Scoring whitetail deer, elk, and other antlered game seems natural today. But did you ever wonder where and when the current system of Boone & Crockett scoring begin?
Daniel and Davy didn’t start the system that carries their names. No, it was conservationists such as President Theodore Roosevelt that played a significant role in wildlife preservation efforts. This movement began at, of all places, the Bronx Zoo.
President Theodore Roosevelt in his hunting attire.
We all know how the conservation movement that began in the late years of the 1800s and continued to develop in the early 20th Century with game laws, the Forest System, and the code of the sportsman, took several decades to really start showing progress.
The Boone and Crockett Club’s interest in records can be traced to 1895 and the 1st Annual Sportsmen’s Exposition in New York City with Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell and Archibald Rogers serving as competition judges.
Later, in 1902, a Committee on Game Measurements was appointed and included Roosevelt, Rogers and Caspar Whitney. Nothing appeared to result from that effort until a previously unknown pocket-sized booklet, dated 1906, was discovered about six years ago in 2008. The booklet attempted to create written instructions for measuring game.
