Deer Afflicted with ‘Gnarly Buck’

Posted by on June 25th, 2012

Ola Enbagen of Gothenburg, Sweden casually went out to grab his morning paper from the post office box. As a bonus he got to see a cute little deer grazing quietly.

Only there was something different about this deer.

“He was looking straight at me and I just thought, “Damn, he looks strange.”

What caught Enbagen’s attention was the weird cactus-like growth on the deer’s head. A moment later the deer leaped over a hedge and disappeared.

“But when I was having breakfast he returned, so I took some pictures and filmed him through the window,” said Enbagen.

Enbagen’s little deer friend was suffering from something called ‘cactus buck’ or better still “gnarly cactus”.

Gnarly cactus is a condition which causes the animal’s antlers to continue growing until they cover its eyes. Normally, a hormonal impulse stirs the bucks to rub the velvet off its antlers every year, and eventually shed them.

When a hormonal imbalance disturbs the shedding of the animal’s antlers, each growing cycle produces more velvet and antler material on top of the previous year’s until they eventually grow over the deer’s eyes, resembling a cactus.

An animal with this condition will have very small or completely undescended testicles. Animals with this condition are not expected to live for a long time. Once the antlers grow over his eyes, the animal will be unable to fend for itself.

Enbagen said deer visit his garden frequently but never one that looked like this.

[The Local – Sweden]

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