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Duel to the death of two deer
Bucks drown in pond after getting antlers locked together.

IDA CHIPMAN
Tribune Correspondent

TIPPECANOE -- They died together, locked in an angry, apparently unbreakable embrace.

"I imagine they were thrashing around," Wayne Bessinger said.

The pair, most likely rivals for the affection of a female, were "sort of floating on their sides with their heads under the water," Bessinger said.

Somehow, they had inadvertently stumbled out onto the frozen pond and fell through.

"There were chips of ice scattered all around the perimeter."

Two adult male deer, their 12-point racks inextricably entwined, had drowned in the moonlight last Friday in the icy waters of the Bessingers' one-acre pond just off of Indiana 10.

Were they watched by young doe standing in the woods, waiting to be claimed by the victor?

Maybe so.

Perhaps as the death struggles ceased and the waters of the pond returned to a placid smoothness, the doe silently turned away and rejoined her herd.

The bodies were discovered by Bill and Peggy Maki of Fort Wayne, who were weekend guests of Wayne and Betty Bessinger at their home on Indiana 10 in Tippecanoe.

Well-bundled up, they went for a walk about 3:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday afternoon. That was when they discovered the bodies in the water.

They hustled up to the farmhouse to tell their hosts what they had seen.

"It was weird," Wayne Bessinger said.

"Both of the male deer," he said, "had been spotted by hunters at various times -- one on the north side of 110 and the other on the south side of the highway."

You'd think that each buck would have been satisfied with his own territory and his exclusive herd of females.

"No," Bessinger explained, "during the breeding season, the bucks, although they have a home range, will go a couple of miles out of their own area."

This case is even more odd because deer typically mate in the late fall.

The bodies, according to Bessinger, were in good shape, having spent a night and most of a day in the cold water.

"Both were thinner than normal as they lose a lot of weight during mating season," he said. "They fight a lot, and they get thin running the does."

Bessinger and his son, Clint, took the carcasses to Craig Browning, a taxidermist on Indiana 10 in Culver.

Bessinger will donate the preserved animals, at a cost of $6,000, to the Potawatomi Wildlife Park Nature Center, a small museum at the 287-acre park on the Tippecanoe River, south of Tippecanoe.

"I hope that there are other lovers of nature who will help us by donating to the deer mounting project," he said.

This photo provided by Marc Gould shows the carcasses of two whitetail bucks tangled together by their antlers after they were pulled from a pond on Wayne Bessinger's property near Tippecanoe on Feb. 12. Their antlers had become locked together during a fight and they had broken through the ice of the pond and drowned.

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