Evaluating the foundational elements of wildlife conservation requires understanding our history. Charlie Booher with Watershed Results offered the first presentation in a special session at the 90th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference on the foundations of conservation. This is a summary of Booher’s comments outlining how the actions of Theodore Roosevelt in forming the Boone and Crockett Club and advancing the principles of Fair Chase, along with increasing public awareness, provided the first conservation leap.

Men standing next to and on a pile of bison skulls clearly shows the waste from unregulated market hunting.

Boone and Crockett Club

At this year’s North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, we convened to discuss the future of wildlife conservation. As we often do, we began by reflecting on the past in the special session “The Foundation of Conservation is Cracked—Now What?” It’s a sobering premise, but one rooted in honesty. Conservation as we know it stands at an inflection point.

Across the country, federal agencies are grappling with the realities of reductions in both force and funding. Meanwhile, a fraying social contract challenges the very premise that those who benefit most directly from wildlife, namely hunters and anglers, should bear responsibility for its care. Challenges abound, but so do opportunities.

For better or for worse, we’ve been here before.

A Look Back in History

More than a century ago, unregulated market hunting and westward expansion decimated populations of all manner of wildlife. In response, visionaries like Theodore Roosevelt and the Boone and Crockett Club didn’t simply retreat into nostalgia or protectionism, nor did they accept the easiest paths forward; they innovated and crafted something new. They tried innumerable ideas, from building a national collection of taxidermy “In memory of the vanishing big game of the world” to commissioning art depicting the grandeur of the West, placing it in galleries in our nation’s capital, and using those images as a tool in establishing our country’s first national parks. Further, they transformed entire publications to advance their message of conservation. These leaders did what is necessary of all leaders, then and today – they burned a whole lot of boot leather in the halls of power to advance their agenda. In short, they held what modern psychologists call a “bias to action.”

Through their actions, these early leaders pioneered the idea that the consumptive use of wildlife – hunting – could be used sustainably if guided by science and ethics. They anchored this system on an emergent ethical principle: Fair Chase.

Fair Chase elevated hunting beyond just sport or profit. It became a code of restraint and respect. That ethic still speaks to and guides people today, including many far beyond the hunting community. It reminds us that conservation is about more than just writing management plans or building population models. It's about trust.

Evaluating the Path Forward

Paintings by Boone and Crockett Club member Albert Bierstadt helped convey the grandeur of the West to a public who had never been there.

Boone and Crockett Club

The foundations of our institutions of wildlife management are not static structures. They are more like a trail system, built by those who walked before us. It’s our job to adjust the route, not abandon the journey. The path forward calls for a broader, more inclusive conservation vision of one that values whole landscapes and the people who work and live on them. That means breaking down false dichotomies between land that’s “conserved” and land that’s “not.” It means building policies that serve both wildlife and the communities that have long stewarded our shared natural heritage.

History reminds us that conservation’s biggest leaps have come in times of turmoil. Roosevelt convened governors in 1908 to sound the alarm on resource depletion. Later, Aldo Leopold’s American Game Policy in 1930 and Durward Allen’s North American Wildlife Policy in 1973 helped us adapt again. We are due for another such moment of introspection and innovation. But, perhaps most importantly, we are due for another moment of action.

Our knowledge of science is stronger than ever. Our collective passion remains. What we need now is what every generation of conservationists has needed: the courage to act, the humility to listen, and the conviction that this work, however difficult, serves something more than ourselves.

History reminds us that conservation’s biggest leaps have come in times of turmoil. 

The next step forward will not be a grand gesture. It’s in the quiet hallway conversations, the difficult discussions of policy, and the choice each of us has to act as though all our actions matter, because they do, and they always have.