{"id":948062,"date":"2026-10-27T10:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T10:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948062\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T10:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T10:54:12","slug":"yukon-photographer-captures-footage-of-caribou-carrying-dead-rival-in-its-antlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948062\/","title":{"rendered":"Yukon photographer captures footage of caribou carrying dead rival in its antlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

WARNING: This story contains graphic images of wildlife.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Yukon-based wildlife photographer Peter Mather was on assignment south of Whitehorse to film caribou when he noticed a bear acting unusually aggressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was huffing and puffing and making noises and we had to scare it off,\u201d Mather said. <\/p>\n

Then, another bear came through.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Yukon photographer captures caribou carrying remains after antler entanglement:\"\"<\/p>\n

Yukon photographer captures caribou carrying remains after antler entanglement<\/p>\n

A Yukon photographer caught sight of a caribou carrying the remains of another caribou entangled in its horns. Peter Mather captured the unique images in early October in the high mountains south of Whitehorse. He spent 10 days filming caribou rutting on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin D\u00fcn First Nation as part of a project with the Southern Lakes Caribou Recovery Plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw that second bear there, I\u2019m like \u2018Oh, there\u2019s probably some sort of dead caribou up there\u2019,\u201d Mather said. <\/p>\n

He sent a drone up to see what was happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just shocked to see \u2026 there\u2019s two caribou with their antlers locked together, and one of them is dead,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said he watched a bear nearby try to attack the caribou, but the surviving bull would scare the bear off.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mather captured a variety of wildlife as they fed on the carcass of the dead bull caribou. Here, a bear and a conspiracy of ravens are seen. (Submitted by Peter Mather)<\/p>\n

Mather said he watched this bull caribou for days.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the four days that [dead] caribou disappeared,\u201d Mather said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were foxes \u2026 ravens, golden eagles were eating it for four days.”<\/p>\n

He said on the last day, a pack of wolves arrived at the scene. He believes they got much of the last of the carcass.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways, [they] kind of freed up this other caribou who could kind of walk away at the end, with two heads,\u201d Mather said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

At one point, a fox stopped by for a meal from the dead caribou. (Submitted by Peter Mather)<\/p>\n

Locking antlers not unheard of<\/p>\n

Mather said after the wolves arrived and feasted, the living caribou disappeared, and he couldn\u2019t find it. <\/p>\n

His work was to record the rut, mating season for caribou that often involve the males fighting one another, with the Southern Lakes Caribou Recovery Team and the Kwanlin D\u00fcn First Nation.<\/p>\n

Lars Jessup, a biologist with the Southern Lakes Caribou Recovery Project, said this incident happened in a season where bull caribou are especially vulnerable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rut season is the most dangerous time of year for bull caribou \u2026 they work really hard in the rut and the predators are usually around during the rut.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said bulls locking antlers is somewhat common, describing finding skulls and skeletons of caribou with locked antlers in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably more common that when that happens that they both die, not that one of them would live,\u201d Jessup said, calling the living caribou \u201clucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

His time with the extra weight is also coming to an end, Jessup said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he makes it another month or so, he\u2019s likely to drop those antlers and lose the extra weight, and should be fine through winter,\u201d Jessup said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time people usually see them down the mountains in and around Christmas time \u2026 the bulls are usually bald.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Eventually, other animals managed to free the surviving caribou from having to carry the extra weight of another bull. (Submitted by Peter Mather)<\/p>\n

A metaphor for the herd’s resiliency<\/p>\n

This particular caribou is part of the Ibex herd, Jessup said, one of four caribou herds that make up the southern lakes caribou herds. <\/p>\n

It is protected by the southern lakes caribou recovery project, which has continued for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe herds have done really well to recover over the last three decades, through all kinds of hard work and effort,\u201d Jessup said.<\/p>\n

However, he said there were concerns the natural ebb and flow of the caribou population was in an ebb, as they haven\u2019t seen many calves in the last five years. <\/p>\n

For Mather, the photographer, the footage he captured of that one caribou surviving, gives him some hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s like a metaphor for the whole herd, that he\u2019s just resilient, just a really, really resilient caribou.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-948062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}