Reviewing Antler Antics

e haven't heard much news the last few years about the National Park Service vigorously prosecuting people who remove deer, elk and moose antlers from the parks. Maybe this is due to tighter budgets; however, that has not always been the case. Following is a rundown on the situation back in 1995:

Poor Joe Kapphan, he stands convicted of one of the highest crimes known to National Park officials. Took a large shed elk antler out of Yellowstone. Joe thought he'd safely pulled off this minor heist when he made it out through the gate at Gardiner and took the antler into his motel room to admire it. Imagine his dismay when the feds swooped down, confiscated the antler and hauled him away. What Joe apparently didn't know is that in Yellowstone, there is no effort too imaginative to not use in running down a thievin' horn hunter. What nailed him was a tiny high-tech radio beacon hidden inside the antler. He was fined $850 and exiled from the Park for three years.

Compare Joe's fate to what happened to me about 25 years ago. Was climbing the Belton Hills with my son Shannon in May and we found the carcass of a big bull elk that had been killed by another bull. The body had been frozen in the snow, preserved completely and I used a tiny pocketknife to spend an hour cutting off the head and then hauled it out through deep snowdrifts to my car at the old arch bridge across the Middle Fork.

Next week wrote a column in the Hungry Horse News about all the terrible tribulations getting the job done. The day after the paper came out, Glacier's Chief Ranger called me and said, "George, for cryin' out loud, if you are going to come up here and illegally remove elk horns ... it would be a good idea not to write about it in a widely distributed newspaper." That's how I first found out you're not supposed to take antlers from the Park.

There are so many more important jobs to be done by the understaffed field-rangers that very little extra time and certainly no money should be spent laying elaborate traps and ambushes for someone picking up a shed antler or two in the national parks. As for commercial gatherers who sell them to Orientals seeking a boost to their sagging libido, why not let 'em haul them out right through the gate and the government could collect good money for park expenses.

As for the moles, voles, mice and porcupines who like calcium, there will always be enough bones, horns, and antlers around for them.

Another thing, those of us who are not rich Orientals, are now forced to sit up there on some windy mountain to gnaw on antlers right where they lay ... whenever we need that sort of personal fix.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.