by Boone
NEW KNOWLEDGE
History has proven there is no better investment in the future than knowledge through education. In keeping with the Boone and Crockett legacy of leadership, the Club launched a pilot program in 1993. This program funds the research of university graduate students who have chosen wildlife or natural resources as their life’s work. The first B&C Endowed Professorship Chair found its home at the epicenter of today’s resource challenges – the Rocky Mountain West. Here, at the University of Montana in Missoula, the Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservation plays a central role in the Club’s Conservation Program. The Professor teaches, guides graduate student research, and offers public service in the fields of wildlife conservation and ecosystem management for sustainable development. By focusing on education at the highest level, the Club ensures that investments made today will continue to pay dividends for decades as these students advance in their careers.
In 2005, success of this program in Montana was replicated at Texas A&M University when a second chair was endowed. The focus of this program is the impact of state and federal environmental regulations on private lands and wildlife populations, the potential of consumptive and non-consumptive wildlife resource use on landowner income, and public perceptions of private land stewardship and resource conservation. Other endowed professorships are planned at other universities throughout the U.S.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT — BEYOND SAVING ANIMALS
The paramount challenge for humanity in the 21st Century is sustaining healthy ecosystems. Why? Because, this is where we live. Our increasing population and needs affect every living and non-living thing. This pressure on wildlife and the environment comes from this simple fact: the places people use for living and commerce are or once were the habitats of other living things.
The concept of sustainable development is to bring together environments, economies, and communities of people in new and different ways. Early conservationists, including Boone and Crockett Club members, paved the way for sustainable development with many successes. Species were brought back from the brink of extinction. Pristine places were saved for wildlife and the ethics of people’s relationship with wildlife were changed from exploitation to stewardship. This shift in perspective brought with it a new focus on research to find more productive ways to use lands and resources. From this learning the process of teaching and enlightenment began, and with it, a social buy-in to rational practices for wildlife and habitat management. All of this was and is still necessary, but is it enough?
Today, most wildlife no longer lives in pristine places without people. Humans carrying out activities necessary for their lives now affect all populations of wild things, even those in the more remote areas. Therefore, the Club believes the future health of life on earth, human life included, depends on broadening our concepts of wildlife conservation and stewardship to a level that includes the perspectives of entire ecosystems, not just one particular species of animal or plant.
Humanity faces a dilemma. It’s inevitable that future improvements to the quality of human life will draw more heavily on the earth’s habitats and resources, displacing even more wildlife. The irony is that these improvements cannot take place in environments that continue to lose wildlife diversity and decline in the quality of water, air, and soil.
SOUND MANAGEMENT BACKED BY SCIENCE
The Boone and Crockett William I. Spencer Conservation Grants Program is one way the Club keeps pace with changing environmental issues and needs. For over 55 years the Club has supported classic studies in wildlife ecology and conservation, including pioneering work on wolves and moose in Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park, grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains, cougar in Idaho, and sheep, elk and deer throughout the west. B&C Grants continue to provide the stimuli for innovative wildlife research leading to responsible decisions backed by this research.
DEFINING AMERICA’S CONSERVATION POLICY
The Boone and Crockett Club has always nurtured partnerships and collaboration. This work has brought about policies that benefit both wildlife and natural resources. An example of this collaboration is a summit facilitated by the Club, which brought together for the first time the leadership of 35 wildlife organizations in August of 2000. This meeting resulted in the formation of the American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP). Today, the AWCP is a confederation comprised of 40 wildlife conservation organizations representing over 6 million sportsmen conservationists. This partnership was formed to build unity and to harness our collective strength to address present and future wildlife conservation challenges. The AWCP has provided the hunter/conservationists a stronger voice in conservation policy issues now and in the future.
Photo from B&C Archives
Students and educators build lasting awareness, understanding, and appreciation from field-based studies. The Boone and Crockett Club’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch and Elmer E. Rasmuson Wildlife Conservation Education Center – pictured in the background – provide an outdoor classroom for these field-based studies.
Indicative of the progress that has been made is the response AWCP has received from the Bush Administration. In December 2003, President George W. Bush met with AWCP representatives at the White House to discuss critical issues related to wetlands and other conservation initiatives. President Bush followed up with AWCP representatives at his ranch in Commerce, Texas, in 2004 to continue those conversations. Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, met in May 2005 with the AWCP to discuss conservation issues that AWCP has determined priorities for the next four years with respect to the Department of Interior (DOI). Senior DOI officials and heads of different land management agencies also participated in this meeting.
As we look to the conservation challenges of the future, the Boone and Crockett Club will continue to form new partnerships and collaborations to better define America’s conservation policy. The Club’s members are key to the Club’s success. Through their passion for the outdoors and respect for hunting and wildlife, members provide financial support and donate countless hours for this noble cause. Working with state and federal agencies, conservationists, corporate sponsors, and avid sportsmen, the Boone and Crockett Club will continue to be a conservation leader far into the future.
INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Two Significant Issues: Critical Habitat and Public Perception These issues will be paramount in the focus of the Boone and Crockett Club going forward. Negative perceptions and habitat loss are threats that will severely impact the future of wildlife and hunting traditions.
Loss of habitat – The loss of critical habitat is a core threat affecting everything. It is a symbiotic chain – reduced habitat means a reduction in wildlife numbers. This means fewer hunting opportunities and limited enjoyment of the outdoors. With a decrease in the number of hunters comes a reduction in funding for conservation, management, and enforcement, which in turns leads to even more loss of habitat. Inherent in this loss is the tradition of American game management.
Public Perception – In general, the non-hunting public accepts or tolerates hunting as long as the activity is viewed as fair, ethical, respectful, and within the cultural context in which hunting occurs. This attitude can, and is, shifting when hunting is seen or portrayed as unfair, unethical, and disrespectful of wildlife.
With anti-hunting efforts targeting the non-hunting public (voting majority) it is more important now than ever before to strengthen the public perception and acceptance of hunting.
HUNT FAIR CHASE
In keeping with the issue of public perception, the Boone and Crockett Club launched the Hunt Fair Chase program in 2004. This program brings together the hunting and conservation communities to deliver a unified message of positive hunter ethics to all hunters.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Boone and Crockett Club promoted the importance of ethical hunting and sportsmanship as a way to save wildlife from pending disaster. One hundred years later, Hunt Fair Chase reached over
5 million hunters, reaffirming their role as conservationists. As individuals making ethical choices these hunters will continue to positively affect the image of hunters as perceived by the public.
Since the message of ethical hunting has no sunset, the web site created by this Program (HuntFairChase.com) remains as a portal of information providing resources about the origins and importance of hunting ethics to the North American Model for Conservation.
The success achieved by this Program provides a foundation for our continued effort in perpetuating the highest ethical standards among all hunters. The extension of the Hunt Fair Chase program focuses on informing those unexposed to hunting, affording them a clearer understanding of the cultural context in which hunting occurs.
The delicate ecosystems in North America benefit from hunters and hunting in numerous ways, including untold conservation dollars that are spent by the hunting community. This support will ultimately lead to healthy wildlife populations and science-backed conservation systems that work. It is imperative that we, as hunters, hunt ethically, and that we do our part in changing negative hunting perceptions.
A JOB WELL DONE
The history of the Boone and Crockett Club is a tale of over a century of a measured and thoughtful commitment by hunters for conservation. This is a commitment that balances human needs with wildlife needs; a commitment that sees deep value in preserving the hunting tradition, as well as in conserving wild lands and wildlife; a commitment that grows out of a powerful love of wildlife, but that is also shaped by a common-sense, business-like approach to managing natural resources.
History has proven that the path Roosevelt and the Boone and Crockett Club took was the right path – creating, supporting, and enhancing what has evolved to become the most successful natural resource conservation system in the history of mankind. Habitats have been preserved and enhanced, game populations are at all-time highs for many species, and the infrastructure to support these programs is in place. People have come from all over the world to marvel at, study, and learn from our country’s conservation programs.
In time, other conservation organizations have taken up the charge. Some were formed by Boone and Crockett members and others were patterned after the B&C Model. Organizations focusing their effort on a specific wildlife species have made tremendous strides in preserving, protecting, managing, and expanding the range of these species. Other groups exist today, which focus on habitat; others focus on the activities of state and federal agencies and national politics. But, are we doing enough?
OUR WORK HAS JUST BEGUN
Mankind is a destructor by our mere existence, and our population is growing. By 2050, the nation’s human population is projected to be more than 400 million, about 43% greater than today. As a result:
• Demand for most natural resources, especially those on public lands, will increase dramatically
• Nearly all natural resources will likely become scarcer relative to demand
• Intense competition especially for public natural resources can be expected, as private land is developed and becomes less available for public use
• Remaining private land habitat will become increasingly important to wildlife conservation
• Advocates for exclusive use of public resources – both preservation and development – will likely increase their efforts
• Special interest groups and advocacy can be expected to increase
• Wildlife and opportunities for hunters will increasingly be caught in the crossfire between development and preservationist forces
The decade of 2005-2015 is recognized as critical for wildlife as the die is being cast for its future.
It should not come as a surprise that, in spite of the great successes in restoration of wildlife over the past 119 years, the changing structure of our society makes it more important than ever before for wildlife managers and hunter/conservationists to work together more effectively in order to build on the successes achieved in the past.
PARTNERSHIPS — You and B&C
The Boone and Crockett Club has been forging partnerships since 1887, when the challenges were to protect wildlife habitats, restore depleted populations and stop excessive use of native plants and animals. The challenges of today are not unlike the challenges of more than a century ago as we look to the future of hunting and conservation issues in North America. The value of unity among hunter-conservationists is more apparent today than ever before as we work together to meet the challenges of the coming years.
In August 2000, the gathering of what is today the American Wildlife Conservation Partners representing 5 million hunter/conservationists was the precursor of what will be required as we look to the future. Now the task is even greater than that of a century ago, and the need for partnerships and collaboration are greater still. It is imperative that we unify our collective strength and apply it to common challenges and opportunities to protect wildlife, habitat, hunting traditions and the way of life it represents.
By joining Boone and Crockett as an Associate or Lifetime Associate Member you will add the strength needed to ensure the B&C remains visionary in its efforts to identify and work around new threats to conservation and our sporting way of life
The Boone and Crockett Club welcomes you to become a part of this continuing legacy and to add your name to a long and distinguished list of Boone and Crockett partners in conservation.
Acknowledgments for
Legendary Hunts
Stories selected from the Boone and Crockett Club’s Awards book series – 18th Awards through the 25th Awards – by:
Keith Balfourd
Mark O. Bara
Eldon L. “Buck” Buckner
Richard T. Hale
Robert H. Hanson
Ryan Hatfield
Julie T. Houk
Marie Pavlik
Remo Pizzagalli
Jack Reneau
Mark B. Steffen – Editor
Paul D. Webster
Copy Editing and Proofreading by:
Jack Reneau
Julie T. Houk
OCR Specialist:
Sandy Poston
Cover Photograph by:
Denver Bryan
Legendary Hunts was designed by Julie T. Houk,
Director of Publication, Boone and Crockett Club
Our Legendary Hunts books are also available in paperback edition. Visit the Club’s web store, which also includes a complete list of our printed books.