WOODS, WATERS, AND WILDLIFE
STORY AND PHOTOS BY W.H. “CHIP” GROSS
E
ach autumn, testosterone-fueled whitetail bucks, their necks swollen to twice normal size in preparation for battle, clash in combat to determine who will win the right to breed the area’s does. Most of the time, the fights are nothing more than violent pushing and shoving matches lasting only a few minutes, with one or both of the combatants possibly a little bloodied, but injuries are usually not serious. Occasionally, however, the antlers of mature bucks can become so inextricably interlocked that separation is impossible. The deer are then doomed to a long, slow death from starvation or exposure. It doesn’t happen often, but each year pairs of such deer are reported throughout the Buckeye State.
12 OHIO OHIO COOPERATIVE COOPERATIVE LIVING LIVING • • NOVEMBER NOVEMBER 2021 2021 12
Clint Walker, a member of Consolidated Cooperative, discovered just such a pair of dead bucks on his farm in Morrow County in north-central Ohio during the autumn of 2017. Interestingly, this is not the first unusual find on the Walker farm. In 2013, a mastodon skeleton was discovered and subsequently excavated by biology professors and students from Ashland University. According to carbon-14 dating techniques, the giant bones were estimated at 13,000 years old. Al Brown discovered a pair of whitetail bucks in an antler death lock on his property near Lucas, Ohio, several years ago and turned his rare find into a stunning, one-of-a-kind work of wildlife art.
