Are jackalopes real?
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Where'd you thing they come from? Easter bunny eggs?
wow.....
How do you get antlers that small?
People often misidentify "jackalopes". the vast majority that you see are actually "jackadeer". true jackalopes are much rarer and have a much more limited range.
You can always find shed antlers in Woonsockett, South Dakota. I know Van Dykes has a large collection of them.
Those that Van Dykes carries are reproductions of actual Jackolope antlers, I believe. The REAL ones are extremely rare to find as sheds, because rabbits are rodents, and as such, as soon as they shed their antlers, they begin to gnaw on them to provide their calcium supply for the next year's growth. The females, which don't grow antlers, usually end up gnawing on deer antlers. Many people have found deer sheds with gnaw marks on them caused by female jackolopes.
In addition to being able to purchase the reproductions, a person can also use a spike buck deer, or small antlered deer, to replace the missing jackolope antlers. Of course, you do have to cut the skull plate between the burrs and take out a section of bone, as a true jackolope's head is much narrower than a deer's head.
Been watching too much Fox News coverage of Michael Jackson, I guess...
And Justin is correct, I think a better term would be "Jackadeer," although Van Dykes does also carry the reproductions of the much, much more rare Jackalope antlers/horns. (Look very much like antelope, only smaller, with the same blackish coloration.)
With the end of the year, many of the network television news programs have been listing the notable people who died during 2003. One such person, who has not been featured in these lists is Douglas Herrick, who died last January at the age of 82. Below is his obituary from the New York Times, which also tells the story of the creation of the first Jackalope over 60 years ago...
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Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead
Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope -- half bunny, half antelope and 100 percent tourist trap -- died on Jan. 6, 2003 in Casper, Wyoming. He was 82.
The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said.
Douglas Herrick lived in Casper, but it was in his hometown, Douglas, Wyo., that luck changed his life.
In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. "We just throwed the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there," Ralph said. "It looked like that rabbit had horns on it."
His brother's eyes brightened with inspiration.
"Let's mount that thing!" he said.
That was tens of thousands of jackalopes ago. A jackalope, of course, is a legendary animal with a jack rabbit's body and the antlers of a pronghorn antelope, which resembles a small deer. The last syllable of the name comes from antelope. (Jackadeer? Nah.)
Whether jackalopes ever hopped the earth's surface is rather like the same question about the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot; it depends on the observer. Believers say that Buddha mentioned a horned rabbit, although they usually neglect to mention that the Enlightened One implied they do not exist.
They also point to a picture of a horned rabbit painted in the 1500's, but scientists suspect its cerebral protuberances were tumors from a rabbit virus. Cowboys have said that while they were singing around the fire, their chorus was joined by a distant jackalope, often in harmony, usually in the tenor line. (Yep.)
Whether truth, fiction or metaphor, the mounted version of the jackalope, many made with deer horn tips, relentlessly proliferated. Many thousands were made by Ralph Herrick and his son Jim. Douglas Herrick was less interested in the family taxidermy shop.
"I don't think my brother ever made more than a thousand, if he done that," Ralph Herrick said. By contrast, Jim Herrick delivers 400 jackalopes to Wall Drug in South Dakota three times a year, a small portion of his total production.
Douglas became the jackalope capital. In 1965, the state of Wyoming trademarked the name, and in 1985 Gov. Ed Herschler pronounced it the animal's official home. Jackalope images adorn everything from park benches to fire trucks.
Jackalope hunting licenses are sold; an applicant must supposedly pass a test to prove he has an I.Q. higher than 50 but not more than 72. Hunting is permitted only on June 31, from midnight to 2 a.m.
Jackalope milk is available at several stores, though its authenticity is questionable; everyone knows how dangerous it is to milk a jackalope.
An oft-repeated legend is that the Herricks' grandfather saw a jackalope in Buffalo, Wyo., in 1920 and told his family about it. Not true, Ralph said.
The first mounted jackalope was sold for $10 (they now go for $35) to Roy Ball, who displayed it in his Bonte Hotel in Douglas. It was stolen.
Others have tried to take the jackalope's peculiar evolution further. A Colorado bar displays a jackapanda, a cross between a jackalope and a panda, while Wall Drug has a flying jackalope, with some partridge feathers glued to its tail.
Douglas Eugene Herrick was born on July 8, 1920, and grew up on a ranch. In World War II, he was a tail gunner on a B-17. He later worked in construction and at an Amoco refinery, in addition to stuffing animals.
Although Governor Herschler specifically mentioned Mr. Herrick in 1985 as the Jackalope's creator, his brother said the town tried to charge him a commission for each jackalope. It relented.
Mr. Herrick's wife, Marjorie, died in 1993. In addition to his brother, who lives in Douglas, he is survived by his daughters, Bonnie French of Casper and Diane Brewer of Casper; his sons, Kelly, of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Michael, of Casper; and seven grandchildren.
Michael Herrick followed his family into the business of taxidermy, but does not mount jackalopes. He prefers larger animals.
There is a jackrabbit in AZ called an Antelope Jack Rabbit, i used to live in tucson and hunted these large jack rabbits some reaching upwards of 15lbs or more. no antlers though:{}