For their commitment to small game conservation, Kathryn Rand Booher of Rocky Point in Pender County and the Wake County Wildlife Club were awarded the 2022 Lawrence G. Diedrick Small Game Award.
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission officials awarded Booher and the wildlife club because their “actions have significantly and positively impacted North Carolina’s small game populations and the hunting heritage associated with small game.”
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The award is named in honor of the late Lawrence G. Diedrick of Rocky Mount who served as a wildlife commissioner from 1993-2001. Diedrick promoted efforts to address declining populations of bobwhites, and other species dependent on early successional habitat. After his death in September 2002, the commission created this award.
Booher is an active volunteer and supporter of the Southeast North Carolina Chapter of Quail Forever and the South Carolina Bobwhite Initiative. Booher is the liaison between the Quail Forever chapter and Wildlife Commission.
With her assistance, the agency created 7,000 acres of “Quail Trails” on Holly Shelter Game Land in Pender County. The trails have improved access to and the management of early succession habitat, which has enhanced small game hunting opportunities and benefited many nongame species, officials said.
Booher has overseen efforts to manage a longleaf pine forest through thinning and prescribed burns on more than 340 acres of her family’s land.
Wake County Wildlife Club’s 165 members were awarded for their decades of work promoting wildlife conservation. The club hosts the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh, an annual big game event, as well as workshops aimed at hunter safety, wildlife-associated recreation, education and diversity in hunting.
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This club supports the annual Fur, Fish and Game Rendezvous at Millstone 4-H Camp in Ellerbe and offers scholarships to teenagers to attend the weeklong camp. Club members volunteer as instructors for fishing, hunting and shooting sports.
The club updated the forest management plan in 2020 for their 191-acre Durham County property to include commercial thinning, precommercial thinning and prescribed burning.
