Yellowstone Elk Sheds

by Wildlife Fine Art

Title

Yellowstone Elk Sheds

Artist

Wildlife Fine Art

Medium

Photograph - Prints

Description

A matching pair of elk antlers found in Yellowstone back country. Always exciting to find even though you can not take them. An elk's antlers can weigh as much as 40 pounds and be up to 4 feet in length. The 2012 elk population in the greater Yellowstone area was 3,915 elk according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which is starting to level off after falling off since 2005. The elk (Cervus canadensis), their antlers are shed around March in Yellowstone. A few spike bulls were observed carrying the antlers this year until late in May. Just what is the direct cause of the actual shedding is unknown. Perhaps the new growth has something to do with it, or it may be that the bony tissue attaching the antler to the skull becomes dead and incapable of further supporting this great weight firmly. There is some physiological change which causes the antler to drop at the correct season.
Almost immediately after the old antlers are shed new ones begin to replace them. From the beginning those new antlers are very blunt. Covered with a velvet-like tissue and richly supplied with blood vessels and nerves, they are comparatively soft and highly sensitive. The profuse blood supply enables the antlers to grow at an alarming rate until by the first September they are fully mature. During the growing state the antlers are said to be "in the velvet" and when the growth is completed the velvet is commonly shed by rubbing the head against a small tree and exposing the true bony antler. Some maintain this rubbing is for the purpose of sharpening the antlers preparatory to the fighting incident to the mating season, or it�s to be a natural means of relieving an irritation incident to a stricture of the nerves and blood vessels at the base of the antler where a ring of bone solidifies and chokes off any further supply of raw materials.

Uploaded

December 30th, 2013

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