Antlered does give hunters an unusual surprise

Bagging a buck is a major achievement for hunters, but an antlered doe is considered to be “the ultimate deer.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that several hunters have recently killed what they thought were bucks, only to find upon further inspection that the deer were females with a male’s set of antlers. The antlered doe is female anatomically and can usually conceive and bear fawns, but the animal grows antlers due to overproduction of testosterone. However, other does tend to think the animal is a buck and avoid it.

Chuck Rorie of North Carolina was one of the lucky hunters to harvest an antlered doe in 2014. In December, Rorie drove to Kansas, where he shot what looked to be a buck. After taking a closer look, Rorie realized that it looked like a doe.

Deer biologists predict that only one in 5,000 or less than one in 10,000 antlered does exist among the antlered deer population.

Via: The Wall Street Journal > Oh, Deer: It’s an Antlered Doe