A Ring camera has captured a rare moment of a moose shedding for winter.
Tyra and Chance Bogert have installed a Ring camera by their doorbell for safety and security reasons. They did not expect to find this moose shedding off its antlers right in front of their house.
The moose’s antlers are not attached to their skull so they can be easily shed off during the winter season. Shedding antlers lets them lose around 60 lbs of weight so that they can have more energy during winter.
You might ask, won’t the moose need those antlers?
“[The] moose ‘like to push those antlers against each other for dominance,’ but since they’re not weapons, the animals can afford to ditch them after breeding season,” Lee Kantar, moose biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Maine, explained.
The Bogert family wasn’t home when this happened, but they received a notification on their Ring camera.
They found it weird and decided to open the application. That’s when they saw the moose in front of their house.
At first, the moose was just standing there and not moving. Then suddenly, its whole body shook as if it was trying to remove something from its body. And it really was doing that.
A few seconds later, both antlers on his head fell off.
The whole act must have surprised the moose, and it ran off, leaving the antlers behind. Tyra and Chance were shocked because, mostly, they have never seen this moment ever in their lives.
Chance brought the antlers inside their home.
They have never seen antlers as big as these. They were about 50 inches across and one of the antlers could cradle their three-month-old son, Thrasher!
“I knew it was rare because all my hunting friends said they’ve never seen it in real life, let alone being caught on video,” Chance said.
Only male moose have antlers and they only really need them for the breeding season.
“The guy who has the biggest set of antlers and can show them off to potential girlfriends will be the fortunate individual who does the breeding,” Vince Crichton, retired wildlife biologist and moose expert, explained.
Because the antlers’ growth is regulated by the moose’s testosterone, it is natural that whoever has the biggest will win the female moose.
For a female moose, a male moose with the biggest antlers will also be the most physically fit and will be chosen.
After the breeding season in the fall, moose no longer have use for antlers thus the need to shed them.
Besides, the antlers can get caught in branches, garbage, and even Christmas decorations. So it’s not just a weight issue but a health and safety issue as well for the moose.
How do they get back their antlers, though?
Every spring, the antler bone actually grows back inside a skin covering on the moose’s head called velvet. When their testosterone surges sometime in September, the velvet sheds and the antler bone hardens.
Then breeding season begins followed by the shedding season, which usually happens every December.
Watch how the antler shakes off and sheds its antlers in the video below.
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