Antlers! (8th in a series about Isle Royale)

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and dynamic speaker. 

She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has authored three books about these adventures. 

To learn more about her work, or to engage her as a speaker, go to 

http://www.laketrek.com/great-lakes-speaker/

The primary objective on a Moosewatch Expedition on Isle Royale is to find and gather moose bones.

But teams also gather data from the antlers moose shed every winter. 

Today, there are over 2,000 moose on the island and about half of them are bulls. Bulls grow a fresh set of antlers every year. Antlers are fast-growing and are covered in "velvet" in the spring. This covering conveys blood and nutrients to the growing bone (yes, antlers are classified as bone tissue). Once they are fully formed, moose will scrape off the velvet and get ready to spar with other males for the right to pass on their genes.

Then, at the end of the year, bull moose shed their antlers. They are scattered all over Isle Royale. This year, my team found 38 shed antlers including several matched pair.

Teams measure and mark all found antlers (Julie and Joceline)

Joceline holds a classic matched set of antlers

And April holds another pair!

Sometimes, teams find a skull with antlers still attached 

(This team was the first all-women team to hike a Moosewatch Expedition!)