What a difference a few months make. It was just six months ago and this bull elk was on top of the world, figuratively and literally. He was in his prime, he had bested every challenger that approached him and he had his pick of the cows. This was his time. Life couldn’t get any better for him.

That was then. Since those heady days he has faced a hard long winter. The snow has been deep, foraging hard, and his strength and weight has been depleted after a stressful rut. He is still lugging around nearly 40 pounds of antlers and has been throughout the winter. He needs to eat a lot to maintain the strength to hold his head up. Mid-March is when he normally sheds his antlers and it’s not a moment too soon for him.

A fellow named Kolten Banks was lucky enough to film an elk shedding his antlers. “Tines Up” a Utah-based hunting guide service, shared the footage this week. Here’s a link to the video.

Like the guy in the video says “How freakin’ cool is that?” Since this bull has made it this far there is a good chance he’ll make it to antler shedding time, and if he stays clear of the wolf packs he’ll soon be putting his weight back on, and will be busy growing a new set of antlers for the Fall.

This is a Yellowstone bull photographed a few miles outside of Mammoth. Judging by the size of his harem, which is grazing just outside of this frame, he did pretty good this past fall. But each year they all start fresh and there are always new young bulls with something to prove so the battles will be epic, as always.