Last November, I wrote about Buck 11144. He was harvested last fall at the ripe old age of 8.5 years. Impressive for a buck considering that less than 1% of harvested bucks are older than 7.5 years.
Given that Buck 11144 beat the odds for 8 years, you would expect that he was cryptic, invisible, the embodiment of the “ghost of the forest.” Guess again!
Come to find out, Buck 11144 had a bit of Kardashian in him. Yeah. He loved to have his picture taken. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a narcissist but he did have a relationship with the lens. After the story was posted, we received over 20 photos of him from 2 different blog readers.
One reader has photos of him spanning 4 years! And even found one of his sheds.
Way to stay under the radar, buddy.
Whether he was parading in front of the camera as a tease or because of his unflappable confidence, Buck 11144 had the goods.
I mean he did outlive the majority of his fellow “men.” Maybe he was getting senile in his old age. Who knows.
Photo Credit:Ryan Bixler
Either way, he was well known in the neighborhood. One set of photos was taken within ¾ mile of each other. And we are told he lost one of his ear tags sometime after August 2014.
This was the last known photo taken of the old man. Like so many of the others, we don’t usually get to hear their stories. It’s always a treat to get Closure.
Biologist
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