July 2021 - 5

MAILBAG
IVORY AND AGING
The article on teeth aging in April's magazine
helped me a lot to understand how old an animal
was before harvest.
Elk have one more feature - the ivorys. What does
the ivory say on how old an elk was at harvest? With
older elk the ivorys seem more worn down with color.
Young elk seem more pointy with more white color.
Was there any ivory showing on the 16½-year-old elk
from the 2020 tooth aging information?
Scott Adams
Alpine
Scott,
Although we ask for the first two incisors of big game
animals, we also can complete the same process to age the
molars or ivories. Many hunters prefer to keep the ivories
of their elk harvest, but if they send these in place of the
first incisors, or if they send molars, we remove the crown
and process the root just like incisors. The root is where
annuli are deposited each winter and what we count
while looking at a very thin section of the tooth under
the microscope. When providing our final age, we take
into consideration the likely eruption date of the tooth
we have processed. Dates of eruption are different for the
additional incisors, molars and ivories. For instance, the
average age of eruption for the ivories is 2 ½ years. To
provide an age for the elk mentioned in the question,
we added 2 ½ years to our reading of 14 annuli, giving
the elk an age of 16 ½ years. The 16 ½-year-old elk had
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a visible ivory crown, however, it was worn and small
in size. ~Molly Bredehoft, Game and Fish Tooth Aging
Coordinator
EXCITED FOR NEW CODY OFFICE
As a Wyoming Game and Fish Department retiree
I have enjoyed Wyoming Wildlife for more than four
decades. Having read the March 2021 issue, I want
to comment on Director Brian Nesvik's column
" Investing in the Basin for Wildlife. " I am so stoked
and supportive of Game and Fish building a new
regional office for the Bighorn Basin. The current
regional office and I each started our careers at about
the same time, circa 1980.
As Director Nesvik wrote, the 42-year old building
is failing, the roof leaks, the plumbing is poor and
there are other significant problems. I like to think I'm
doing a bit better, but after my long wildlife career I
no doubt show some of the same wear-and-tear the
Cody office shows. Having spent more than half of
my working life based in that building, I have so many
fond memories of the people I worked and interacted
with, and the issues and challenges we faced together.
Thank you to the hunters and anglers for your
durable support of Game and Fish. I hope to be
around for another 40 years, as I hope the new Cody
office will be, too!
Kevin Hurley
Nampa, Idaho
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CORRECTIONS:
The red-shafted flicker photographed
on pages 6-7 of the June 2021 issue
was a male.
Submitted by Mike Pearson
Submitted by Amelia Mayer
Submitted by Cheryl Elliot
Submitted by Kristen Marie
Wyoming Wildlife | 5
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July 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2021
