You dont like doing buisness there then dont. Quit whining. You are like a lot of the people I see everyday who want to complain so they can get something for free. If I dont like the way someone treats me or the service I get etc I just dont go back. No need for all the drama. Allthough it seems some thrive on it.

Amen , brother.

I have followed this thread from the start as well as several others on SCI. I want to address two things. My response will be long, so get a cup of coffee and read it. I would appreciate your comments and insights.

Part 1 - Exhibitors and attendees of the SCI convention

A friend of mine is an exhibitor at SCI. He has been there for the past 20 years or so. He does not donate anything other than the mandatory items. He rents 2 booths. I asked him what his budget was for the show.

He told that this year he will spend $40,000 for the show. That is an "all in" number- includes travel, printing, hotel, everything.

I asked if it was worth it and he said that he gets a sizeable amount of his yearly business from the show and the that he sees his best clients there every year. He said it beat trying to travel all over the country to see people or spending a bunch of time on the phone or email with them.

He did not like the format of the show, but it was the "best" venue for his business. He does not go to any other hunting show except the NRA convention.

I asked if he "enjoyed" the overall process and the show. He said "no, but it is the best alternative out there".

Part 2 - The goal of a hunting or conservation organization

I am not always sure what the goals of a "not for profit" organization are. I read them, but many organizations deviate from the path quite a bit. I have founded two 501c3's in my personal efforts to help with wildlife conservation. One was ended when the job was over and the second one morphed into something it was not created to be. I quit the second one as a result. It still exists today. All of this to say, I have experience with this type of work and business.

In SCI's case, they do a lot of "good". However, I think we all get confused with the self congratulatory aspect of SCI (awarding ourselves a piece of brass and wood - "trophy" - as a type of reward/award for shooting a big animal, which I find personally appalling and despicable) and the good work they do in defending some hunting, lobbying our government on issues of importance.

From my perspective only - I have a hard time supporting an organization where the "winners" buy their awards. I do not understand the mentality of "collecting" animal heads in order to buy myself a trophy or medal or statue. Where is the joy in hunting for this purpose? If you are out to collect the four North American sheep to hang on the wall - go to one of the many brokers of mounted heads for your collection. There are several outfits in the US that buy collections of mounted heads. They sell these to decorators, Cabelas and other places that want them as "ornaments" for a house or place of business. It would be a lot cheaper.

If you collect heads, I pity you. Your kids will be selling your "collection" when you die for a pittance. You will have nothing to show for your "efforts" and will have wasted a lot of time (the only thing you really have) and money (this comes and goes as we all know).

If you collect memories, I praise you. If you take the people that mean the most to you on this experiences, you are collecting the only "things" you need to collect in life, time spent with family. At the end of your short life, who will be with you when you go from this life to the next? Your family, who else? When you are preparing to go from life to eternal life, what do you take with you? Your character and personality will be the only things. So, why would you distort your character by giving yourself awards for collecting animal heads and body parts for no other reason than to have a nice shiny ornament to set in your house? This type of self adulation is psychotic. It seems to be narcisism (sp?) to the max.

I have mounted animals in my house. Each one is a memory with my family. They are reminders (and not really needed as we have pictures of the events as well) and we talk about them daily. We remember the experience, the meaning of being together and what is truly important. We have never measured anything, other than the effort required to acquire the memory. The most meaningful hunt I have been on, the hunt that changed me, was on a sheep hunt where I came out empty. No sheep, mentally beat and self introspective. I spent 12 years looking at my motives and self values before I hunted again.

All of this to say - "SCI- I cannot support you in your trophies, listing of hunters for awards, selling awards to hunters and your "standards for achievement" because I see no "soul" in what you are doing. You do this for money and for "self". Your support of listing anything that is acquired outside of fair chase or companies that support unethical hunting is a disgrace.
However, I can support your efforts to educate, lobby and research wildlife. I am "betwixt and between" with you. You are a two headed beast with a pretty head and an ugly one."

Solution? I do not know. I decided to join DSC instead and the Rowland and Ward Guild of Sportsman. My money will go there for now.

Comments and critiques on my logic?

I agree with much of what you say, dogcat.

Although I will say that I am not so strongly opposed to the self-congratulatory and competitive aspects of SCI - I don't and won't participate in such nonsense, but I find it to be mostly harmless and laughable.

And I agree 100% that SCI does a lot of good in support of hunting - both in the US and around the world. That's enough for me and is the reason I am a life member.

Carping about the flaws when the benefits are so manifest demonstrates a refusal to see the forest for the trees.

As for the other subject of this thread - the supposedly coercive and extortionate nature of the SCI convention - I am sorry, but that is absurd. No one is forced to exhibit. Those who do so make a free choice, presumably one that is informed by intelligent cost-benefit analysis, that they will make money and that it is in their self-interest to participate. That's the free market, baby!

No organization is perfect, and there is a lot about SCI that I would change if I had the time and energy to devote to it.

But I don't have that much time or energy for such things. So I have decided that I will put up with the bad, which is after all not all that awful, for the sake of the greater good.

This is rather long, sorry

After reading the above note on the Rowland Ward group, I thought "Maybe someone has come up with something here"

I then googled the outfit and I am unimpressed.

First off, dogcat made a comment about SCI and the various awards. Isn't Rowland Ward just a competing award book? I think with a bit more history than SCI, but still in the same area? I think (not having ever brought/registered an animal award to date) that while SCI is playing a game with all their awards, it is fundamentally a way for the organization to have its well heeled members pay more for their mission (we can continue to debate just what that is) than the "ordinary" US deer hunter who joins. You can be disgusted all you want with the back slapping behavior, but honestly where don't you see it? Hell, I even see this kind of behavior in church.

Secondly, I see that RWGS is another hunting group splitter. They don't like varmint hunting, they don't like trapping, and they claim some moral high ground on what they determine to be ethical. How you guys can say you find the self-congratulatory behavior of the SCI bigwigs (and yes, I have heard some things I find repugnant about that group) over their trophy collection any different than the self congratulatory behavior over "having done it the one true way!, (tm) when they also encourage shooting big animals, and actually have a more exclusive record book? Also, their comment about not shooting breeding animals is rather interesting, as to the best of my knowledge even some very old animals can reproduce, they are just not as efficient about it. How is one to know? I agree taking a old past its prime animal is the best route, and usually these also result in better trophies, although admittedly the trophy is an individual thing, and some of us find that a duck we shot on a particularly memorable hunt is more of a trophy than a gold medal Elk shot on a different hunt. Some folks want to collect as many species as they can, others want a world record whitetail. Its very individual, and back to the comments on the Rowland Ward guild, how can they reconcile holding a record book with their statement that sportsmen should not compete?

People have made some comments on how various PH's/outfitters dislike SCI and its way of "extorting" hunts.

Here's a thought (for provocation) I find the "extortion" of higher hunt prices and opportunities lost so that hunting companies can give various hunting journalists free trips as repugnant. Yes, I understand advertising. Still, you can't tell me that Boddington does all this hunting because its "work"... Bull...t. He enjoys it, and while I am sure the writing and dealing with editors et al is work; I'm somewhat jealous that he can do it. How is this levy any different than the free hunt the outfitter gives to SCI so they get a "good booth space?" At least, one (hopefully) will get some money for conservation out of the SCI thing. That's more than the benefit I see from the various writers like Zumbo and the hunting TV shows.

I would like to see a better accountability from SCI for how they spend the money- heck, lets elect Saeed as president of SCI. But I can't say that the other ones are any better really- DU has a bunch of highly paid folks, Rocky Moutain Elk Foundation plays some games, Pheasants Forever had some real issues that I heard of around here. I suspect all of these groups do some of this. Heck even the highly respected Conservation Force is paying somebody good money. Is it value received? I think for the most part, yes. Could it be better? Certainly, in all of these cases. Remember too, that each time we get PO'd and start a new group, we have to pay another layer of administratorium to run the group. Thus we increase the loss of money to whatever we are trying to do.

Instead of saying SCI Good! DSC Bad! or vice versa, maybe we would be better off making suggestions of what the organization could do that would help; however, I suspect most just want to attack the other guy because he doesn't do what they want. And yes, I realize to some extent this is the pot calling the kettle black here.

Thanks for reading!

Interesting take on the various aspects of SCI, DSC,REMF etc.
As to self purchased awards, well what award is not self purchased? A plaque for X years of service, well wasn't that paid for by ones labor.


I have entered heads and have the SCI plaques next to the head or full body mounted trophy, my mounts are in my office and many clients wonder about them and the plaque places the head in perspective for them as they don't (by and large) know a Kudu from a Nyala (most don't even know what one is) or a Mt Reedbuck.

I enjoy my mounts expecially in the busy season and I am a bit dragged, I take a few minutes and look at say the Thar mount and recall the great hunt with Gerald, or the Impala and the good hunts with Mark. I look at the Blesbok and remember that day as it was my first day hunting in Africa - the airline lost my guns and hunting clothing so I hunted in my travel pants and loafers with a borrowed rifle.

So I guess everyone has his or her reasons for mounts, photos (wonderful what a good photographer can do with trophy size) etc. JMO