This trophy buck was actually a doe

Last Saturday, 18-year old Ryan Applegate of Hilltown harvested a trophy buck. He hunted every day before and after school and every Saturday during the recently completed archery deer season. He was overjoyed with what was the largest buck he had ever taken. It was a buck that any hunter would feel the same way about. But then he discovered something very different about his trophy.

“When I rolled the deer over to begin field dressing it, I noticed it had no (male genitalia). I wasn’t sure what to do,” Applegate, a senior at Pennridge High School, said.

His friend Drew Zimmerman who hunted with Ryan all season and he decided the best thing to do was get the deer back to the garage and then field-dress it. They knew this was an unusual deer and weren’t sure what to do about it.

Kathy Applegate, Ryan’s mother, called the authorities and after she got no response she called The Intelligencer. She told me about her son’s trophy deer.

At first I thought it was a deservedly proud mother calling. She said her son had taken a big buck. It had three points on each side of it’s rack, weighed 235 pounds, for comparison the average deer weighs approximately 100-130 pounds. The deer sported a 21-inch spread. That’s the distance between each side of the antlers from the widest point inside the rack. This is truly a big buck in every measurable respect.

Then she really got my attention. She said the trophy buck was actually a doe; a female deer that normally does not grow antlers.

I immediately called Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) Wildlife Conservation Officer John Papson and asked him if he could meet me at the Applegates. When he heard a few of the details, he said he’d head right over.

WCO Papson said to me as soon as we entered the Appegate’s garage, “that’s a buck.” On closer inspection we discovered something entirely different.

“I have been working with deer for a long time and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Papson said.

PGC biologist John Morgan was asked to assess the unusualness of this deer, “a doe having antlers in velvet is not that unusual. In Pennsylvania it has been estimated to occur as frequently as one antlered doe per 3,500 antlered deer. This occurs because they just have a little too much testosterone in them during the spring when antlers begin to form. Such a doe may be completely reproductively functional and yes could breed. These animals are true does so you would not expect them to be as large as you mention.”

Morgan was told this doe had no velvet. The velvet is the membrane coating a deer’s antlers throughout the antler growth period. Once the antlers have reached full size the deer rub the velvet off by scraping the antlers against things like the trunk of trees.

“For the velvet to die the deer needs a second surge of testosterone in the late summer. What I have read says that a true female cannot produce this second surge.

Regardless of the external genitalia a deer of this size with polished antlers has to be a male. The ovaries must have been either missing or nonfunctioning. The testes had to be somewhere. If you didn't see them they likely were internal, making this animal a pseudohermaphrodite. The animal could not breed as a male because of the lack of male genitalia. It could not breed as a female because regardless of the female genitalia the ovaries were missing or not functional,” Morgan said.

Papson knows a buck at this time of year will have several characteristics that only male deer have. During the rutting time, when the female deer are in estrus, the males will have inflamed tarsal glands on the inside of each back leg that are nearly black in color and have a very strong odor. Bucks will also experience swelling in the neck due to the increased amount of testosterone in their system during the active mating season. This racked-female had no indication of either.

“I couldn't find any statistics on how often this occurs,” Morgan said.

Some estimates have the Pennsylvania deer herd at well over one million animals, many of that estimate are here in Bucks and Montgomery Counties. A great deal of research has been gathered by Penn State University and the PGC to try to handle the growing deer problem in this area. Many property owners experience great losses to their yards, gardens and landscaping. The insurance industry has reported that Pennsylvania ranks at or near the top in deer and car collisions.

PGC spokesman Jerry Feaser said, “the most effective method to control the deer herd is through hunting. Given access, hunters are able to do the job.”

When Papson was leaving the Applegates’ yard, Ryan asked him if this deer was a ‘legal buck or doe’. Papson told him the deer was harvested as a buck. Then Papson got a smile on his face and told Ryan he could have some fun with this at the state level. When a hunter harvests a deer they must fill out a report card and mail it to the PGC offices in Harrisburg. That is one way the PGC monitors the herd.

Papson teased Ryan that he create a new box on the repoprt card. Under the male and female slots Papson suggested Ryan write-in ‘other’. Papson told Ryan not to worry as he would be the investigating officer whenHarrisburg raised their eyebrows since he knew exactly what the whole story was.

Dale Machesic is a columnist for The Intelligencer. He can be reached at 215-345-3018 or via email at: dmachesic@phillyburbs.com.