Bighorn Sheep Just One Feature of the 30th Big Game Awards

The Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium in Springfield, Missouri, will be the site for the Boone and Crockett Club's 30th Big Game Awards exhibit and celebration in August of 2019. Today the Club is projecting that one species of big game doing remarkably well is bighorn sheep.

"In more than 71 years of hosting these triennial awards events, we anticipate that the quality and number of outstanding specimens on display next year will exceed anything we have seen before," said Justin Spring, the Club's director of Big Game Records. "We still have the 2018 hunting season to go but we know for sure bighorn sheep will be one of the shining stars."

On display will be the new World's Record bighorn (216-3/8) with seven additional rams scoring more than 200-inches accepted in the 30th Awards, including a ram taken by a youth hunter in Montana. Justin D. Sheedy's ram scores 208-3/8 and is a pending tie for the largest hunter-taken bighorn ram of all time. The three larger rams from recorded history were picked up trophies, including the new World's Record ram that was confirmed in early 2018 by a Special Judges Panel. All other exhibited trophies will be panel scored by senior B&C measurers to verify their entry scores.

Prior to the release of its next records book, the Club identifies and invites the top trophies from all categories of North American big game taken in fair chase and entered during the previous three years to be placed on public display and honored at this event. The public exhibit of trophies is followed by special events, two banquets - one honoring our youth and the other the top trophies. More than 150 exceptional animals are expected to be on display.

"It's always interesting to look at what's being taken, compare the historical data, and see which of our big game species is really doing well on the landscape," Spring explained. "For sure our whitetails are rebounding from the dip we witnessed for the 29th Awards, but this time, bighorn sheep have really blown up."

As one of North America's longest-running celebrations of big game conservation and management, the Boone and Crockett Club's Big Game Awards exhibit, events and banquets are scheduled for August 1-3, 2019. A viewing of these exceptional animals will be on public display from early May through August 3.

The Boone and Crockett Club began a system of recording trophies in 1906 as a way of detailing species once headed for extinction. Today, recorded data reflect population health, habitat quality, and conservation successes. Biologists compare and contrast records to improve local management strategies as well as state and federal wildlife polices.

More information on the Boone and Crockett Club 30th Big Game Awards is available at www.biggameawards.com.