Principles:
The Wyoming Women’s Antelope Hunt emphasizes hunter safety, hunting and land ethics, and the conservation and the proper management of wild natural resources, for an enjoyable experience for participants, guides, and landowner(s).
Hunter safety:
- Treat every firearm with the same respect due a loaded firearm.
- Control the direction of your firearm’s muzzle.
- Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.
- Be sure the barrel and action are clear of obstructions.
- Unload firearms when not in use.
- Never point a firearm at anything you do not intend to shoot.
- Never climb a fence or tree, or jump a ditch or log, with a loaded firearm.
- Never shoot a bullet at a flat, hard surface or water.
- Store firearms and ammunition separately.
- Avoid alcoholic beverages or other mood-altering drugs before or while shooting.
Hunting and land ethics demonstrated by:
- Abiding by Wyoming game laws and promoting reasonable shot distance and proper shot placement to ensure a safe, quick, and humane kill.
- Hunting under the tenets of fair chase, including self-restraint in not using technological capabilities to overwhelm the game, and exhibiting an appreciation for the traditions of hunting.
- Everyone having fun and pursuing a fair chase hunt, promoted by rewarding the hunters getting closest for a shot, not the longest shot.
- Respecting the land being hunted and the expectations of the landowner.
Conservation and the proper management of wild natural resources:
- When and where hunting happens, conservation happens.
- An understanding of the role sportswomen, and men, have played in the recovery and future management of sustainable game populations.
- Conservation and the proper management of wild natural resources by encouraging the harvest of both bucks and does (i.e. the recognition structure does not differentiate between bucks and does.)
The recognition structure used at the Annual Wyoming Women’s Antelope Hunt was developed in partnership with the Boone & Crockett Club, the oldest wildlife conservation organization in North America – founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell.
