B&C Position Statements — Big Game Records and Hunting

TROPHIES AND TROPHY HUNTING 

What constitutes a trophy is a matter of personal choice and experience, as is choosing to hold out, hunt longer and harder for a mature animal. B&C has long supported selective hunting for mature animals that have already genetically contributed to overall herd health. Such a selective harvest also supports conservation and game management efforts when a balanced age structure within a given big game population is an objective of State wildlife managers. While not every animal taken will qualify for B&C records, any animal taken legally and fairly can be a trophy. Click here to read the full position statement.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

Our technological advantages have the capability to overwhelm wildlife resources, and eliminate something every special to hunting – the challenge and when the outcome is not guaranteed. B &C is in support of technological advances in hunting equipment and techniques as long as these tools do not undermine a positive public image of hunting and diminish the skills necessary to be a fair and responsible hunter, or set a bad example for young hunters.

RECORDS BOOKS

B&C believes that records books represent the history of successful conservation and game management policies that have been supported by hunter-conservationists for more than a century. As such, records books celebrate these programs by recognizing the big game animals taken as a result of science-based game management and successful, fair chase sportsmen and sportswomen who have contributed to this management.

SCORING LIVE GAME

B&C discourages and does not endorse the use of its copyrighted scoring system to score live game animals that have been tranquilized or constrained for the purpose of establishing the commercial value for sale or possibly to be shoot in a put and take, bogus "hunting" situation referred to by the Club as a canned shoot.

POACHING RESTITUTION

B&C does support the use of all or any part of its copyrighted scoring system by State wildlife officials to determine and assess fines for illegally taken game.

TROPHY FEES

B&C does not endorse the use of its copyrighted scoring system to determine a fee for animals harvested by hunters.

B&C TROPHY

An animal is not a B&C trophy and therefore should not be considered or identified as such until such it has been entered, verified, and accepted by the B&C Records Department

FAIR CHASE

The Boone and Crockett Club defines Fair Chase as the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animals. Read the Club's full position statement and essay on fair chase. Click here to read the Club's full position statement on Fair Chase.

CANNED SHOOTS

The Boone and Crockett Club condemns the pursuit and killing of any big game animal kept in or released from captivity to be killed in an artificial or bogus “hunting” situation where the game lacks the equivalent chance to escape afforded free-ranging animals, virtually assuring the shooter a certain or unrealistically favorable chance of a kill. Read the Club's full position statement on Canned Shoots. Click here to read the Club's full position statement on canned shoots.