Boone and Crockett Club Rejects Scoring for Captive Game

The Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) has renounced the use of its name and scoring system in conjunction with hunting programs that use captive deer and elk. “With the growth of the deer breeding and shooting industry, and modern marketing and selling of ‘shooter bucks’ raised in captivity and graded and sold using B&C scores, it was time to make this unauthorized use of our scoring system more widely known,” said B&C club president William A. Demmer.

The Idaho Statesman agrees: “The Boone and Crockett Club has reinforced its heritage as a conservation organization by banning the use of its name and scoring system for captive deer and elk advertised for or killed in canned hunts. It’s the right call for the club and an important step to separate trophy, free-ranging big-game animals taken by hunters under fair-chase conditions from captive animals manipulated to grow large antlers and shot in a controlled, captive environment.”

For nearly 100 years Boone and Crockett’s record books and B&C scores have been considered the gold standard for evaluating and verifying the trophy quantity of wild, native North American big game taken under fair chase conditions. With this resolution, ratified at Boone and Crockett’s 127th annual meeting this month, B&C is taking a firm stand against captive game hunting programs:

The Boone and Crockett Club scoring system exists to document the successful conservation of wild game animals in North America. The Boone and Crockett Club objects to and rejects any use of or reference to the Boone and Crockett Club or its scoring system in connection with antlers/horns grown by animals in captivity.

Through this official resolution, the Club reaffirms that no one is authorized to exploit this standard by using the B&C scoring system, name or logo in connection with captive animals. The Club strictly opposes any attempt to legitimize the trophy quality of pen-raised animals or put and take shooting operations by associating either with the Boone and Crockett Club.

About Boone and Crockett Club Scoring
The Boone and Crockett Club’s records program was established in 1906 as a way of detailing species once thought headed for extinction. In response to public interest generated by B&C’s National Collection of Heads and Horns in the 1920s, and increased hunting by the general public, the Club established an official measurement and scoring system for trophy big game. The National Collection and the measurement system were initially conceived to record species of North American big game thought to be vanishing. Club Members and others in the scientific community soon recognized that the system was an effective means of tracking the success of new conservation policies. Today, the B&C scoring system is used to collect data on free-ranging big game. These data reflect successful conservation efforts, population health and habitat quality. Biologists compare and contrast records to improve local management strategies as well as state and federal wildlife policies.