About

Message from the President for Fiscal Year 2021 – As I sit and start to write my final address as the President of the Boone and Crockett Club, I want to say thanks to all of you. Thanks for your confidence in putting me in this position and thanks even more for your support. As I started this road so many years ago, I had no idea how much it would mean to me personally. I knew I had a love for the outdoors and the wild, but this experience has taught me so much about the responsibility we all have in making sure it has a future. Today I think our Club continues to tell our story better and is effective at fighting for our wildlife—after all, if we don’t do something, who will?

Nearly devoid of wild game, North America’s landscape in the late-1800s was a very different place. Bison, elk, and even deer were nearly wiped from the continent to supply a growing demand for meat, hides, and heads. To provide feathers for fashionable hats of high-society ladies, migratory birds were annihilated—sometimes by the hundreds with one shot from a massive “punt” gun. Only a handful of bison remained, and even whitetail deer were hard to find. Wildlife populations were spiraling toward extinction until a handful of influential hunters decided to end the slaughter.

The Boone and Crockett Club leads the conservation community by example. Through programs like Poach and Pay, we continue to take a stand against wanton waste of our wildlife. In addition, our support of wildlife research and conservation education ensures future generations of game managers and biologists have the tools they need. Even in the halls of Congress, you’ll find members of the Boone and Crockett Club advocating for conservation legislation. Everything we do builds upon the legacy of our founders. And with the continued support of our members and others who care about wildlife, we’ll continue to conserve well into the future. Learn more about our conservation programs and efforts below.

Surveys indicate that only about five percent of America’s population hunts. Those same surveys indicate that another five percent are against any kind of hunting. The 90 percent in the middle? They’re on the fence about it. Relatively few Americans understand that hunters are responsible for the lion’s share of funding for state wildlife management agencies. That’s by design. The Boone and Crockett Club’s founders were hunters who understood that conservation isn’t free. And they worked to create a system of conservation that is paid for by those who care about it most.

At times, it seems the world is changing faster than we can make sense of it. When it comes to conservation, though, the Boone and Crockett Club is working to help our future leaders keep up with those changes and understand what that change means for our wildlife resources. Since 1993, the Club and its members have funded endowed chairs and fellowships at universities across the country. In addition, the Club uses our Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch as a base camp to show young adults how to embrace all aspects of the outdoors.

Accountants keep track of money. Jails keep rosters of inmates. And the Boone and Crockett Club keeps records of the largest specimens of North American big game. Why? Because if you’re going to measure the success of conservation and restoration efforts for an entire continent, then you’re going to need some way to keep score. And that’s what the Club’s founders did when they published the first copy of Records of North American Big Game in 1932.