We have got a bizarre story for you today. Have any of you ever shot a buck that turned out to be a doe? A couple of Alabama hunters just did.
That’s right, folks. A group of hunters in Alabama were out hunting when they were able to take down an 8-point buck. Or at least they thought they had taken down an 8-point buck. That is until they took a closer look.
Turns out, what they bagged was something far rarer than an 8-point buck. It was an 8-point doe. Kind of.
That’s right. The big deer had a full rack of antlers, but no visible male reproductive parts, according to reports. And, officials with Alabama’s Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s Deer Program said they’ve never seen anything quite like what the group brought in.
Chris Cook works as a coordinator with the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s Deer Program. When Kelley told him about the doe with antlers, Cook was familiar with other deer that have been brought into the department. However, none of the other specimens had a full set of antlers like the one Kelley, and his squad nabbed.
“I’ve seen a few over the years that looked like does externally that had antlers,” Cook said in the department report. “But it’s not physically possible to do that, and be fully functional does. 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.”
Matt Kelley, who was identified as the leader of the band of ‘Bama hunters, said the group actually took five bucks during their hunting trip. And, the only inclination something might have been off about the one in question, he said, was a skinny neck, which one of the men brought up.
But, when it came time to clean the kill, Kelley said the group got the big-time surprise.
“The guy who shot it was starting to skin it and said, ‘Boys, this is a doe,’” he said.
“It’s a significant rack for a buck,” he added of the 175-pound deer. “If you looked at it, you would say this one was a shooter.”
But, Cook said, the deer isn’t a doe or a buck. At least not all the way. Instead, it’s a “natural phenomenon called a pseudohermaphrodite.”
“A deer like this with hardened antlers will have testes inside the body cavity,” Cook said in his report. “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.”
Source: AWM
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