last chance for bare ground bushwacking

[forestgnome]

...most likely...so I took advantage of the nice day and went exploring for moose habitat on a 4,000'er...

on a south-facing slope at ~3600'...

moose hair...

noticed this big guy watching me...he had already dropped his antlers...

moments later I found this one...

now that's a freshie!...

First time I've seen this...this hole is the result of a battle with another bull, as part of the rut. Every antler I find has dents from the battle, but I've never seen a complete hole. That must have been quite a battle!

A beautiful treat of a warm sunny day for the first day of winter,but don't worry all of you jonesing snow-lovers; there's about 4" fresh inches out my window and still coming down

 

[slevasse]

Great pictures. Could that hole in the antler have been from a bullet? It looks fairly round, it was the first thing I thought of.

 

[RoySwkr]

Great pictures. Could that hole in the antler have been from a bullet? It looks fairly round, it was the first thing I thought of.

I agree. It's hard to imagine that it could be hit hard enough by such a small diameter antler tip to punch a hole instead of just rotating the antler, while a high-velocity bullet might punch a hole (and give the moose quite a headache).

I would send this one to F&G, or sell it to an outdoor publication.

 

[natron]

great pix!

thanx for sharing!

 

[forestgnome]

It's unlikely, IMO, to be from a bullet. Nearly every shed antler I find has puntures that go half-way through the antler, and these holes are from the tines of another bull's antlers. Also, they don't smash into each other, like rutting rams do. Instead, they just stand they approach each other very slowly, bow their antlers at each other and push each other. It's not violent at all. I watched two bulls rut and they were browsing together, watching me watch them. Then they slowly pushed each other for a few minutes. Then they stopped and browsed together, then rutted again. The antlers kind of grind against each other, but there's no high-impact smashing, as rams do.

If you google "forever locked" you can see an amazing work of taxidermy. Two bulls had locked antlers and could not free themselves. They eventually died. They have been preserved. It's really remarkable. You can see how a tine of one antler has punctured the other bull's antler, to some extent, causing the lock. And you can see similar holes from this particulary intense battle. Wow, what males go through for attention of females


link to pics:
http://www.northcountrynewsnh.com/web_pages_000019.htm

 

[forestgnome]

...and I forgot to mention a cool animal sighting. I saw a predator move through some trees but I could not ID it. It was either a coyote, bobcat or lynx by the size and color....no tracks. As I tried to get closer I saw a snowshoe hare shoot out of the brush and run uphill. The bunny was pure white, as they are in winter, but the ground is brown and gold and rusty red. The poor thing stands out instead of blending in! D'oh!!! never did see the predator again.

 

[RoySwkr]

If you google "forever locked" you can see an amazing work of taxidermy. Two bulls had locked antlers and could not free themselves.

That's a traveling exhibit and I may have seen it 2 different places

The bunny was pure white, as they are in winter, but the ground is brown and gold and rusty red. The poor thing stands out instead of blending in!

I've seen that too, took me a long time to be sure those white things were rabbits

 

[DougPaul]

It's unlikely, IMO, to be from a bullet

I would think that a bullet hole would not be a simple cylinder (as if it had been drilled). The entry might be a circle, but the exit is likely to have a lot of spalling around it caused by the shock waves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spall

This is just a guess--I've never seen an authenticated bullet hole in a moose antler.

Doug