Trophy Hunting – Is it Ethical?

The Boone & Crockett Club

My better half asked me to accompany her, as her photographer, to the Media Summit for the Boone & Crockett Club (B & C Club) 32nd Big Game Awards held at the Bass Pro Shops home base in Springfield, Missouri, this past April. As a deer hunter, I was interested in seeing the trophy mounts, horns, and antlers, but I didn’t expect to be as interested in the scoring process as well. In addition, a round-table discussion during the Summit intrigued me – enough, as it turns-out, that I thought about it periodically over the ensuing days. The discussion involved the invited media folks and B&C Club employees, and addressed current concepts of fair chase in hunting, trophy hunting, and hunting ethics in general. Our primary concern was the direction those concepts have taken in the media, and in the public’s opinions, throughout the last few decades. Does the public consider trophy hunting ethical?

A trophy mount at the Boone & Crockett Club 32nd Big Game Awards

B&C Officials scoring a set of antlers.

Before this event, I knew very little about the B & C Club, or Pope & Young, a similar trophy scoring organization that collaborates with B & C Club and apparently only deals with animals taken by archery methods. The scoring this year was of horns, skulls, and antlers from the top five entries for each big game type submitted for scoring from the last three years. Before this experience, I, like (I imagine) many people in the public and media unfamiliar with the details, considered trophy hunting as something invented to satisfy the competitive nature of hunters.

Trophy Hunting

I don’t consider myself superior to “trophy hunters,” but refusing a good meat kill in favor of waiting for a chance at harvesting a (somehow) superior animal never appealed to me, even though I have a son I assist during hunting season who will do so. In other words, I don’t consider trophy hunting a bad or distasteful pursuit, even though I don’t partake. Is it unethical? Is it fair chase? I hadn’t considered these questions before attending this Media Summit, but the round-table discussion intrigued me and got me thinking about it.

The author (r) and one of his sons after a successful morning of deer hunting

A fine buck harvested during deer season

Well, for starters, what are ethics? Fifty years ago, I was the representative to the Cadet Ethics Committee for my squadron at the U.S. Air Force Academy during a time when we decided the Honor Code (I will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate anyone who does) needed a supplement to address the “gray” areas outside this simple Honor Code statement. The supplement covered standards of behavior acceptable to our society, a warrior class of officers charged with securing our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. One cannot simply express Ethics as a single sentence, even within a relatively small group of people with a nearly singular focus such as we had, so we Ethics reps had a difficult job that required much thought, soul-searching, and discussion regarding each (possible) ethical violation.

Hunting Code of Conduct

So, how do we decide what “ethical” means regarding hunting? In trying to answer that, one must think about what hunting behaviors are acceptable to society. Because societal concepts change with time, we need to look at society as it was when our hunting ethics were in their infancy in North America, in addition to incorporating current societal concepts. According to B&C Club’s essay on Fair Chase, when members founded the B&C Club (the first meeting was in 1888) they believed, in addition to laws and regulations, a code of conduct for sportsmen would leave “no doubt that hunting would be conducted ethically and in a manner that would aid wildlife recovery and not threaten wildlife populations.”

These outdoorsmen realized the ancient aristocratic European hunting ethics surrounding hunting challenges and game management on their land holdings did not transfer to North America. Our immigrants were primarily commoners who considered hunting as a means of providing food, with no concept of game management for the future. From the Fair Chase essay: “The members of the Club reasoned that if the recovery and conservation of big game populations was to stand a chance of succeeding, a different approach to hunting was needed. Laws and government game management agencies alone would not necessarily satisfy a society concerned with wildlife extinction… Members agreed that such a code (of conduct) would also be helpful in further distancing ethical hunting from commercial market hunting, an industry that was eventually eliminated.”

One of the joys of hunting – being in the woods, early in the morning watching the moon setting

Praying in a deer stand

According to the Club, “The code needed to convey the idea that achievement in the field is best measured by the effort involved, that the hunting experience was far more important than the kill, and that hunting serves the goals of conservation.” So, within the Club, these three concepts became their model of fair chase. Personally, I believe this last quoted statement also encapsulates ethical hunting.

Ethics and Fair Chase in Hunting

OK, but why is harvesting animals based on their trophy status appropriate to ethics and fair chase? One measure of conservation success is the change in numbers of game animals, but a mere increase in numbers doesn’t tell anything about the vigor of the animal population. Wildlife agencies across North America manage conditions for wildlife and track animal population changes thorough field counts and hunting season harvest numbers, and they control the relative numbers of male versus female animals harvested during seasons. Private organizations, like B & C Club and Pope & Young, must take up the slack, however, to keep records of physical traits identified with the more robust male members of different species. These records are tools necessary to help us measure the successes or failures of habitat conservation and species restoration efforts. The B & C Club code of conduct promotes hunting for trophies following fair chase and ethical hunting practices, so the process incentivizes species conservation while enabling an ethical outlet for the competitive nature of many hunters.

A deer skull found while hiking in the woods. Did the deer die due to disease, misadventure or gun shot? We would know the answer if it had been taken during a hunt and submitted for scoring. However, found skulls, antlers and horns may still be measured for the record books — even if you didn’t hunt the species. And, remember, if you find a dead animal, before removing a skull, you need to check with your wildlife agency in that state to see what the regulations are for possession.

Learning this was an eye-opener for me; it certainly expanded my concept of trophy hunting and gave me an appreciation for what B & C and Pope & Young do for wildlife conservation.

Promoting Wildlife and Habitat Conservation

Therefore, so long as hunters following the code of conduct pursue and take the trophy animals, the hunters’ quests for the biggest and best actually promote wildlife and habitat conservation and contribute to the database of information about what is working or what needs consideration by wildlife agencies, hunters, and the voting population in general.

For more information about what the Boone & Crockett Club does, take a look at their website: https://www.boone-crockett.org/.