My co-worker's husband is an Iowa DNR officer, and he separated a couple of locked bucks this year by blasting the antlers with a shotgun. She said he's done it before with success, also.
As a wildlife biologist I can agree with vman that a buck turning on you is not a good situation. But also that ~20% deer die within 30 days from myopathy after undergoing extreme stress from a situation such as the one in discussion. This does not include the extreme vulnerability of the bucks to hunters and predators after they are detached. After undergoing these amounts of stress a deer is ~70% more likely to die from other things like cars, predators and hunters than deer that are not captured and stressed. If nothing would have been done then both would have died... end of story. Thanks to those guys for a real and accurate view of two locked trophies.
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