I remember the first velvet whitetail I took early one bow season, the antlers having had that soft, suede-like feel; a rare, fleeting texture holding the last pulse of summer. That moment stayed with me because the idea of velvet antlers as living radiators was first passed down from my father-in-law, Bruce Bevilacqua. He used to say the velvet wasn’t just feeding the antler — it was cooling the animal, like the fins on an engine.
Later, I learned that science agrees.
Antlers are among the most unusual regenerative organs in the animal kingdom, growing and shedding annually for most cervids. During growth, they’re covered in a highly vascularized tissue called velvet, which nourishes bone formation and mineralization for about five months.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Velvet antlers and thermoregulation in moose and deer published in 2024, velvet antlers are covered in a dense network of blood vessels that circulate warm blood close to the surface, helping dissipate heat during the summer growing season. The system functions like a natural radiator — much as elephants use their ears to cool off. In moose and deer, this thermoregulation may be vital, since antlers can grow up to two centimetres per day, among the fastest tissue growth rates in mammals.
Antlers and horns are often confused but are fundamentally different. Antlers, found on deer, moose, and elk, are made of living bone and are shed each year. They grow anew every spring beneath velvet that supplies oxygen and nutrients. Horns, seen on animals such as bighorn sheep or pronghorns, consist of a permanent keratin sheath over a bony core and are never shed.
Velvet clearly aids in cooling during the growth phase, but once it’s shed and the antlers harden, the process ends. Bare antlers are inert bone, no longer vascularized, and therefore unable to regulate temperature. The blood-rich velvet enables heat exchange; when it’s gone, animals must rely on other strategies, such as panting, shade seeking, or shifting their activity to cooler hours. When the velvet’s gone, the radiator shuts off — and big bulls and bucks lay low on hot fall days — unless, of course, romance is in the air. The velvet period is thus a crucial window when antlers both grow and help maintain body temperature despite summer heat and metabolic strain.
Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters (OFAH) Wildlife Biologist Matthew Robbins agrees that velvet, like a fast-growing bone beneath it, is a fascinating aspect of cervid biology.
"The growth of new flesh is very demanding of any creature; it takes valuable resources and energy away from other functions and, in turn, necessitates significant gains to be worthwhile,” he said. “The simple fact that antler velvet is so valuable to a deer or moose that it warrants regrowth each and every year is a testament to the ingenuity of nature.”
Velvet antlers are more than a seasonal curiosity. They’re living proof of how traditional knowledge and science intertwine, reminding us that the land teaches through both story and study.
Originally published in the Walleye 2026 issue of Ontario Out of Doors magazine
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