Leading up to the Conference

March 2006 - Creation of the Sporting Conservation Council

U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton creates the Sporting Conservation Council, a federal advisory committee created to advise the Department of the Interior on resource conservation issues of interest to the hunting community. The council was tasked with providing important input in the areas of habitat restoration and protection; the impact of energy development on wildlife resources; forest and rangeland health; hunting access to federal lands; and other issues in which the sporting and conservation community can provide a valuable perspective to resource managers and senior leaders throughout the department. The Council was later expanded to also advise the Department of Agriculture. Members of the SCC include some of the most respected leaders in the hunting conservation community:

• Robert Model - Chairman, Boone and Crockett Club of America
• Steve Mealey - former forest supervisor and member, Boone and Crockett Club of America
• John Baughman - former Executive Director, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
  Jeff Crane - President, Congressional Sportsmen Foundation
• Merle Shepard - President-Elect, Safari Club International
• Steve Williams - President, Wildlife Management Institute
• Peter J. Dart - former President, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
• Daniel R. Dessecker - senior wildlife biologist, Ruffed Grouse Society
• Rob Keck - former CEO, National Wild Turkey Federation
• Christine Thomas - dean and professor of resource management, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College of Natural Resources
• Susan Recce - director, Conservation, Wildlife and Natural Resources, National Rifle Association
• John Tomke - chairman of the board of Ducks Unlimited, Inc.

 

August 2007 - Presidential Executive Order

On August 13, 2007, President George Bush signed the Facilitation of Hunting Heritage and Wildlife Conservation Executive Order. The core component of the Executive Order called for federal agencies to help expand hunting opportunities and enhance the management of game species and their habitat. Because of the EO, federal agencies have already begun to evaluate how their actions impact hunting participation and implement actions that expand and enhance hunting opportunities. Included in this was an overall mandate to work with state and tribal governments to ensure healthy game populations and to provide opportunities for the public to hunt those species.

Beyond the tangible agency actions that have come from the executive order, it also calls for the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality and the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior, working with the Sporting Conservation Council, to convene a wildlife policy conference that would be the foundation for a ten-year Recreational Hunting and Wildlife Resource Conservation Plan.