ANTLER HUNT

If you live in an area where there are deer, well this is one of the best times of the year to find their antlers. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

“The breeding season has just ended, the hormones are changing. And as they change, the antlers drop.”

We’re in Westchester county, New York, tagging along on a hunt for deer antlers.

“We’re looking for antlers that are shed at the end of the season and we’re also looking for beds where they might have bedded down for the night, because they also lose their antlers during the night. And then we’re also looking for scrapes on the trees where they might have also scraped their antlers on the trees which would indicate that there are bucks in the area.”

Rod Christie is director of education at Teatown Lake Reservation. He tells us that the first step in antler hunting is to look for tell tale signs of deer– such as the places where they like to rub the bark off of trees with their antlers.

“This is a deer rub. This is where a buck would rub his antlers on a tree and then mark his territory. Or in the early season where he might be rubbing the velvet off his antlers. But in this case, it’s a marked territory. If you were to smell that, it would probably smell kind of musty. The best places to look for deer antlers are usually at the tops of hills where the deer bed down for the night, or at the edges of fields, because they tend to bed down in fields as well and often drop their antlers there. Deer like to sit on tops of ridges because then they can look down and they feel safe; they can see a predator if a predator is coming, so they tend to bed down high up. You’d think there would be a lot out there but we don’t find antlers on the ground mainly because the squirrels and the rodents eat them. High source of calcium and they eat a lot of them. So they could be dropped in the fall or winter and they could be gone by spring, chewed right up.”

Additional funding for Pulse of the Planet has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

ANTLER HUNT

This month is a great time for finding deer antlers.
Air Date:02/03/1999
Scientist:
Transcript:

If you live in an area where there are deer, well this is one of the best times of the year to find their antlers. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.

"The breeding season has just ended, the hormones are changing. And as they change, the antlers drop."

We're in Westchester county, New York, tagging along on a hunt for deer antlers.

"We're looking for antlers that are shed at the end of the season and we're also looking for beds where they might have bedded down for the night, because they also lose their antlers during the night. And then we're also looking for scrapes on the trees where they might have also scraped their antlers on the trees which would indicate that there are bucks in the area."

Rod Christie is director of education at Teatown Lake Reservation. He tells us that the first step in antler hunting is to look for tell tale signs of deer-- such as the places where they like to rub the bark off of trees with their antlers.

"This is a deer rub. This is where a buck would rub his antlers on a tree and then mark his territory. Or in the early season where he might be rubbing the velvet off his antlers. But in this case, it's a marked territory. If you were to smell that, it would probably smell kind of musty. The best places to look for deer antlers are usually at the tops of hills where the deer bed down for the night, or at the edges of fields, because they tend to bed down in fields as well and often drop their antlers there. Deer like to sit on tops of ridges because then they can look down and they feel safe; they can see a predator if a predator is coming, so they tend to bed down high up. You'd think there would be a lot out there but we don't find antlers on the ground mainly because the squirrels and the rodents eat them. High source of calcium and they eat a lot of them. So they could be dropped in the fall or winter and they could be gone by spring, chewed right up."

Additional funding for Pulse of the Planet has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.