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A shed whitetail deer antler, photograph by the Author.
It’s
the middle of December, or maybe it is as late as February, and if you go down
in the woods today1...go looking for shed antlers!
Have
you ever found a shed antler? I have
only ever found three, the first was a whitetail deer (odocoileus virginianus)
antler that I found decades ago, it had been gnawed to thin slivers by hungry
porcupines and other rodents; later I found part of a shed moose (alces alces) antler
in Algonquin Provincial Park, on the shores of Welcome Lake, but the best one
was the whitetail deer antler in the picture above. Even knowing where and when to look for them,
they are hard to find since, they blend in with the bare winter branches and
can become covered by leaf litter. Also,
since they are a valuable nutritional supplement to the forest animals, they will
very quickly be gnawed to nothing, by the residents of the forest, in their
quest for calcium and phosphorus, for more on this read “Moose Antlers…Why
Don’t You Ever Find Them? ©”, HERE.
Do
you want to know the wheres and whens of finding shed antlers? Okay, but before I answer that question you
need to know a little bit more about how antlers grow on deer and moose.
A shed whitetail deer antler, photograph by the Author.
The
yearly cycle of antler growth starts in the spring when the increasing daylight
signals the coming of summer and the return of plants and more available food. Antler growth peaks in mid-summer and the
antlers reach their maximum size in late August. At the end of summer as the daylight begins
to decrease and the testosterone of the buck deer or bull moose begin to
increase, the “velvet”, which is a fuzzy, furry skin that covers the antlers
and supplies them nutrients, begins to dry up and peel off, a process that both
deer and moose speed up by rubbing on trees.
Usually by the middle of September the hard, bony antlers are at last revealed. Antlers advertise their owner’s dominance
during breeding season, the more dominant the buck or bull moose, the more
impressive the antlers2.
After the November breeding season is over, declining testosterone
levels cause the antler to separate from its base or “pedicel” and the antler
falls off and is shed. Biologist Bill
Samuel of the University of Alberta says that shedding antlers is thought to be
painless and according to Art Rodgers, the author of Moose, “usually
both antlers are shed within hours or days of one another”. He continued by saying that bull moose will
sometimes speed up the process by knocking old antlers against a tree to shed
them, whitetail deer bucks probably do the same. Antlers can shed as early as the middle of
December and as late as the middle of February.
After the antlers fall off, the skin will grow over the pedicel and the
cycle is ready to begin again.
The base of a shed antler, showing the pedicel or base where the antler joined the skull, photograph by the Author.
An excerpt from The Woodsman’s Journal Online Field Guide, graphic by the Author.
Looking
for shed antlers. The best time to start
looking is in January, since shed season can begin as early as mid-December and
it ends in mid-February. You should
search wherever you see signs of moose or deer, the more signs the better. Search near “yards”, which are areas near
food sources where deer or moose winter. Artist Tom Yacovella, who has found more than
300 shed antlers in the last 50 years, likes to search 40 to 60 yards (37 to 55
meters) to the lee of a “yard”. Look for
white or ivory colored, curved objects.
Bill Healy who wrote about finding deer antlers in “Searching for
Sheds”, says antlers that fall with the tines pointing down are easier to find
than the ones that fall with tines up, because when the tines point down, the
beam of the antler will look like a white crescent rising above the ground. He also noted that the contrast between a
shed antler and the undergrowth is the greatest on an overcast day and then antlers
are easiest to see. On bright sunny days,
it can be hard to see into thickets and dead and bleached branches can resemble
antlers. To save on walking, use a pair
of binoculars and search the ground from a distance, also remember to look back
occasionally, it keeps you from getting “misplaced” and sometimes a different
point of view can make a shed antler suddenly visible.
A shed antler, tines down, photograph by the Author.
A shed antler, tines up, which do you think is easier to see? Photograph by the Author.
So
good luck and I hope you find a shed antler, but remember even if you don’t
find one, you still had a nice walk in the woods!
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The
Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE,
and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free
to leave a comment on either site. I
announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
1
“if you go down in the woods today”, is from The Teddy Bears Picnic,
by Henry Hall, 1932
2 Contrary
to popular belief, the number of points on an antler does not indicate the age
of the buck. In New York and other
northern latitudes fawns will often grow polished knobs for their first antlers
and yearlings usually sport only single spikes.
A whitetail buck’s antlers increase in size each year until they reach
6½ years of age, after this the size of their rack usually begins to decline.
From
Bill Healy,
“Searching for Sheds”
Sources
Frohn, Jim; “Looking for Moose Antlers”, May
2, 2017, [© 2021 University of New Hampshire], https://extension.unh.edu/blog/looking-moose-antlers, accessed January 19, 2021
Healy, Bill; “Searching for Sheds”, New
York State Conservationist, April 2005, pages 12 to 14,
https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/0405searchsheds.pdf, accessed January 15, 2021
Howard, Brian Clark; “Watch: The moment a
moose loses an antler”, March 7, 2016, [© 2015-2021 National Geographic
Partners, LLC.], https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/160307-moose-drops-antler-video-wyoming/#:~:text=Samuel%20says%20bull%20moose%20typically,a%20younger%20adult%2C%20he%20notes, accessed January 18, 2021
Raykovicz,
Mike; “Antlered Art”, New York State Conservationist, October 2005, page
6 to 8
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