Unicorn deer
Sorry folks, this isn't a real unicorn chaser. It's a deer with an extra antler right between its eyes that was caught on a motion-sensitive game camera. Hunter Dave Ebeling captured the image in Elma, New York. Biologists quoted in a Buffalo News story propose several theories about the odd extra antler's origin, from a genetic mutation to an injury. Ebeling offers a very enlightened suggestion of how the mystery might best be solved: “I just wish somebody would shoot it so we’d know what that was," he told the newspaper.Link (via Fortean Times)
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We don't understand it, so kill it!!
It is a wonder to me sometimes that humanity has made it this far. I think it is a deformed rack(antlers)and nothing more. This happens sometimes.
Yes, guns are bad, hunters are bad, we get it. Sarcastically implying they're idiots is always comedy gold on Boing Boing.
FWIW, there is a moral argument for shooting this deer.
Male deer butt heads to compete for females. Usually it's just antler on antler, because their antlers match and meet. So both parties usually walk away with just stiff necks. The extra spike on this deer may well mean that he's taking flesh or eyes -- though it's hard to tell where it is from the photo. So shooting him would be good for deer public health. I'll leave it to the rest of Boing Boing's happy mutants to decide if this is worth discouraging innovation in the gene pool.
Sarcastically implying they're idiots is always comedy gold on Boing Boing.
Inferring, HJ03, not implying.
If you want it shot, call in Ted Nugent--Tom Green as well. Now there you have the makings of a reality show I'd watch. Screw the writer's strike.
Shooting != Killing, they have tranquilisers now, also we don't even know if the paper just made it sound like he meant shooting as in with a gun, which is not abnormal for the press, when he probably meant with a photocamera...
Tell the deer I hate them.
What? Am I the only one who can clearly see that this antler is just a (granted, somewhat mutated) part of the normal antlers on his head, seen from a deceiving angle? You can follow it quite clearly. The bend where it branches off from the other antlers even covers its eye.
Yeah, this happens on occasion. I would think the biologist would know this. 2 more days of muzzleloader!
To be fair, deer kill more humans than any other animals in the US (except, perhaps, for other humans). They are dangerous creatures, vermin, and quite tasty.
No one who lives in deer-infested areas is ever going to be appalled at the idea of killing a deer.
Make no mistake: They're a menace, they're stupid, and they're overpopulated. They're driving out their competitors and they make driving at night a potentially life threatening experience.
Imagine an animal that believes that stepping out in front of an oncoming car is a GOOD thing. Now, imagine that that animal weighs anywhere from 130 to 200 pounds, with most of that weight concentrated right in front of your engine block, where it will either severely damage your car or slide up the hood into the windshield, injuring the driver and any passengers, as well as putting the driver at risk for veering off the road into the nearby trees.
If someone wants to kill a deer, I applaud them.
A lot of people do not realize that hunters provide a valuable environmental service. A certain piece of land can only handle so many animals of a certain type. If the hunters were not out there taking deer and elk, soon those animals would overpopulate the area. Then, instead of having deer & elk die by a bullet (over in moments), you have them die by disease, starvation, and predators. Yes, death by disease and starvation is more "natural," but a whole lot less pleasant than a bullet.
A lot of people do not realize that hunters provide a valuable environmental service. A certain piece of land can only handle so many animals of a certain type. If the hunters were not out there taking deer and elk, soon those animals would overpopulate the area. Then, instead of having deer & elk die by a bullet (over in moments), you have them die by disease, starvation, and predators. Yes, death by disease and starvation is more "natural," but a whole lot less pleasant than a bullet.
Gotta admit, I'm with Chevan-- driving around where I live can be a daunting experience in the evenings with the ever-present threat of hitting one of these animals. They're quick, they're stupid, and they're nearly impossible to see as their natural camouflage is simply incredible.
While I find these creatures to be quite beautiful, and certainly as deserving of life as any other animal, our past mistake of over-hunting their natural predators leaves the responsibility for controlling this population up to us.
The listener infers, the speaker implies. As a speaker, you can't be "inferring" something.
I don't have a problem with hunters who actually consume what they kill, but this "Shewt it 'cuz it's weird!" attitude is pretty ignorant. Besides, like other have commented, ever hear of a tranquilizer dart? Maybe the eye-gouging horn can be removed.
Well played, Uhclem!
Since it has it's regular horns too wouldn't that make it more of a Triceratops?
#11: "They're driving out their competitors"
Like the Sparkly Lamb, which has the mixed advantage of being highly visible at night.
Odd antler growths in deer are not unusual. I saw a photo recently at a company social event of a deer that had been shot by an attendee that had a three inch antler growing under its right eye.
It's not a matter of killing an animal because it's weird. Sometimes hunters kill a weird animal.
And here in Saskatchewan there's no over-hunting. Deer, elk, antelope, moose, etc populations are very healthy. Ungulate hunters play an important role in monitoring CWD in the wild population by submitting the heads of the animals the kill for testing.
This deer's extra antler is easily explained.
During a struggle with another deer to establish relative superiority and gain mating rights, the other deer embedded one of HIS tines into the unicorn's skull. That tine broke off and remains to be seen, for the amusement and edification of BB readers everywhere. Case solved.
I take issue with carnivorous hypocrites, who gladly eat meat from animals raised under restrictive factory-farm conditions by treacherous farmers, who then deliver them to uncaring animal executioners, who in turn hand them off to mind-numbed, underpaid meat processors, where the requisite amount of insect parts, rodent hairs and, you know, 'your basic filth' (to quote George Carlin), is added.
To their ignorant minds, this is somehow better than taking part in nature's plan, swiftly killing an animal that ran free and ate natural food all its life, then dressing it out yourself, taking the care appropriate for food that you intend to eat yourself.
Steve