Deer hunters in the Pacific Northwest got a boost this month with the announcement that the new Blacktail Deer Foundation will leverage membership, chapters, and sponsorships to conserve forest habitat from California to Alaska.
The new organization is a subsidiary of the Mule Deer Foundation, which will share its board and staff with the new organization. Membership to the new Blacktail Deer Foundation will be separate from MDF membership, and its stewardship work will focus on distinctly different habitat than that of the interior mule deer.
Specifically, the Blacktail Deer Foundation will center its attention on the welfare of the Columbia black-tailed deer, which range from the Coast Range of California north through the Cascades to interior British Columbia, as well as the Sitka black-tailed deer, which are distributed from coastal British Columbia to southeast Alaska as well as Kodiak Island. Both Columbia and Sitka black-tailed deer are subspecies of the larger and more widely distributed mule deer of the interior West.
Based in Salt Lake City, the Mule Deer Foundation was founded in 1988 and has included the “conservation of mule deer, black-tailed deer, and their habitat” in its mission statement. But — and I can report this as a former board member of MDF — black-tailed deer haven’t had the institutional support or attention that the organization has given mule deer. That changed in 2022 with a “Black-tailed Deer Summit” that identified unmet conservation needs for the species.
That summit, and last year’s formation of MDF’s “Team Blacktail” initiative paved the way for the creation of the Blacktail Deer Foundation, says MDF president and CEO Greg Sheehan. An infusion of forest stewardship funds, originating in the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will kick-start conservation with about $6 million in dedicated funding and a dozen “boots-on-the-ground” habitat projects, says Sheehan.
MDF has redirected current assets to focus on blacktails, including field biologists, fundraising staff, and 11 active chapters across California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Sheehan says another 32 chapters of the Blacktail Deer Foundation have also been chartered.
“The support we are receiving for the Blacktail Deer Foundation is impressive and reassures me that there are many modern-day conservationists that care about the enhancement of these unique and mysterious species,” says Sheehan.
In rolling out its news announcing creation of the Blacktail Deer Foundation, MDF included statements of praise and support from conservation luminaries, including Jim Heffelfinger, wildlife science coordinator for Arizona Game and Fish Department and one of the leading authorities on Western deer.
The new foundation “will allow us to shine some light on these coastal subspecies that have been living in the shadow of their mule deer cousins for too long,” MDF quoted Heffelfinger in its news release.
A Century-Old Conservation Institution Shuts Its Doors
In the same week that the new Blacktail Deer Foundation was announced, a group that had a hand in shaping the conservation infrastructure of America went out of business.
Assets of the American Wildlife Conservation Foundation, founded in 1911 and which guided America’s early conservation movement, were turned over to the Boone and Crockett Club, another old-guard conservation organization.
The AWCF started its life as the American Game Protective and Propagation Association (AGPPA), formed with the help of the Winchester Arms Company in the early years of the last century to protect wildlife that were being rapidly killed for their hides, meat, and habitat. Founders included giants of the American conservation movement, including George Bird Grinnell, George Shiras III, journalist John Burnham, and Seth Gordon of the Izaak Walton League.
In the absence of state and federal laws or bag limits and sanctioned seasons for wildlife, these leaders had a real fear that American wildlife would be exterminated in just a few decades.
“The Association pledged to preserve game and fish by initiating protective legislation, establishing reserves, educating the public, and organizing societies and government authorities in a nationwide conservation effort,” according to the group’s website, which has since been taken down. “The Association’s grand idea was reflected in its motto: The Game of a Continent – Ours to Perpetuate.”
By the end of 1911, the association had established an office in New York City and had enrolled 3,000 members in 87 chapters. Supported by a consortium of firearms and ammunition manufacturers, the association carried its campaign to Congress, where it successfully lobbied for the nation’s first wildlife laws, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, signed by President Taft in 1913. Many other legislative wins followed, eventually paving the way for the creation of state wildlife management agencies, established seasons, science-based wildlife management, and the successful model of wildlife management we enjoy today.
The AGPPA joined with the New York State Conservation Council Foundation and American Game Association Council, and in 1978 the combined organizations were named the American Wildlife Research Foundation. And in 2003 the name was finally changed to American Wildlife Conservation Foundation “to more accurately reflect its broader mission and program,” according to the website.
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The organization counts as its descendants such influential modern institutions as the Wildlife. Management Institute and National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“Being the last president isn’t something you want to brag about, but I’m confident that the mission and the spirit” of the AWCF will be perpetuated by the Boone and Crockett Club, said Brian Dam, president of American Wildlife Conservation Foundation.
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