The Arizona Game and Fish Department reminds all shed antler hunters to stay on roads and trails this season, if hunting for antlers on an off-highway vehicle.

“Just like during the hunting season, we ask that you ’walk while you stalk’,” says Joe Sacco, off-highway vehicle law enforcement program manager. “The department recommends that you ride your vehicle on the trails to the area where you think the antlers are, then pack them out to your machine and drive them home on the roads.”

Damage to areas where cross country riding occurs can take more than 100 years to recover, especially if the area where you go cross country is wet. Those tracks can be seen by other users as an open invitation to unknowingly ruin a pristine recreational area.

A new illegal trail can cause a lot of problems for wildlife that live in that area.  The noise could cause animals to leave their regular habitat, anything that drops off of a machine could be eaten by the animals leading to unnecessary death, or someone could have a negative interaction with a very unhappy or startled animal.  Minimizing impact on habitat is a key to successful wildlife conservation.

Shed hunters are those hunters who go out and look for the antlers that have fallen off or been shed from game animals. Most animals shed their antlers in the spring and spend the summer and fall seasons growing a new set of antlers.