When Alabama hunters stumbled upon an 8-point buck, they never anticipated the baffling secret it held beneath its skin.
In a perplexing twist of events, Alabama hunters believed they had taken down an impressive 8-point buck. As they approached their prize and began the skinning process, they were stunned to uncover the truth.
Matt Kelley and his fellow hunters were taken aback when they realized the animal lacked male genitalia. Grateful for their intuition, Kelley and his companions contacted the Alabama Department of Conservation to report the peculiar creature and gain insights into their extraordinary find.
Chris Cook, a coordinator with the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s Deer Program, listened intently as Kelley described the antlered doe. Cook was no stranger to similar deer brought to the department, yet none possessed a full set of antlers like the one Kelley and his group had captured.
Cook explained, “I’ve seen a few over the years that looked like does externally that had antlers. But it’s not physically possible to do that and be fully functional does.” He continued, “I’ll get reports about a few each year in Alabama. The ones I usually hear about are the ones with fully developed antlers but are still covered in velvet. They have enough testosterone to start the antler growth but not enough to complete the cycle.”
Kelley recounted the moment when the group discovered the absence of testes. “Then the guy who shot it was starting to skin it and said, ‘Boys, this is a doe,'” Kelley informed the officials. He also shared an intriguing observation from the shooter, who claimed that the deer wasn’t pursuing a doe but merely trailing behind it.
When the doe urinated, the deer displayed a lip curl, a typical buck behavior. The landowner, who had owned the land for his entire life, had never encountered such a creature. Its antlers were impressive, and anyone would have deemed it a worthy target.
However, the story took an even more bizarre turn. According to Cook, the deer wasn’t a doe or a buck, but a pseudohermaphrodite. Antlered does with functioning reproductive organs represent a mere 0.1% of the deer population.
Cook clarified, “A deer like this with hardened antlers will have testes inside the body cavity. They don’t have fully developed male or female organs. They may have external female organs, but they would have to have underdeveloped testes that were still large enough to produce enough testosterone to have that antler growth.”
Upon examination, the state’s department verified that the 8-point antlered deer weighed 175 pounds. Two of the eight antler points were kickers at the antlers’ base. The animal was hunted in Sumter County, near the Alabama-Mississippi border, approximately 130 miles west of Montgomery. The rare and bewildering find has left the hunters and the community with an unforgettable story to share.
Source: AWM
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