curvy antlers

curvy antlers This is the second year that I have had the chance to meet this look. The males can be recognized quite easily because their antlers follow the same shapes year after year. Each individual has his own signature, his own way of carving his crown. This is in fact, I think, one of the main reasons why we are so fascinated by this species. First of all we must understand that the bull moose loses its plume every season. This fact seems obvious when you come into contact with this mammal, but when you are not from here, it may seem hard to believe that such large bony structures can grow in the space of a few months. It is all the more impressive to understand that all this mass is the result of a diet composed entirely of vegetation. There is also the weight of these structures that adds to the feat. The biggest plume I was lucky enough to find in the spring was almost a meter long and weighed almost 10 kilograms. You have to double that weight and consider that some males I came across had much larger plumes than this one, more than double in fact. All this burden and effort is for the one and only purpose of having the strength and dominance to protect and reproduce a group of females. The fights, well known, are violent. This year I was able to see three males with one antler missing or one eye punctured. Nature ensures that the strongest survive and provide the best genetics to the species. Living in the mountains, the plume of this young male seems to have followed the direction of the wind. This is what makes it so recognizable. It is not yet big enough to compete with the big ones in the mountains. He waits and observes at their sides until the day it is his turn and he has to challenge them. In a duel, there is much more than two animals fighting each other. There is a primitive communication, a dialogue of energy. The more we observe these fights, the more we see the social and hierarchical structure, the calculated dance and submission before the point of no return. From a violent and cruel aspect, these fights nevertheless emanate an act of complicity and common good for the species. There is something very poetic in these works of art that are the plumes. They grow and fill an empty space. They follow an invisible matrix whose source is a pillar welded into the skull. Until it reaches full maturity, its plume will expand to become bigger and bigger. Following the same curves and the same sharp points. Then, following years of playing war and winter survival, its plume will be in regression. It will be in retreat and will not confront the big males for the rest of its life. A kind of retreat that will allow him to live many more beautiful years in the hollow of the forest. Slowly time will have done its work and new males, having a similar genetic signature, will be the kings of the places which formerly were his. Sometimes, at the sight of a new male, I think I recognize a curve that reminds me of an ancestor who once crossed my path.