DENVER, Mo. (KMOX) - It's not often that you go fishing and come back with a rare, massive elk antler. But that's what happened to a father and son in northwest Missouri last week.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) was a bit astonished by the discovery because the main elk population in Missouri is located more than 300 miles away.
Ben Clarkson and his son, Sam were fishing along the east fork of the Grand River in Worth County on Dec. 3 when they found the single bull elk antler attached to a small portion of skull plate. Harrison County Agent Cpl. Josh Roller got a call and went to them.
“It looks to be old, like it had been in the water for quite some time,” Roller said.
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It's a true mystery as to where it came from and how long it's been there. Elk have occasionally wandered into northwest Missouri from other states, so it could be an wandering animal. Or it could be more than 100 years old, if it was buried in mud and protected from weather or rodents. Roller said he cannot determine its origin.
Although elk are native to Missouri, they were extirpated from the state by the mid- to late-1800s mainly due to over hunting. MDC has restored elk in a limited area of Missouri’s southeastern Ozarks where habitat is plentiful, but that's about 300 miles away from where the Clarksons found the antler.
Elk are not being restored outside the restoration zone in other parts of the state.
Roller wrote a disposition permit that allows the Clarkson’s to keep the antler. Found deer or elk antlers attached to a skull plate can be kept, but only after the finder contacts a conservation agent for a disposition permit.
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