Rare Discovery After Hunter Kills 8-Point Deer In Sumter County

SUMTER COUNTY, AL — A 175-pound, 8-point deer provided the surprise of a lifetime after being killed by hunters earlier this year in Sumter County, just across the Tombigbee River from Marengo County.

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Outdoorsman Matt Kelley, who leads charity hunts throughout west Alabama in addition to hosting the Equip Outdoors Radio Show and Podcast, was hunting with friends when one of the group killed an 8-point whitetail deer that had no visible male reproductive organs.

“We took pictures and got him back to the skinning shed," Kelley told the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources earlier this month. "I said something about the tarsal glands not even being black; it’s not even rutting. Somebody else said something about how skinny his neck was ... Then the guy who shot it was starting to skin it and said, ‘Boys, this is a doe.’”

Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s Deer Program Coordinator Chris Cook the said the deer is what wildlife biologists refer to as a "pseudohermaphrodite."

“A deer like this with hardened antlers will have testes inside the body cavity,” Cook said. “They don’t have fully developed male or female organs. They may have external female organs, but they would have to have underdeveloped testes that were still large enough to produce enough testosterone to have that antler growth. While it may look like a doe on the outside, it’s not truly a doe. But it’s not a buck either. It’s very unusual for a functioning female to have antlers like that.”

Cook went on to explain that the percentage of true does with antlers is only about 0.1% of the total population. He then said they are fully functional females, but have small, velvet-covered antlers that are not fully developed or hardened.

Click here to learn more and see pictures of the doe with antlers!

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