An earless buck for Mike Carawan
It’s not unusual to see bucks with ears cut and damaged from fighting. But this?
Mike Carawan of Lexington killed this seven-pointer on the muzzleloader opener while hunting national forest land in Rockbridge County.
Both ears have been clipped off cleanly. They are fully healed so the injury was not recent.
Mike’s cousin, Jeff Matteson (who sent in this picture) said they haven’t seen anything likes this. Has anyone else?
My theory is that this deer got clipped in a hay field as a fawn. Any other guesses?
December 3, 2012 - 10:25 AM
That is truly bizarre. It couldn’t have come from some kind of a deer farm could it?
(a) I’ve seen lots of deer in my time, but never one missing his ears;
(b) I hope Mr. Carawan didn’t start a forest fire w/ that cigarette
now thats different….I kinda agree with you Mark unless it was a freak “birth defect” pretty interesting though
If so, he is one durn lucky deer.
I have one mounted that has ear damage, but nothing like that.
Send it in to NAW!
Congrats Mike! That is defiently wierd!!!!
I like the hay field guess my self, guess it could have been an encounter with a few coyotes while younger as well.
Young livestock have been known to lose an ear to a hard freeze and the resulting frostbite. Why not the same for a early fawn?
Saw a lot of mule deer with this in Nebraska, was explained to me to be the result of biting flies damaging the ears and then them freezing off later in winter. I have some photos of “earless” does from the Sand Hills near Alliance, NE. Never seen it in VA though.
Those appear to be perfectly even cuts, though. That seems unlikely in a frostbite or freezing situation.
I have seen one other deer exactly like this(a doe). The hay field mower theory was the unanimous decision at that time.
Actually… this young buck spent the summer at Myrtle Beach, and his ears became infected and fell off after a botched attempt at double piercing by some older bucks.
I like your idea Mark, sounds the most plausable, however frostbite could have damaged them and then they healed a little bit. Also perhaps an encounter with some razor wire or maybe a wire snare?
looks as if the ear damage was done at the same time to be that even and to have healed in the same manner.
the ones we saw in NE looked like you had taken a pair of shears and just lopped them off. Email me your address and I’ll drop a slide in the mail. Don’t have a scanner.
Walt
Don’t smoke in the woods.
“dont smoke in the woods”,let the man enjoy his smoke after his kill. Im sure he disposed of it properly. HAHA,Keith,
My boyfriend shot a buck here in central PA that had this same thing going on with it’s ears. I nick named the deer “Teddy” because he had “Teddybear” ears. We often wondered what the story was behind his ears as well.