Boone and Crockett displays top-ranked horns in lobby
This diorama reminds me of the one I saw at the new Cabela’s in East Hartford, Connecticut in their wildlife museum.
By: Rick Kratzke
A new diorama with six record-holding sheep, deer and pronghorn are on display at the Boone and Crockett Club below the Higgins Avenue Bridge. Each animal holds the highest rank for its kind of antler or horn.
Photo by ASHLEY McKEE/Missoulian
Lots of hunters make a pilgrimage stop at the Boone and Crockett Club’s national headquarters in Missoula. This year, they’ll be met at the door by the current record holders of all their favorite species.
A new diorama of six deer, sheep and pronghorn takes up most of the south wall of the club’s lobby. Each animal holds the top rank for its kind of antler or horn. Seen together, it’s enough to make any big-game enthusiast swoon.
“They’re all mine,” joked records management specialist Keith Balfourd. “Actually, there’s probably nowhere else in the country that’s got a collection like this.”
Arlee taxidermist Shawn Andres mounted three of the animals and also built the rock outcropping they stand on. It took three days just to install and arrange the display in the former Milwaukee Road train depot below the Higgins Avenue Bridge.
The animals aren’t simply a trophy shelf for big racks. As far as the Boone and Crockett Club is concerned, they are proof of the organization’s success in its mission.
“People talk about the good old days, but we’re kind of living in the good old days right now,” said Tony Schoonen, the club’s chief of staff. “Our records started in the1930s as a way to check how effective our management practices were.”
President Theodore Roosevelt founded the club in 1887, along with National Audubon Society founder George Bird Grinnell, artist Albert Bierstadt and others. Aldo Leopold helped develop its wildlife management theories, which led to legislation banning market hunting of big game, establishment of national parks and wildlife refuges, and the drafting and enforcement of big-game hunting seasons and limits. Its members helped fund the purchase of Montana’s National Bison Range in 1908.