B&C Position Statement - Trophy Hunting

Effective Date: December 3, 2016               Revised: June 24, 2025

Situational Overview

Trophy hunting is not a particular form of hunting, but a broad term that describes the intent by some hunters to selectively pursue mature male animals, which typically exhibit the largest antlers, horns, or skulls¹. As the first conservation organization to promote hunting as a practice of wildlife conservation, the Club is well-positioned to explain the meaning and origins of the term “trophy hunting.”

Encouraging hunters to take older, male animals was a critical component of the Club’s initial efforts to establish the concept of wildlife conservation in the late 19th century. At that time, many species of wildlife were on the brink of extinction due to unregulated market hunting. To promote recovery of these species, the Club believed several things needed to happen², one of which was to encourage a sustainable harvest focused on mature males that protected the core of a wild breeding population—primarily females. Modern scientific studies confirm that regulated harvest of males in many hunted species rarely reduces the size or sustainability of a population or negatively impacts herd health. Rather, the reproductive strategies of many species in which one male breeds with many females results in populations that can thrive despite a smaller proportion of males in the population.

The Club’s efforts in the late 19th century also involved creating a code of ethical hunting conduct known as Fair Chase, which required hunters to pursue animals in a respectful, purposeful, and socially acceptable manner, which includes not wasting the meat or other parts of the animal. Today, the principles of Fair Chase and system of wildlife management in North America collectively comprise what the Club refers to as a “conservation ethic.”

1. Trophy hunting should not be confused with “canned shooting” that involves the pursuit of captive animals under conditions designed for ease of kills, or to collect an animal solely for the purpose of display. The Club disavows these practices and actively campaigns against them.

2. Other actions the Club supported to aid in wildlife recovery included setting aside lands from development, establishing wildlife refuges, establishing regulated hunting seasons and bag limits, ending commercial market hunting, developing the science of wildlife management, and creating funding mechanisms for land and wildlife conservation.

Position

The Boone and Crockett Club supports hunting that is conducted legally and guided by a conservation ethic. If the intent of a hunter is to pass up a younger animal in favor of an older, mature animal, or instead take any legal animal regardless of sex, age, or size, both choices should be respected as long as Fair Chase standards were met; both strategies are in service to wildlife conservation. 

For this reason, the Club does not use the term “trophy hunter” to distinguish one hunter from another. Further, the act of keeping antlers, horns, or mounted trophies to memorialize a hunt can be motivated by many things—wanting to remember a first hunt, a final hunt, a hunting adventure in a spectacular location, or the wild meat a person shared with family or friends—these can all be part of a trophy.

It is important to note that the exceptional animals memorialized in the Club’s records books signal conservation success. Large, mature males tend to exist only in ecosystems and habitats that are in sufficiently healthy condition and where appropriate management policies exist. Through its records program, originally created in the early 20th century to record what was thought to be the last of many big game species, the Club keeps track of all eligible antlers, horns, skulls, and tusks—not only those harvested by hunters but also from animals that died of natural causes. The Club’s records program is not intended to glorify the hunter, but rather to document and highlight the wildlife management and conservation efforts that allowed the animal to reach such an extraordinary age and size.

The Club maintains that so long as every hunter is guided by a conservation ethic, they are demonstrating their commitment to Fair Chase; furthermore, they are respecting animals and helping safeguard the future of wildlife populations and their habitats. The Club believes that people who have a clear understanding of hunting, and base their views on facts, not conjecture or emotion, will support and advance hunting as an integral part of the most successful system of wildlife conservation in the world.

See the Boone and Crockett Club Essay on Fair Chase

See the Boone and Crockett Club Position Statement on Canned Shoots