Hunters Horn In On Antlers For Fun And Profits Collectors Search The West For Antlers To Be Made Into Furniture, Asian Medicines

George Bradford’s workshop looks suspiciously like the scene of an elk massacre.

But for him, the piles of antlers gathered on the floor and under wooden workbenches are the rewards of a peaceful hobby.

Every spring, Bradford and his son Tony Bradford join the ranks of people who comb hills and deserts around the West for antlers abandoned by moose, elk and deer.

“Horn hunters,” he calls them, though the name is slightly inaccurate because horns, unlike antlers, aren’t shed every year. The hunters are the crucial link in an industry turning antlers from the wild lands of the West into fancy furniture and Asian medicines.

Like others, the Bradfords are motivated, in part, by money. One large elk antler can bring $85 from dealers who eventually sell them to exporters.

The Bradfords each collect $1,000 to $1,500 worth of antlers in a good year. But that’s only a tiny part of the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of elk antlers exported to Asia each year.

The promise of dollars has drawn more and more people into the search for the weathered bones, said Bradford. It used to be he could hike all day without seeing a footprint in some areas. But those days are rare now.

The crowding has raised tensions among horn hunters, who are as independent as gold prospectors. There are no antler-hunting clubs or associations that set rules or track their numbers, Tony Bradford said.

Some hunters stake out areas as their “turf” or gather horns into piles long before the May 1 antler season opens in many places. Arguments over horns have developed into fistfights or ended up with slashed tires, he said.

But a dwindling supply of easy-to-find racks and growing competitiveness haven’t dampened the Bradfords’ enthusiasm. Calculate how many hours they spend walking the hills and how much they earn and it becomes clear that horn hunting is more a passionate pastime than a job. Bradford estimates he has spent 30 days scouting for antlers this year, and the season isn’t over yet.

“What better way to spend your days than this?” he asks, weaving his way among sagebrush and bitter brush in the desert west of St. Anthony, Idaho.

Bradford looks like the hunter he has been since his childhood in Klamath Falls, Ore. A camouflage jacket is draped over his heavy frame. A black baseball cap covering his pepper-colored hair bears the National Rifle Association’s gold insignia.

He used to leave antlers during hunting trips - until 10 years ago when a friend showed him he’d been leaving behind money. Since then, Bradford has spent days scanning the hills of the desert near St. Anthony, the country around Swan Valley and the Wyoming desert. When he retires in a few years, he wants to buy a motor home and spend part of the year in Wyoming with his wife, Darlene, searching for antlers.

The treasure is sparse this day. In two-and-a-half hours, the Bradfords uncover one small moose antler and a weathered deer antler from a previous year. Deer and moose droppings are old and widely scattered, telling Bradford that heavy winter snows likely pushed the animals farther south into lower country. The antlers, if any have been missed by other collectors, probably will be there.

“This no doubt will be the worst year I’ve ever had,” he said.

Some of the antlers the Bradfords recover become knife handles that Tony makes or belt buckles like the one at Tony’s waist during this excursion.

Others will join the stacks of antlers filling the back rooms of Little Big Horn Antiques, a horn exporting shop in Idaho Falls. The company is one of three major elk horn exporters in the country, said owner Linda Rumsey.

This is the company’s busy time of year. It buys antlers from hunters and smaller dealers as far away as New Mexico, paying roughly $7.50 per pound.

The best antlers are woven into one another to form intricate chandeliers or lamps. Others become parts of wind chimes or elaborate nature carvings bound for tourist shops in Jackson, Wyo.

But the vast majority - some 150,000 pounds last year - will be shipped to Korea, sliced into thin wafers and mixed in tea or medicines. In Korea, the horn is believed to alleviate arthritis and multiple sclerosis, among other illnesses, Rumsey said.

But the benefits of elk antlers are more immediate for Bradford.

“I’d love to be able to just do this every day,” he said.