SCIENCE BLASTS

Modern wildlife management through regulated hunting has never pushed any species to threatened or endangered levels, and there’s no science to suggest it would happen with wolves, either.

The Boone and Crockett Club is offering this simple, historical fact to activist groups threatening new lawsuits designed to forestall state management of gray wolves.

By John Organ — 

Nearly 100 years ago Aldo Leopold, the father of game management, coined the term “harvestable surplus.” The intended meaning of the term is that some wildlife species and populations may produce more young in a given year than can survive to the following year. Those individuals doomed to die over the winter, for example, represent the “surplus” in the population…

While professional sports leagues continue making tweaks to their refereeing system and booth-review processes, it makes one wonder if hunting has had it right all along: We police ourselves and call our own shots.

A Boone and Crockett Club member for 54 years, Lee Merriam Talbot was the primary author of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. That alone is a lifetime achievement, but there is so much more to the man who dedicated his life’s work to conservation—and humbly averted death numerous times. 

SCIENCE BLASTS

Aldo Leopold wrote “One of the anomalies of modern ecology is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely aware of the existence of the other.

The Boone and Crockett Club today announced its support of The Wildlife Society (TWS) and their programs to certify the next generation of wildlife professionals.

Those who cherish hunting—for themselves and for future generations—understand that hunting is a privilege to be recognized, cherished, and maintained by today’s hunters through deeds to benefit wildlife and through establishment and adherence to standards of fair chase.

With a mix of apex predators, big game, migratory songbirds, and a wide variety of small woodland creatures, the Boone and Crockett Club’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial (TRM) Ranch is a true wildlife cornucopia. Located on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, the TRM is a place of research and instruction.