Eight Points about Antlers

These fast-growing bones are shed every year and disappear quickly in the woods.

Antlers are among the fastest-growing bones
in the animal world.

1.    Antlers are Different from Horns:

You sometimes hear folks referring to a deer's "horns." Maybe it's a slip or genuine confusion, but those protrusions on deer and moose heads are, in fact, antlers. They're a single structure, and really fast-growing bone that are shed and regrown each year. Aside from white-tailed deer and moose, other mammals with antlers include elk and caribou.

Horns, on the other hand, have two parts. The inside is bone, like an extension of the skull. The exterior sheath covering that bone is a hard keratin covering, a form of hair follicle, just like your fingernails, but even harder. Horns aren't shed each year; they keep growing over the animal's life (except for pronghorn antelope). Animals with horns include bighorn sheep, mountain goats, bison and cows.

And unlike antlers, horns generally aren't forked or branched.

2.    Antlers are Among the Fastest Growing Bones in the Animal Kingdom

Antlers start forming in the spring and keep growing through summer, a living tissue that's circulating blood and nerves and encased in a soft velvet. If you could touch that developing antler, you'd suddenly find that it's hot, with blood rushing through it. They're growing at an incredible rate, as much as half an inch PER DAY. A bull moose – of course the female "cows" don't grow antlers -- can have a rack that adds a pound of antler per day as it grows.

Generally, the older the moose or deer, the older its rack. That said, you can’t age a deer or moose by the size of its rack. Wear on teeth is a better indicator of age than antlers.

3.    Antlers Play a Role in Mating Process

Male deer and moose will use antlers to announce their presence to others by rubbing their racks against saplings and young trees. These “rubs” are like sign posts and can reveal a rough beating by the bull moose or whitetail buck. Sometimes, bulls and bucks will spar, using their antlers aggressively against other prospective males that are interested in females. Males can get pretty beat up in this process, suffering cuts, bruises and sometimes infections and death.

In rare cases, males may even lock antlers. One instance of two moose that had locked antlers was discovered in New Hampshire in 2003. The two bulls ultimately perished of exhaustion and dehydration. But the moose were preserved as impressive, full-size mounts in battle. The two moose tour fairs and festivals in N.H. Fish and Game Department’s traveling “Forever Locked” exhibit.

4.    That Velvet is Sensitive

In the summer months, when antlers are covered in velvet, the tips are blunted and the whole rack is sensitive to the buck (or bull moose). While antlers are in velvet, the animal will avoid sparring with another male, or even rubbing against branches. If damaged while in velvet, antlers can become deformed, pointing down or split in odd angles.
And velvet is purported to have medicinal properties for people, from helping strength and supporting bone growth to all sorts of other ailments. The science is still out on this, but it’s wise to be skeptical of such claims.

5.    Deer and Moose Drop Their Antlers after Mating Season

When mating season (called the rut) wraps up, antlers have pretty much fulfilled their purpose and are shed. New Hampshire’s white-tailed deer typically shed their temporary bone in February (earlier in the north). Moose start shedding their antlers in November or December. This process can get pretty awkward for a moose that sheds one of its 40-pound antlers, then walks around with the other for a few days until finally forcing that one off.

6.    They Disappear Quickly in the Woods

When antlers fall off in the woods, it’s amazing how fast they disappear. Antlers are full of calcium, salts and other minerals that mice, squirrels, porcupines and other animals love to devour. I’ve found antlers in early winter – dropped maybe a few weeks earlier – with heavy sign of rodent marks. Other mammals, like coyotes, will drag antlers around and chew them up.

7.    Shed Hunters May Also Find ‘Em

Antlers are also the objective of shed-hunters, folks who search the winter and spring woods in search of a fine buck or bull rack. In North Country towns like Pittsburg, shed-hunting is a big deal, as people follow snowmobile trails, power lines and other corridors seeking moose antlers. They can fetch $50 for a low-quality shed or up to several hundred dollars for a nice, big rack. Even more for a pair from the same animal.

You can search for antlers on your own, but know that antler drops are pretty random. You can search high and low and never find one. Then again, you might just stumble upon one in the woods, all chewed up and raw or in perfect condition. Also, please keep in mind that late-winter/early spring is a tough time for moose and deer. If you’re slogging around looking for antlers, you can inadvertently spook the animals, putting a ton of stress on them at the time when they most need to conserve energy. It’s a good case for leaving their habitats alone until late-spring.

8.    Keeping Score of those Racks

Antlers are among those things that, well, just invite comparison. Two organizations have made kind of a science out of comparing racks. The Boone and Crockett Club has a scoring system for measuring antlers taken by all hunters, and the Pope and Young Club’s scoring system is for bow-hunters. Both are sophisticated scoring methods, and both clubs have strong emphasis on fair chase ethics of hunting.

If you have a story about antlers, let’s hear it. Shoot a note to ericadine@gmail.com.

Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock.

Moose Are in Trouble … And So are We

Milder winters, warmer summers spell trouble for the gentle comeback kid of our boreal forests.

Not long ago, it was a cool, new thing to see a moose track here in the woods of the Monadnock highlands.

Around here, it was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I’d stand over those tracks and think about the moose’s remarkable comeback, the resilience of our forests and our fortune of sharing wild places with this big and gentle mammal.

It was a reminder that our forests are connected to something bigger, like the northern Appalachians and the great boreal forest that stretches across the top of North America.

It was a reminder that wildlife – like our forests – can be resilient. While moose were once abundant here, their numbers crashed with agricultural clearing in the 18th and 19th centuries. By 1898, only 13 moose remained in New Hampshire.  But as forests returned, eventually moose did, too, with their numbers really picking up in the 1970s, generally moving north to south.

By 1988, New Hampshire had enough moose to sustain its first modern, scientifically managed moose hunt, with 75 permits drawn by lottery. By 2006 and 2007, permits peaked at 675 statewide.

That’s when the slow decline started. Not because of the hunt, but because of greater, more complex forces at play. In 2012, reflecting the moose’s downward population trend, the N.H. Fish and Game Department issued 275 permits. In 2014, the department is likely to issue fewer permits.

Now, the sight of moose tracks here in our Monadnock hills is a remarkable sight again, but for different reasons than years ago. Now, it’s a sign of vulnerability, a reminder that we’re connected to something far greater than the great boreal forest.
Moose across North America are in trouble. And though the reasons are complex, biologists pin the blame on warming winters and summers – if not climate change in general.

The Triple Whammy

Moose are getting whacked from all directions. And it’s not good.

In the past few years, the warming trends in both winter and summer have contributed to New Hampshire’s moose numbers declining in every part of the state, except in the far northern area of Pittsburg. Some regions, like the White Mountains and central part where moose once held strong numbers, have seen precipitous declines.

The first whammy comes with our well-documented warming summers. When temperatures get high, moose seek shady shelter and settle down; they don’t feed. And by not feeding, their well-being declines, and they become susceptible to disease and parasites. Female moose (cows) affected by this weight loss are less likely to give birth to twin calves – as usual for healthy cows – and more likely to have one calf or none at all.

The second whammy comes as warmer winters actually help deer numbers. White-tailed deer are a vector for brain worm, though they survive brain worm just fine. Moose aren’t so lucky. Brain worm is fatal for moose; and more deer means more brain worm.

The final whammy is even uglier: ticks. Specifically a species called winter tick. A single moose can host tens of thousands of winter ticks, feeding on the moose’s blood and engorging until they drop, usually in April. If those ticks drop on snow, they’re far less likely to survive to their next life cycle. If they drop on snow-less ground, they’re more likely to survive, reproduce and find their next moose host. And increasingly, our Aprils are snowless.

Moose with tick infestations – 30,000 to 150,000 on a single moose! – can lose their winter coats and encounter hypothermia. Tick-infested moose can also suffer from anemia and can ultimately succumb. Research by the University of New Hampshire and N.H. Fish and Game Department has documented the extent of winter ticks on moose and their impact. The research has found that over a five-year period beginning in 2001, tick infestations accounted for 41 percent of the state’s moose mortality. 

Keep in mind that moose are near the southern end of their range in New Hampshire.
So, environmental impacts like weather are more likely to affect moose here at their margins than say, in the heart of their northern habitats.

This Is Climate Change

How bad is it? The combination of factors in this triple whammy is dropping moose numbers throughout the state. In Minnesota, wildlife officials recently called off the state’s moose 2013 hunting season, citing a 35 percent drop of moose numbers from the previous season and a 65 percent decline since 2008. They stressed that moose-hunting is not the cause of this precipitous decline.

Eric Orff is a retired N.H. Fish and Game wildlife biologist who now works for the National Wildlife Federation and is now a member of the state’s Fish and Game Commission. Little more than a decade ago, the 11-member N.H. Fish and Game Commission openly pooh-poohed and scoffed at climate change and its impacts on wildlife.

Not so anymore. As a member of the governor-appointed commission, Orff is publicly making the case through speaking appearances, op-ed pieces and blogs that climate change is harming New Hampshire’s fish and wildlife, including its poster-child comeback kid, the moose.

So, the next time you see a moose track around here, think about it. How long are we going to be so lucky to share our world with moose? And what are we going to do to save them?

Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock.