Boone and Crockett Club Leads on Fair Chase at Wyoming Sportsperson Conservation Panel

Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Brian Nesvik and B&C policy team member Charlie Booher participated in Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon’s inaugural Sportsperson’s Conservation forum in Dubois, WY, on May 22. The event included several panel discussions on issues facing Wyoming’s conservationists today. Booher served on a panel titled “Celebrating our Hunting Heritage: Perspectives On Ethics, Fair Chase and What Hunting Means to Wyoming” and delivered remarks on behalf of the Club. His statement read in part:

“The heritage of the Boone and Crockett Club in particular is one of leadership across all wildlife, not just when we're hunting or on those species that we pursue. Hunters in the past committed themselves to restoring wildlife populations that had been destroyed and conserving land that was at risk of nearly unlimited exploitation. Having recovered most game species and making progress in restoring others, our task has turned to ensuring that those species are not unduly impacted by vehicles, fences, invasive species, or the seemingly endless stream of condos and subdivisions that seem to be popping up. We continue to lead, but our leadership depends on how we are viewed by the rest of the world,” said Booher. 

“Fair chase is a part of an overall conservation ethic. It defines a true sportsperson as one who could kill game yet use self-restraint and stand guard to ensure that wildlife populations would never be threatened again. The Boone and Crockett Club believes ethical choices in hunting are more important today than at any previous time. Hunter’s values—their motivations and their conduct—shape society’s opinion of hunting. And society's opinion of hunting—for better or for worse—will define our continued ability to hunt in the days, weeks, and decades to come.”

Panelists discuss Perspectives On Ethics, Fair Chase and What Hunting Means to Wyoming​​​​​​​

The following are his remarks in full. 

We're here today to talk about our contract with society. Hunters in the past committed themselves to restoring wildlife populations that had been destroyed and conserving land that was at risk of nearly unlimited exploitation. Having recovered most game species and making progress in restoring others, our task has turned to ensuring that those species are not unduly impacted by vehicles, fences,invasive species, or the seemingly endless stream of condos and subdivisions that seem to be popping up. We continue to lead.

The heritage of the Boone and Crockett Club in particular is one of leadership across all wildlife, not just when we're hunting or on those species that we pursue.

Our historical success is rooted in our position in society—a position that I'd argue is at risk in a lot of places.

Take today's event, for example. We're thankful to Governor Gordon for bringing us all here to celebrate our heritage and plan for the future. But do you think something like this could or would happen in Illinois? Or New York? Or, God forbid, California?

It is clear that in much of the country—though, thankfully, not here in Wyoming—hunters no longer own conservation, the meaning of the word has blurred, and the part that remains “ours” is struggling to grow and maintain its renown. 

One way we can maintain that position is by continuing to advance our own ethical commitments in the ways that we hunt.

In general terms, people don't care how much we know until they know how much we care. And it's our job to show the rest of the world how much we care.

The challenge of conservation today is the purpose of the Boone and Crockett Club, the shared responsibility of our closest partners and all conservationists. There is always a way forward if we read the landscape, maneuver accordingly, and bring what it takes to complete the mission.

For better or for worse, we have been here before. While we shouldn't be restrained by that history or force ourselves to run the same play over and over again, we can learn at least a few things from those who came before us.

At a time when wildlife and wild places were abundant, it mattered far less how we hunted. There was little need or room for an ethical approach to hunting. Wildlife was plentiful and hunting was not for sport but survival and profit.

By the late 1800s, unregulated sport and commercial market hunting had taken its toll. Wildlife was no longer abundant or even present in all but the furthest reaches of remaining wilderness. Sportspeople already knew what was happening, but the broader public was just beginning to take notice of the extinction of some species and the near extinction of others. The logical solution was preservation and protection, which included an end to hunting. Those closest to the situation had a different idea.

Influential sportsmen who valued the game they sought and the spirit of the chase stepped forward, most notably Theodore Roosevelt. He formed a group of his friends into the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887 to address the rapid decline of big game populations on a national scale.  Their solution was to promote a new system of natural resource use they called “conservation,” and they promoted regulated hunting as the foundation for this new system.

The mission of that Boone and Crockett Club is the same as it is today: to promote the conservation and management of wildlife, especially big game, and its habitat, to preserve and encourage hunting and to maintain the highest ethical standards of Fair Chase and sportsmanship in North America. 

Conservation was based on the fact that people need and will use natural resources, including wildlife, but this use would now have to be regulated and guided by science. For society to accept this new idea over complete protection, Roosevelt and the Club began to promote another new concept: Fair Chase.

At that time, members of the Boone and Crockett Club began to distinguish hunters from sportspeople. Take, for example, these first lines from the first issue of the magazine Forest and Stream, penned by editor Charles Hallock, who preceded George Bird Grinnell at the helm of that magazine. He explained that the mere act of hunting or fishing did not qualify a person as a true sportsman, saying: “It is not sufficient that a man should be able to knock over his birds dexterously right and left, or cast an inimitable fly.” To be a true sportsman, according to Hallock, required a familiarity with “the living intelligences that people the woods and the foundations.” He went on to write that “[a] practical knowledge of natural history must of necessity underlie all attainments which combine to make a thorough sportsman."

If hunting was going to be allowed to continue, how it was being conducted and the character of the hunter now mattered. Fair Chase became a matter of pride and status. It separated those who hunted for personal reasons from those who hunted for profit, like the commercial market hunters who had no similar code of honor.

Fair Chase became a part of an overall conservation ethic. It defined a true sportsperson as one who could kill game, yet use self-restraint and stand guard to ensure that wildlife populations would never be threatened again.

Fair Chase defined the rules of engagement that elevated sportsmen to being highly respected members of the community, both for their skills in the field and for their commitment to something greater than themselves.

We practice Fair Chase by holding ourselves to a higher standard than the law requires. It's rooted in virtue, duty, and honor. Continuing to practice our Fair Chase ethic secures hunting by affirming respect for law and “honor.” Honor appears in several tenets of Fair Chase.  There is honor in respecting local customs, in behavior that reflects favorably on us as hunters, on wildlife, and on the environment.  Honor is not required by law, but by credibility.

We cannot meet these challenges with our history alone.  We need new methods, respect for views and culture, and trust.

That means that our purposes are bigger than Fair Chase. The ethics needed to support professional management of all wildlife include basic ethics (how people get along with each other; proper government), the Land Ethic (how people get along with nature), and Fair Chase (how people pursue game wildlife). 

Fair Chase is what separates hunting from simply killing or shooting. It demands restraint and self-reliance, aligns with North American wildlife laws, and is in service to conservation. Fair Chase allows for lasting memories hunters can be proud of, provides young hunters with a proper path in hunting and in life, and meet the expectations of our modern societies.

The Boone and Crockett Club believes ethical choices in hunting are more important today than at any previous time. Hunter’s values—their motivations and their conduct—shape society’s opinion of hunting.

And society's opinion of hunting—for better or for worse—will define our continued ability to hunt in the days, weeks, and decades to come. That's why we're here today.