MISSOULA, Mont.--Across North America, Boone and Crockett trophy entries have risen 400 percent over the past 30 years, including almost 3,000 entries in the past three years alone. This striking upward trend shows wild, free-ranging, trophy animals are more plentiful today than ever before--a tribute to modern conservation and management programs.

Virginia is a contributor to this continental upswing in trophy production.

In fact, when the Boone and Crockett Club publishes its upcoming 27th Big Game Awards Book, which will list trophy-class big game specimens taken from Jan. 1, 2007, through Dec. 31, 2009, Virginia will be represented by 7 of those nearly 3,000 total entries.

From that giant collection of trophies, the Top 5 specimens from each recognized species and category are being invited to appear in a free public exhibition of world-class antlers, horns, and mounted specimens. This triennial event, the Boone and Crockett Club 27th Big Game Awards, is slated for the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev., June 22-26, 2010.

InterMedia Outdoors, publisher of Virginia Game and Fish, is a sponsor of the event.

"Our exhibition is a tradition that dates back to 1947. That's when we began inviting the public to see the trophies that B&C honors as symbols of conservation success, as well as the hunters that we acknowledge for achievement under the highest tenets of fair chase and hunting ethics," said Eldon Buckner of the Boone and Crockett Club.

This year's ceremony, for the first time, will also honor hunters 16-years-old and under who've entered a trophy into Boone and Crockett's records during the past three years--and there were an amazing 74 of these successful youths in the awards period.

Boone and Crockett Club recognizes 30 hunted big-game categories, including bear (four categories: Alaska brown, black, grizzly, and polar), bison, caribou (five categories: barren ground, central Canada barren ground, mountain, Quebec-Labrador, and woodland), cougar, deer (five categories: Columbia blacktail, Coues' whitetail, mule, Sitka blacktail and whitetail), elk (three categories: American, Roosevelt's and tule), moose (three categories: Alaska-Yukon, Canada, Shiras'), musk ox, pronghorn, Rocky Mountain goat, sheep (four categories: bighorn, desert, Dall's, and Stone's), and Pacific walrus.

Six categories of antlered game are classified as either typical or non-typical.

Here are Virginia's top trophy entries for each species and type taken from Jan. 1, 2007, through Dec. 31, 2009. Listings marked with an asterisk (if any) indicate an overall Top 5 specimen invited to appear at the Boone and Crockett Club awards event in Reno:

WHITETAIL (TYPICAL)
167 2/8 Amherst, VA Kenneth R. Crawford 2008

WHITETAIL (NON-TYPICAL)
201 7/8 Culpeper, VA James E. Taylor 2007 185 2/8 Madison, VA James Board 2007

BLACK BEAR
21 5/16 Rockingham, VA David W. Kyger 2007 21 4/16 Montgomery, VA W. Wayne Cox 2008 20 12/16 Pulaski, VA Fred T. Hale, Jr. 2008 20 4/16 Bland, VA Wes A. Hill 2008

"The states and provinces on this list are producing the best of the best right now. Boone and Crockett records are an indicator of habitat quality and on-the-ground performance of conservation and management programs, so we congratulate these respective wildlife agencies and hold up their work as a model for the 21st Century," said Buckner.