Cactus Buck

Cactus Buck

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
On a rifle hunt in deer season. Brian Huskey ran across a very unusual buck.

As I approached the buck, I realized he's still in full velvet. His antlers still look as if it's June. I quickly figured out that this buck that I shot is something very rare called a cactus buck. But a cactus buck is a term for a male deer that by one reason or another has a genetic or biological deficiency and never sheds his antlers. His antlers will grow throughout his entire life and remain in velvet, and they grow often in a very non typical deformed manner. And so this buck had a strange looking rack in structure, but was also still involved in growing as every other deer and elk does only for those short periods of the year before they shed. So it's very, very stunning and rare experience to end up with a cactus buck.

Since they keep on growing and don't shed, do they end up being monstrously huge racks? Not necessarily because they don't grow at the same rate that a normal deer's antlers will develop in a matter of three and a half months of growth. So the short answer is absolutely not.

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