The Boone and Crockett Club sets the rules for entering a trophy into its records books, which are based primarily on principles of wildlife conservation and fair chase. The fact that the Club accepts entries that have not been harvested by a hunter, but instead are “found” by people (whether on a hunt or not) may be surprising to some, but there are sound reasons for doing so.
Found trophies include animals that die of natural causes, such as advanced age, environmental factors, and predation. Found trophies also include animals that die of unnatural causes, such as vehicle collisions. Found entries, along with the locations where found, are listed as “picked up” in the Club’s records books to distinguish them from hunter-taken entries, which are subject to different eligibility requirements, including the principles of fair chase.
The big game records of the Boone and Crockett Club are a set of wildlife and hunting data that the Club began to collect over a century ago to initially track the recovery of big game populations from decades of unregulated overharvesting. The focus today is on monitoring the quality and distribution of specimens that natural conditions and sound wildlife management are capable of producing.
Having sportsmen participate in this data collection system by voluntarily submitting their trophies is vital. Having people submit trophies they find is equally important. Mature males that have lived long enough in the wild under favorable conditions to grow large antlers, horns, or skulls to qualify for the Club’s records book are indicators of healthy ecosystems, balanced age structures within a given population, acceptable mortality (natural and human-caused) and sustainable recruitment. The Boone and Crockett Club maintains that all trophies, both harvested by hunters and those that are found, add to the data set that helps game managers adopt successful policies to benefit big game populations of North America. The Club’s records program was never intended to be a numeric ranking of a hunter’s skills.