. Schwab
DESERT SHEEP - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 205-1/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 165
185 2/8 185 3/8 La Paz Co., AZ Shelly D. Sayer 2023 S. Sanborn
180 1/8 181 1/8 Coahuila, MX James F. Arnold 2022 B. Wallace
170 171 7/8 Coahuila, MX Brad A. Baryenbruch 2023 J. Ramsey
166 4/8 167 3/8 Sonora, MX J. Douglas Giffin 2021 J. Kinsey
DALL’S SHEEP - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 189-6/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 160
161 3/8 161 3/8 Nutzotin John Della Croce 2023 C. Brent Mountains, AK
STONE’S SHEEP - WORLD’S RECORD SCORE 196-6/8 - MINIMUM ENTRY SCORE 160
164 2/8 164 7/8 Tuchodi River, BC Kelly L. Simpson 2021 D. Cropley
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TRAIL CAMERA PHOTOS FROM BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB’S THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL RANCH
Dupuyer, Montana
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