“At first I thought it was a doe, but then when I looked at it after I shot it, I realized it had very short antlers,” Bryk said. “But it wasn’t a button buck. This deer’s antlers had been sawed off, and it also had a notch in its ear, probably from a tag. When I realized that, my conclusion was that it had come from a game farm.”

The deer’s shorn antlers presented a conundrum when Bryk checked the deer at Pop’s Pizza in Cable. Champaign County Wildlife Officer Jeff Tipton was initially called about the situation, but the investigation fell to Logan County Game Warden Scott Sharpe.

Sharpe estimated that the buck was between 18 and 30 months old, judging by its size and what remained of its rack.

“Deer drop their antlers every year, but the ones on this buck were out of velvet, so I’d estimate the (antlers were removed), at the earliest, the last week of August, and September at the latest,” Sharpe said.

Sharpe agreed that the deer came from a game farm, but said it’s hard to tell where and how it escaped, since Logan County has a total of 22 propagators licensed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. A few of them offer out-of-state residents the chance to shoot privately-owned deer during controlled hunts without the need to purchase a permit.

Tipton said there are only a few propagators licensed in Champaign County, and no shooting preserves.

Sharpe said in his three years as Logan County’s wildlife officer, this is the first time he has seen a hunter take a domesticated deer in the wild.

Bryk said he was upset because there’s no guarantee that the deer is a genuine Ohio whitetail, since it came from a farm that could have imported it.

“I love what ODNR has done for us hunters, but this time I disagreed,” Bryk said. “I don’t know for sure that I shot an Ohio whitetail. For all I know, it could have been brought in from Mexico.”

That possibility raises concern about the safety of the meat and protection of the wild herd from diseases such as Chronic Wasting Disease, which is similar to mad cow disease, Bryk said.

“I’m not sure I should eat the meat, even though I had it butchered,” he said.

Bryk said he wishes that he could have his permit back to shoot an additional deer, but said he’ll settle for investigation of the game farms to prevent future incidents from happening.

“I felt bad when I shot it, to tell the truth,” Bryk said. “I shot a pet. They sent a poor defenseless deer out to combat in the middle of rut with no antlers.”

Bryk said if the deer’s rack had not been sawed off, he would have a taxidermy trophy.

“I thought about mounting it, just as a joke,” he said. “If (the antlers were intact), I think it would have been a nice six or eight points.”

According to a press release from ODNR, hunters checked 887 deer in Champaign County during gun week, compared to 847 in 2006. Other than the odd incident, Tipton said it was a routine year, with no accidents or injuries reported to him last week.

“It was a good, safe season here in Champaign County, and I hope it stays that way,” he said.