The ‘shed hunt’ is on. Towering prongs of elk antlers are the prize.

JACKSON, Wyo. — The first day of May dawned frosty, partly cloudy and, Brady Rivenes hoped, auspiciously for snagging a “really big stack” of elk antlers in the snow-flecked national forest 20 minutes from where he sat in a black pickup.

His truck was No. 23 of 367 vehicles registered to begin lining up the morning before at the Teton County Fairgrounds, the starting spot for what may be the hottest event of a booming pastime in the American West: the annual Jackson “shed hunt,” an intense and sometimes cutthroat search for the antlers that bull elk sprout every year, deploy in autumn battles for mates and then drop each spring.

Some shed hunters collect antlers. Others mount them on walls, fashion them into light fixtures or place them in gardens. A growing number sell them as dog chews — an industry that has surged so much over the past two decades that the price of antlers is now upward of $16 a pound. Whatever the use, the largest ones — towering bones that can span four feet and weigh 30 pounds — are typically the most coveted.

“Some people come here for the really big horns,” said Rivenes, 24, an environmental engineer who traveled with family and friends from Gillette, more than six hours away. “Personally, I’m looking to find a bunch.”

Rivenes carried bare-bones equipment: a camo-patterned backpack and binoculars. In pre-dawn darkness on Wednesday, other participants had telescopes, horses, fat-tire bikes and tracking dogs — all useful tools. Their vehicles would be led in a motorcade by law enforcement across the expansive National Elk Refuge, where shed hunting is not allowed, to Bridger-Teton National Forest, where the season opens at 6 a.m. each May 1.

The ‘shed hunt’ is on. Towering prongs of elk antlers are the prize.

Teenagers Pax Larson, left, and his friend Paxton Holland wait in pre-dawn darkness with Larson’s father, Rob, for the procession to leave the Teton County Fairgrounds.

In a sign of the burgeoning interest, all vehicles in this year’s procession sported Wyoming plates. The legislature in 2023 voted to restrict the first week of shed-hunt season in certain areas to residents only.

State Rep. Ryan Berger (R), a special education teacher who sponsored the change, said he hoped to give seniors and people with disabilities a head start as well as to quell frenzied scenes that have led to harassment of wildlife, fistfights and felony charges.

When Berger was a child in the ’70s and ’80s, families “used to just go out and take a bucket of chicken or a sandwich and walk around the hills to look for antlers,” he said. But profit seekers have made “a big mess of the season. It’s just been crazy.”

By crazy, he means: Flying drones over public lands to identify fallen antlers or bulls with big racks. Using snowmobiles or dogs to chase winter-weakened deer, elk and moose until their horns tumble. Collecting shed antlers out of season, when wildlife authorities — who sometimes plant decoy antlers to catch poachers — say fragile animals require tranquility to survive to spring.

In 2022, a Montana online dog-chew retailer pleaded guilty to federal felony and misdemeanor charges for illegally caching antlers on Bridger-Teton land before the calendar allowed; he was already on probation for the same offense in 2019, when authorities found more than 500 antlers that he hid on the refuge and in a horse trailer. Last month, an Idaho man was fined $6,100 and sentenced to three years’ probation for illegal collecting in the same areas. Authorities said he had 1,000 pounds of antlers worth $18,000.

Such fervor has prompted officials in the West, home to the nation’s largest elk herds, to limit shed hunting on public lands. Several states now have winter bans. Wyoming requires nonresident participants to buy a $21.50 conservation stamp. Utah requires everyone to take an online “antler gathering ethics course.”

Brandon Nash traveled from Casper to participate in the shed hunt.

Elk antler sheds form an arch on Jackson’s town square. Each corner of the square has an arch created from over 2,000 antlers.

The rules trouble Utah resident Weston McArthur, part of a thriving community of shed influencers. McArthur caught the bug 12 years ago, when he was making a living erecting cell towers and found his first sets of antlers. Six years later, he had built enough of a following and sponsor base — his online handle is “Rise and Shed” — that it became his full-time job.

“Every niche has its bad egg,” said McArthur, who says limiting access on federal lands to only some people seems wrong. “But I don’t like the shed closures for the fact that they hurt the honest person.”

Rivenes has mixed feelings. Wyoming’s new rule greatly improves his chances of finding that big stack every year. And, he said, he understood the need to crack down: The antler market has “ruined the sport.”

But with far fewer vehicles, the vibe at this year’s Jackson hunt was less social and kinetic. Rivenes had made out-of-state friends during the past five years, and he was bummed not to see them.

Still, hanging out at the fairgrounds on Tuesday, he had no doubt he would have a blast at what he described as something like an adult Easter egg hunt.

“It’s a rush here. It’s the competition — you’re trying to beat everyone to them and find more than everyone else,” he said. “Every one of us will leave here and can’t wait to come back next year.”

If Jackson had an official animal, it would probably be elk. More than a century ago, the herds here were thin, depleted by hunting and settlement. Federal and state officials responded with winter feedings, a practice that helped revive the population yet is now a controversial wildlife management tool. The federal refuge hosts a winter-long buffet for some 8,000 elk that tourists can admire from horse-drawn sleighs. Feedings on nearby state lands sustain thousands more.

The result is lots of elk — and, come springtime, lots of antlers that have tumbled to the forest floor.

Arches made of antlers flank Jackson’s town square, where at the annual Elkfest in May, piles of the twisted tines are auctioned in a fundraiser for the refuge and local Scouts. Last year, buyers purchased 9,700 pounds of antlers.

Stedson Romrell, 13, holds up his finds for his father, Jase, at a trailhead for the Bridger-Teton National Forest on Wednesday.

Brady Rivenes, left, and Cougar Mager hang out in the shed-hunt lineup the day before the action. The pair travel every year with their fathers and friends to take part in the event.

Antler prices have doubled over the past decade, said Samantha Maher, a University of California at Berkeley graduate student who recently surveyed shed hunters in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. She was surprised to find less than 4 percent of those polled — nearly all white, male, big-game hunters — were motivated by profit.

“There’s that narrative of out-of-staters coming to collect antlers for money and creating this gold rush atmosphere,” Maher said. “What I found was, most people keep them for trophies and give them to friends and make pet chews. Really, people just like being outside.”

As the vehicle procession arrived at a trailhead near Curtis Canyon around 6 a.m. Wednesday, Rivenes and his group darted into the hills. Riders on horseback galloped ahead.

Brian Prosser, an electrician with a red beard to his chest, headed uphill toward a campground. He quickly found a five-point horn and strapped it to his backpack.

Prosser had avoided the Jackson hunt for several years because, he said, “it was chaos.” Instead, he searched for sheds on the state feed grounds closer to his home south of Jackson, where he had found half a dozen antlers within the first hour last year. “Like Christmas morning.”

The residents-only rule drew him back, and he had a bet with a co-worker: Whoever found more horns owned the other one lunch.

“So I’m looking for quantity,” he said.

A father and son on the first day of Wyoming’s shed hunt.

Wearing short sleeves despite below-freezing temps, Prosser walked briskly up and down grassy hills, twisted branches crunching underfoot. He kept a sly eye on three other hunters within 100 yards. Staying ahead of them increased his chances of a find.

In the dusting of snow, he spotted coyote and wolf tracks. Early growth poked through the frozen ground. He passed the leg of a dead elk and the wings of a raptor. He avoided deep snow, knowing elk also would have eschewed it. He spotted a narrow trail, its coating of snow undisturbed.

“This is perfect,” Prosser said, because elk love trails. “We’re all lazy. Doesn’t matter if you’re an elk or a marathon runner.”

More than two hours after the opening, hunters surveyed their treasures near a trailhead. Horses carried packs stuffed with antlers. One man toted the skull of a ram, horns intact.

Kayden Romrell, a 24-year-old welder in fringed chaps, stood over a “deadhead” — a skull with six-point antlers still attached, which he said he had broken off the spine of a dead elk as a bighorn sheep watched.

An hour later, Rivenes emerged from the trail, cheeks rosy from sprinting in the chill. There were far fewer hunters in the hills this year, he said, but also far fewer antlers — maybe, he surmised, because a low-snow winter had made elk less motivated to migrate toward the refuge.

Rivenes dumped his loot: Four antlers, including what appeared to be a set, and one 8-point. He had left two deadheads on the land, in part because those take time to separate from their carcasses, in part because they smell awful.

“It’s a pretty average pile. Nothing too special. But it was a good walk,” he said. “I’m ready for a nap.”