AU grad student seeks answers Never mind the brow tine, this
buck at the Auburn deer lab is considered a spike-on-one-side
(SOOS) buck. Auburn graduate student Gabe Karns is soliciting
hunters to send in the skull plate and antlers of SOOS bucks to
further a study being done to determine the causes of the
malformed antlers. By David Rainer Alabama Dept. of Conservation
and Natural Resources Anyone who has hunted deer in Alabama has
pondered the question when a buck walks out sporting a fine
antler with multiple points on one side and a puny spike or much
less desirable antler on the other side. Many hunters, who shoot
the deer as a cull, blame that abnormality on a genetic defect,
but Gabe Karns, a graduate student at Auburn University, hopes
to determine if that theory holds water. "This may be the
simplest research that's ever come out of Auburn University, but
there's nobody who hunts who isn't interested in the results,"
Karns said. "If you've hunted much, you've seen a buck like
that. You sit there in th