There seems to be a fluke of nature happening all over the midwest. If only one in 10,000 female dear grow antlers, then maybe its time for a couple of hunters, in Kansas and Missouri to buy lottery tickets. Here’s another story, in neighboring Kansas, of a fluke, in the same year.
American News reported:Kansas hunter Chuck Rorie was baffled when he shot what he thought was a buck, only to discover that he’d targeted a doe with eight-point antlers.
“I didn’t think much about it; it just looked like a nice buck when I was watching it and shot it,” Rorie said. “But when I was skinning it I realized something didn’t look right. It didn’t have the right private parts.”
Rorie whispered his observation to his father, since he didn’t want to sound like “some dummy” – however, Rorie’s father was just as surprised.
Rorie’s prize weighed in at 225 pounds with eight points and a score of 114 7/8. Although he’s hunted since age 10, he said he’s never seen anything like the doe before.
In hindsight, Rorie said he should have noticed that the doe’s neck wasn’t swollen, which is a sign of a buck ready for breeding. Rorie said the doe wasn’t chasing the other deer, which also should have been a sign of the doe’s gender.According to Missouri biologist Grant Woods, around one in 10,000 doe have antlers. Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism secretary Keith Sexson, however, reported that no more than 15 antlered does in Kansas have made an appearance in the state in the last 46 years.
Woods explained that does with antlers simply have higher amounts of testosterone in their bodies than other does, though normally in low amounts. He also noted that the extra dosage of testosterone occurs in most species of mammals.
“Excessive testosterone is why some women have more facial hair than others,” Woods said. “In deer, that’s expressed in antler growth.”
Rorie reported that he will have the doe mounted so he can tell everyone the unusual story.
Just last December Daily Headlines reported the same type of thing happened in Missouri.
FOX2NOW: SPRINGFIELD, MO – A Missouri deer hunter got quite the surprise after harvesting a deer with a massive rack. The 22-point buck he thought he saw on his game camera turned out to be a girl. A doe with very large antlers.
Curtis Russell tells KY3-TV that finding the deer he caught on his game camera was almost an obsession.
“I set up in place and sat there for about three hours, they never came so I started moving and they popped out on me and I had to go back and do a little belly crawling through the woods,” says Russell. “Got to about 175 yards and the deer finally turned broad side and I was able to put it down.”
The trophy wasn’t what he expected. That is when he discovered his elusive buck was a doe.
It would seem that once in a lifetime may be a little more frequent than that. And maybe the big lottery score may happen here in the midwest as well. If I were those hunters I would be buying a lottery ticket.