Dallas Safari Club Selects Boone and Crockett Club to Receive Capstick Award

America's oldest and most prestigious North American conservation organization, the Boone and Crockett Club, which was founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt, will be recognized during the January 8th Saturday Night Gala of the Dallas Safari Club 2009 convention as the recipient of the Peter Hathaway Capstick Hunting Heritage Award (PHCHHA). 

Named after the well-known American author, whose defense of the international big-game hunting community and the role of hunting in the conservation of wildlife and its habitat made him a household name.

The Award’s criteria include active involvement in education, hunting, conservation organizations, humanitarian causes, research, permanent endowments, and charitable giving. The intent of the PHCHHA is summed up in the PHCHHA Committees’ words: 

“The objective of this award is to bring honor and recognition to an individual, organization or group whose achievements reveal a sustained and significant contribution to the conservation of wildlife and its habitat. Additionally, the winner will have shown long-term commitment to our hunting heritage by pursuing that goal for the benefit of future generations.”

The PHCHHA honors the memory of a great man whose writings captured the essence of his love of the hunt and his respect for and understanding of wildlife and wild lands. It is intended to fulfill Mr. Capstick’s lifelong desire to promote a hunting legacy and ensure the conservation of our wildlife resources. The establishment of this premiere hunting award heralded a milestone for the international hunting and wildlife conservation community by highlighting individuals or groups responsible for the long-term support and commitment to our hunting heritage. 

Epitomizing the ideals of the PHCHHA, the Boone and Crockett Club is the first organization recognized with this prestigious award. Previous award recipients include: Harry Tennison of Fort Worth, Texas, the late Baron Bertrand des Clers of France, President Theodore Roosevelt (posthumously) and Dr. Ian Player of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.

Theodore Roosevelt, and other visionary sportsmen founded the Club to address all matters pertaining to natural resource conservation on a national scale. For more than a century the Club has been at the forefront of conservation and preserving our hunting heritage. Although known buy most sportsmen for the Club’s scoring system and records books of native North American big game, the North American Wildlife Conservation Model, The Lacey Act, Pittman Robertson Act, the National Forest Service, National Wildlife Refuge system, the formation of the American Wildlife Conservation Partners, a confederation of all the major hunting and conservation organizations, the President’s Sporting Conservation Council and even the most recent White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy can all be traced to the influence and leadership of the Boone and Crockett Club and its members. 

The Boone and Crockett Club promotes outdoor ethics for all people, emphasizing shared use of natural resources to protect options for future generations. Protecting wildlife population habitat on public and private lands, and associated outdoor recreational experiences is a major focus.

The concept of Fair Chase has been a Boone and Crockett philosophy since the Club's beginning. Defined by the Club as the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of free-ranging wild game animals in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the animal, Fair Chase is to this day a critical element in our hunting culture. Fair Chase is the code of the hunter-conservationist, yet reaches beyond the hunt. It is the core value of outdoor ethics, extending to all who enjoy wildlife and wild lands, or who make use of their resources.

The Club is the oldest organization to champion such an ethics in North America. The hunting and game laws recognized today are a direct result of the statement, philosophies, and tenets of the Club’s Fair Chase ideals.

Dallas Safari Club and the Club’s charitable arm, the Dallas Ecological Foundation, are pleased to recognized America’s finest and oldest hunting and conservation organization, the Boone and Crockett Club, as the recipient of the 2009 Peter Hathaway Hunting Heritage Award.