Antler Worship

This is the month when legions of orange-clad hunters grab the old .30-30 lever action from behind the kitchen door and head out in pursuit of the whitetail deer. If asked, many of these nimrods will say they are just looking to fill the freezer, and a doe or a small buck will suffice. “Can’t eat the horns,” they will snort. I call foul. Most have been dreaming of a “wall hanger” all summer and are plotting their strategy on how to get another head mount into the house.

I am blessed with an extremely tolerant and understanding wife. But, when I brought home my last head mount to join “the herd” in the family room, she told me it was the last. Probably a good thing since I have saved the antlers from every buck I have ever taken, from small crotch horns to wide and heavy 10 points. Some are full head mounts in a variety of poses, others in the European skull treatment ala Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. A running joke around here is that if we were ever to suffer a house fire the kids and dogs were to be saved first and my deer heads next.

So why are hunters so fascinated with deer antlers? Why do we covet and collect them and adorn our barns and sheds and the walls in our homes with them? I suppose they are symbols of strength and power and ultimately conquest. They are art in the most primitive form, created in nature with no two sets exactly alike or the same coloration, the same mass, or the same shape. But more importantly they represent a time and place in our lives. The drawing accompanying this column is not a big deer; just a five-point, but it was the first buck I successfully tracked in the snow many moons ago. That buck taught me that success is measured by the size of the hunt, not the size of the deer.

To better understand the allure, you need to understand the animal: All the male deer in North America—including white-tailed, mule, and black-tailed deer, elk, moose, and caribou—grow antlers. Antlers are made of bone composed of calcium and phosphorous and other minerals and fall off and regrow every year. Horns on the other hand, like on a cow, are made of keratin, same as hair, and always grow and are never shed. Deer antlers are the fastest-growing structures in the animal kingdom. They grow at the astonishing rate of a quarter inch a day during spring and summer. While growing they are covered in a skin that’s called velvet and are filled with blood vessels. Bucks take great care not to damage their headgear during this sensitive stage.

When the days begin to shorten in late summer the bucks begin to produce testosterone in anticipation of breeding season, or the rut, which causes the antlers to harden. The velvet starts to dry out and the buck rubs and spars with trees and bushes to rid him of the velvet. By the time does are ready to be bred he sports a swollen and strong neck and a well-polished, rock-hard rack. The number of points or tines doesn’t determine his age. It’s good genetics and nutrition that produce a sturdy well-racked mature buck, where poor conditions will produce a spindly underdeveloped specimen. The bigger the rack usually means a bigger-bodied and more dominant buck. Although fights do occur between bucks, head-down, ears-back posturing usually settles the score before any crashing of antlers. Occasionally two bucks of equal strength will clash and fight to the death, but normally it’s a pushing and shoving match. The result is usually some broken antler tines, a bruised ego for the loser and breeding rights for the victor. On rare occasions two bucks will find their antlers inextricably locked and one or both die from exhaustion trying to free themselves.

As the days shorten and winter grips the woods the antlers begin to drop off and the bucks become as docile as the does. The shed antlers become mineral-rich chew bones for porcupines, squirrels, and mice. The allure of antlers doesn’t end after hunting season is over. People, and not just hunters, go on shed-hunting forays in late winter and spring looking for dropped antlers or “sheds” in winter deeryards and thick south-facing hillsides.

Deer hunters will continue to get up before the crack of dawn and suffer endless cold, miserable hours on stand just to glimpse a racked buck. The desire to grab hold of a heavy, wide set of antlers is too primal an urge to resist.

I’ll be out there, too, looking for another wall hanger and hoping I can convince my wife to let one more join the herd on the wall.

Brad Eden is an artist, writer, Registered Maine Master Guide, and owner/editor of the online magazine www.uplandjournal.com.