The records department of the Boone and Crockett Club recently convened a Special Judges Panel to verify the entry score of a musk ox entry received earlier this year. Two separate teams of judges remeasured the musk ox entry and confirmed its score of 131 4/8 points. The massive set of horns weighed 46 pounds.

Aron F. Wark killed the musk ox on August 1, 2023, near Contwoyto Lake in the Canadian Territory of Nunavut. Wark’s musk ox beat the old record of 130 4/8 points set by Alex Therrien in 2020.

Before Wark’s entry could be made official, Boone and Crockett Club procedures require that the final score of a potential World’s Record be verified by either an Awards Program Judges Panel or a Special Judges Panel. In this case, the Club held a Special Judges Panels at Club headquarters in Missoula, Montana. The measurers included the panel chairman and the Club’s director of big game records, Kyle Lehr, as well as Fred King, Rebecca Spring, and Jennifer Schwab, assistant director of big game records.

The Time of His Life

“I had the best time of my life, even without shooting a musk ox,” Wark says. The 57-year-old is quick to credit his guide, Sam Kapolak, with filling the hunt with good laughs and plenty of exercise. “A lot of people think this is an easy hunt, but it’s not,” notes Warks. “We covered 20 miles in a day, and it’s not flat. The walking sucks. I want to get these hard hunts out of the way before I get old.”

The Boone and Crockett Club has been measuring North American big game since 1895. As a way to measure conservation efforts the Club began keeping records in the 1920s and released the first record book in 1932.

According to Kyle Lehr, the Club’s director of big game records, “Keeping a record of the largest representations of North American big game isn’t a competition between hunters, it’s a tool for hunters and resource managers to help them understand how wildlife management is or isn’t working in a given area.”

“Every animal is a trophy,” says Tony A. Schoonen, chief executive officer of the Boone and Crockett Club. “Sometimes, truly magnificent animals are taken that represent North America's conservation success story. That’s really what we’re celebrating.”

“I would like to share this honor with Dino Bugni of Worldwide Trophy Adventures, Kyler Knelsen of Adventure Northwest and Sam Kapolak,” Wark says. “Without them this would have never happened.”

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