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.
Conservation
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A Dozen Spine-tingling Record-book Trophies Presented by Fiocchi Do you appreciate really big elk? Nasty non-typical mule deer your thing? Maybe you’re more a fan of sheep—Dall’s, desert, Stone’s? Honestly, it doesn’t matter, because we have a little bit of everything in this line-up from our most...
Conservation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Achieving grand conservation milestones takes networking, collaboration, patience, and partnerships. Boone and Crockett Club members know that. For this reason, many Club members have been on the ground floor in the formative days of numerous conservation and environmental organizations that still exist today. While this isn’t an exhaustive list of the groups that the Club has helped to get off the ground, it does provide some insight into the far-reaching influence that past and current members have on the community dedicated to the wildlife and wild places we cherish.
Members of the Boone and Crockett Club worked relentlessly not just to save pronghorn from extinction, but also to preserve the land on which they roam where they still flourish to this day.
There were about two million acres of old-growth redwoods in Northern California before Europeans arrived en masse to the area. Today, only about 110,000 acres of old-growth redwood forest remains. If it weren’t for Boone and Crockett Club members, there wouldn’t be any redwoods left at all.
George Bird Grinnell, co-founder of the Boone and Crockett Club, worked for decades to protect a chunk of northwest Montana we now call Glacier National Park.
Members of the Boone and Crockett Club were key players in laying the groundwork for both conservation of game species and generating the funds to pay for it—a system that we still use today.
After establishing the foundation for America's National Wildlife Refuge System, members of the Boone and Crockett Club continued to build upon their successful wildlife restoration efforts that still exist today. Challenges in managing these special places take collaborative solutions—and that’s where the Club excels.
How one member of the Boone and Crockett Club (almost) single-handedly established Denali National Park.
By PJ DelHomme A list of those involved in the early years of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) reads like a who’s who of the Boone and Crockett Club. Even though the AMNH opened its doors in 1869—18 years before the Club was founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell —the...
Sheep, Bears, Caribou, Whitetails—There’s a Giant for Every Hunter Could you pick only one species to hunt for the rest of your life? We can’t either, so we waded through our recent big game entries to give you a big taste of everything. North America is a hunter’s paradise, and the assortment of...
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.
In 2022, both the Boone and Crockett Club’s National Collection of Heads and Horns and one of B&C’s great partners, Federal Premium Ammunition, celebrated their centennial anniversaries. The building that housed the National Collection was dedicated in May 1922 and marked a critical time in turning the tide toward wildlife conservation. Federal Cartridge Company was incorporated in April 1922, and when the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act passed in 1937, Federal became one of the primary companies paying the excise tax that helped restore our native wildlife populations. Conservation became a success story over the next 100 years, and the Club and our members and partners were at the center of the discussion.
Spring 2022 Edition – What’s better than record-book antlers, horns, and skulls? The stories behind them, of course. This slideshow certainly has plenty of big bone at which to gawk. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll find so much more. There’s the coal miner from Virginia who drove to Newfoundland with two chest freezers to hunt woodland caribou. There is the hunter who killed the world’s record musk ox, and then he packed it out on his back. And did you hear the one about the Rocky Mountain goat in South Dakota? We’ve got them all right here.
Summer 2022 Edition With the 31st Big Game Awards right around the corner, the anticipation of seeing so many conservation success stories under one roof is electric. What follows is just a sample of some of the great trophies the Boone and Crockett Club will celebrate in Springfield Missouri, July...
Winter 2021 Edition - Whether your hunts are in the rearview or you’re layering up for one more try, we have a number of new record entries to keep hunting on your mind. Check out a new Montana state record black bear, a behemoth bighorn ram from North Dakota, and an Appalachian sleeper-state producing some incredible whitetails.
In the early 1900s, when America’s conservation movement was in its infancy, Boone and Crockett Club members used media to spread the word about destruction of the country’s wildlife and wild places. In turn, the public pressured lawmakers to support legislation safeguarding those resources.
Lead Ammunition Top of Mind in D.C. — For most hunters, the metallurgical composition of ammunition only comes to mind when buying a box of cartridges or two at the sporting goods store. Most folks find their preferred caliber, peruse the specs, and buy the most cost-effective round for their budget.
Wildlife artist Carl Rungius traveled extensively across Canada and the American West, sketching and painting the big game he encountered. His work showed city folks on the East Coast what they would lose if they didn’t take seriously a new concept called conservation.
Montana 1958 — With a .270 Winchester Model 70, this dairy farm worker cut a big set of elk tracks in October. He followed that bull for at least a dozen miles using his wits and old-school hunting wisdom. At the end of the trail was the second-largest elk in the world.
Relenting to mounting pressure, Club officials allow the elusive chupacabra (Spanish for goat sucker) into the big game records. April 1, 2023 — Since 1995, advocates of a blood-sucking, hairless, reptilian-like animal have worked to recognize the creature as a trophy big game animal. They finally...
By Mike McTee, Researcher, MPG Ranch - Aldo Leopold wrote that “a conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land.” As hunters today, we are signing our names with bullets.
By Jon Gassett , B&C Professional Member In 2020, the Boone and Crockett Club, in partnership with the Wildlife Management Institute, initiated a comprehensive study of the illegal take of big game in the United States. The goals of this effort are to better understand the difference between...
The Boone and Crockett Club and Wildlife Management Institute’s Poach & Pay Program recently completed analysis of early data from surveys of landowners, hunters, and conservation officers in an effort to understand the “Dark Figure” of poaching. Initial research under the Poach & Pay project in 2016 examined and reviewed state restitution systems for illegal take of big game species and found that the judicial systems were the primary obstacle for successfully convicting and punishing poachers.
For five months in 2022, a trail camera posted on a fence next to a riparian area caught the intimate travels of both predator and prey. Grizzlies, lions, elk, bobcats, mule deer—everything took a turn walking along, scooting under, hopping over, and plowing through this fence near Dupuyer Creek that runs along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front.
A raffle ticket earns a young hunter (and his dad) the chance to chase elk in Virginia. A historic hunt ensues, ending with a big bull and bigger memories. By PJ DelHomme Bo Prieskorn was hunting pronghorn with his sons in New Mexico when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but answered...
Winter came early this year to the Rocky Mountain Front. On the Club’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch in northwest Montana, the plains slam into the Rocky Mountains in dramatic fashion—and the weather can be intense. Winds in some places on the Front average 18 mph every single day. That doesn’t seem to stop the big game, predators, and other woodland creatures from going about their business as usual.
From apex predators like grizzly bears to feisty striped skunks, the Boone and Crockett Club’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front is a wildlife melting pot. You can see a small sampling of those full-time residents here. The ranch has dozens of wildlife trail cams...
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...
It’s been a long winter, and they can be very long on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front where the Boone and Crockett Club owns and manages the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial (TRM) Ranch . The mission of the ranch is to research, teach, and demonstrate integrated livestock/wildlife conservation, which is...
Much of North America is currently in the depths of winter, but that doesn’t mean you have to dwell on it. After sifting through thousands of trail camera photos and videos from the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch from last spring and summer, Boone and Crockett Fellow Chris Hansen pulled the very...
Alaska 1956 One man’s quest for a trophy Dall’s sheep takes him on a classic adventure in Alaska’s Chugach Mountains. His determination ends with a wild story and a World’s Record. During World War II, Frank Cook served in the Navy. He was a radio and radar operator on seaplanes and spent about a...
Congressional action prior to the holidays enacted the Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act as part of the final omnibus spending bill for 2023. The legislation formalizes a 3-year-old program that supports states and tribes in their efforts to control chronic wasting disease (CWD), an always fatal neurological disease affecting cervids like deer, elk, and moose.
Adding packrafting has catapulted MOHAB into the highest category of BSA high adventure programs. Excerpt from Fair Chase Magazine By Luke Coccoli, B&C Conservation Program Manager Photos Courtesy of MOHAB/BSA contributors When I was filling out the application to work for Boone and Crockett,...
MISSOULA, Mont. (May 5, 2022) – In late April, the Judges Panel for the Boone and Crockett Club’s 31st Big Game Awards completed the official scores on 71 of the top trophies in 32 categories from 26 distinct species or subspecies that were taken through fair chase hunting or were picked up and entered into the B&C Record Book over the last three years. The mounts that were panel scored for the 31st Big Game Awards—and those of 25 youth-harvested trophies that were added to the record book—are now on display to the public at Johnny Morris’ Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium in Springfield, Missouri.
While Wisconsin has plenty of game to hunt like turkey, upland birds—and even elk and wolves—it’s the whitetail deer and black bears that make the record book. In fact, their black bears are consistently in the top 100, and they have been since 2000. To hunt one of the state’s 24,000 estimated bruins, hunters have to apply for roughly 11,500 permits. More than 129,000 hunters applied in 2021. As for deer, Wisconsin is home to the Jordan buck, the number three typical whitetail of all time. The state has plenty of typical deer entries in the 180-inch range, and there are a number of non-typicals over 220 as well.
The .30-06 is not only the .308’s parent case; it is also the cartridge that the .308 is best compared against. Despite its much shorter case, the .308 offers about 96 percent the performance of the ‘06. Shown at left—the .308 Winchester, and right—the .30-06 Springfield. In the background, the...
On behalf of the entire team at the Boone and Crockett Club, we want to express our sincerest gratitude for your support. Your dedication to conservation, hunting, and outdoor traditions is a vital part of what makes our organization so special. Here is a delicious recipe for wild game that you can...
NUMBER ONE — Hunter: Milo Hansen Score: 213-5/8 points Location: Saskatchewan Year: 1993 It all started with a school bus driver. On the last day of Saskatchewan’s 1992 deer season, the driver told some locals that a monster whitetail was feeding in Milo Hansen’s alfalfa field. Once word got around...
With racks akin to century-old twisted trees at timberline, these bucks are true monsters. They are hardly the stuff of nightmares, though. Visions of seeing these deer afield give us the energy to hike over just one more ridge. Be careful, though. A buck with headgear like this can come with...
They may not be the prettiest specimens on the planet, but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And we’re willing to bet you wouldn’t pass up any of these bucks because they were a tad asymmetrical. Some of these deer were taken by hunters who didn’t mind a lot of junk. One deer’s...
Handsome, pretty, dashing—whichever word you choose—these muleys look downright gentlemanly with their nearly perfect symmetrical racks. “Nets are for fish,” you say. Well, okay, we’ll get you the stories behind the biggest mule deer ever (non-typicals) soon. Until then, we hope you like what you...
Anyone who has ever hunted pronghorn understands the magic that surrounds hunting them. You see a herd on the horizon, plan a stalk, and belly crawl through cactus to get into range. Then the wind shifts, and the herd makes for the next county. You smile, ready to do it all over again at dusk...
Native to California, tule elk are the beach bums of the elk world. In 2021, one North Dakota hunter was able to break a nearly 20-year old record and fill his tag with the largest hunter-killed tule ever recorded. Check out these stories. Only found in California , tule elk are named after the...
This subspecies of whitetail deer make a living in the arid, mountainous regions of the America’s Desert Southwest and south into Mexico. What they lack in size, they more than make up for in sheer toughness and adaptability. And their racks can range from dainty to downright devilish. Coues’ deer...
The echo of their bugles through the aspen is the quintessential sound of fall. When heard on the hunt, those screams trigger a primordial drive. The hunters in the following stories know that drive. They are cowboys, miners, Army medics, and a maintenance guy from the highway department. These are their stories of elk hunting legend.
As you read these tales of hunting mountain caribou, you soon realize these animals don’t come easy. Most hunts require backcountry camps reached only by foot or horseback. According to the B&C scoring manual , their range extends north into southern Yukon Territory, south into British Columbia, and east into Alberta. Find mountain caribou, and you will find adventure.
As the father of wildlife ecology and a driving force behind the creation of a wilderness system, Aldo Leopold left a monumental legacy for conservation.
Seven timber companies and four conservation organizations are joining together to fight the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among deer, elk, and other species of the deer family (known as “cervids”). The new CWD coalition will promote practices that help discover, manage, and mitigate the...
A revolver belonging to Boone and Crockett Club co-founder and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt sold for more than $750,000 at a recent auction.
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"The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must and we will."
-Theodore Roosevelt
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