Imagine being a young, excited hunter who recently graduated from high school. You go elk hunting and take your first-ever bull elk. Not only that, but you help field dress it and tote out the meat out of the backcountry on your back. It’s a great day!
After you get home, you boil the skull so you can prepare it to be a European mount to go up on your wall as a memory of your accomplishment and your hunt.
That’s exactly what Taylor Gyllenberg of Baker City, Oregon, did. Sadly, just a few days later, someone hopped her fence and stole the antlers sometime during the night of November 17.
“We still have the memories of the hunt, but we don’t have the trophy,” she told the Baker City Herald. “I just think it’s sickening to know that someone could ever take something they didn’t even work to get.”
Go to Taylor’s Facebook page to other photos of the antlers.
The incident is one of several in different states with similar outcomes.
(Photo credit: Taylor Gyllenberg)