Sidekicks never get the accolades they deserve. Boone and Crockett member Horace Albright is one of them. As the second director of the National Park Service (NPS) and assistant to the agency’s first director, Stephen Mather, Albright was an honest and devoted employee of the newly created agency.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, aviator James Doolittle led a daring bombing mission over mainland Japan, earning him the Congressional Medal of Honor—one of three Boone and Crockett Club members. When he wasn’t serving his country, Doolittle often could be found hunting big game, his self-professed favorite sport.

More than anyone, George Bird Grinnell influenced, directed, and solidified the conservation movement during its early years. He also orchestrated the activity of many other conservation leaders, some of whom will be topics of future biographies. His avoidance of self-promotion, and his desire to often work “behind the scenes,” has left him largely unheralded today.   

The son of a wealthy industrialist, Childs Frick could afford to explore—first with a rifle, then with a pick and shovel. The early Boone and Crockett Club Member was initially attracted to hunting big game specimens for museums. Eventually, he shifted his sights to big bones from prehistoric times.

By PJ DelHomme

Before spearheading international conservation efforts as director of the World Wildlife Fund, this member was busy gathering secret intelligence during World War II.

By PJ DelHomme 

A Voice and an Artist for Conservation — In the early 1930s, the Bureau of Biological Survey was so poorly reputed that there were calls for its dissolution. One man saved it, a man who was a most unlikely candidate. He had no prior administrative experience, had never worked in a bureaucracy, had never run for public office, and was not even a biologist. He was, amazingly, a political…

At 22, Arthur Dugmore arrived in New York City with 55 cents in his pocket. From there, he conned his way into a good job and found a calling—producing some of the best wildlife photographs the world had ever seen. 

By PJ DelHomme 

Six years after George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt founded the Boone and Crockett Club, Grinnell sponsored for membership a young, assertive New Yorker named Madison Grant. The year was 1893. Grant had many successful years representing the Club, but he also became one of America’s most controversial figures.

Madison Grant was born on November 19, 1865.

Fred “Papa” Bear’s innovations to bowhunting gear and marketing vaulted the pastime into the mainstream. What is seldom discussed is his passion for conservation and his quest to establish a tax (for conservation) on the very products he sold. 

By PJ DelHomme