MissouriWhitetails.com
North County man who found record deer goes unrewarded
By TIM RENKEN Post-Dispatch
updated: 03/15/2003 02:06 AM
FILE PHOTO
Dave Beckman poses in 1981 with a record deer he found near the Missouri Bottoms
Conservation Area in north St. Louis County.
When St. Louisan Dave Beckman spotted a large deer with strange antlers lying
dead against a fence in north St. Louis County the morning of Nov. 13, 1981, he
might have been looking at fame and fortune.
Today, the head mount of that deer, with its antlers listed by the Boone and
Crocket Club as the official world nontypical record, hangs in the Jefferson
City headquarters of the Missouri Department of Conservation. The department has
reaped a bonanza of publicity from showing reproductions it had made and selling
images.
Now it plans to make 50 reproductions of what has come to be called The Missouri
Monarch. The copies will sell for $5,000 apiece.
Meanwhile, because the law of 22 years ago had no provision that would have
allowed him to keep the deer, there is no fame or fortune on the horizon for
Beckman, 50.
Antlers worth a $1 million
The plaque under the mount in the lobby of the department's headquarters reads:
WORLD RECORD - Non-Typical White-tailed Deer Antlers - Score 333 7/8 - found in
St. Louis County, Missouri - November 15, 1981 - By Dave Beckman and Michael
Helland
Helland, a longtime conservation agent in the county, says he never claimed he
found the deer. After Beckman found it, he asked Helland to help him retrieve
it.
The value of that mount has been estimated as high as $1 million. It may have
been worth that to Beckman over time, given the number of deer shows held around
the country and today's ridiculously inflated market for deer trophies. Here's
what Eric Sharp, outdoor writer for the Detroit Free Press, writes about antler
value:
"The world-record rack can earn its owner $1,000 a day plus expenses for
displays at sports shows. Additional money can come from selling T-shirts, hats
and posters bearing images of the animal. Experts have estimated the
world-record deer would be worth $150,000-$200,000 a year."
Where the deer was found has been a fairly well-kept secret. Conservation
Department officials feared hunters would flock to the area to hunt the
offspring of the record buck.
Beckman found the deer just inside Pipefitters Union property in northeastern
St. Louis County, along Strodtman Road across from what is now the entrance to
the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area. Beckman lives nearby and farms under
contract bottomland that was owned by the city of St. Louis in 1981.
It was about midmorning the second day of the firearms deer-hunting season, and
Beckman was driving out of the bottom with a deer he had just bagged when he
spotted through a chain-link fence something sticking out of the grass.
"It sort of looked like antlers," he said, "so I went over for a
better look."
He saw a big deer with immense, strange-looking antlers, lying dead against the
fence. He left it and took his deer home, rinsed it out, then went back to get
Helland, who was checking hunters in the bottom.
A crowd gathered as they got the deer out onto the road. Helland said he didn't
know enough about antlers then to realize that he was looking at the world
record. He had heard previously from bow hunters that a big buck with huge
antlers was living in the area.
After Helland hauled the deer away in his pickup, 1 1/2 years passed before
Beckman saw the antlers again. The head had been mounted and the Department of
Conservation was showing them proudly at deer shows and elsewhere.
Biologists say that the antlers are a one-in-a-billion fluke, probably caused by
an early-age injury. The deer was aged at 4 1/2 years, in the prime of life. But
it had missing teeth and bore scars on its jaw that might have been caused by an
injury inflicted by a dog or coyote. It had been dead, probably, for less than
48 hours.
It apparently died while trying to jump over an 8-foot fence. All that hardware
on its head might have contributed to the mishap.
For a time after the find Beckman was flooded with calls from at least eight
states. The barrage, which caused him to get an unlisted phone number, came when
people thought he had the deer. But under Missouri law in 1981 he had no right
to it.
Helland, too, got many calls. Some were wild offers, he said, and some were
threatening.
The calls to Beckman stopped as word got out that the Department of Conservation
owned the deer.
In the mid-1990s the department got $21,588 for selling prints of an artist's
rendering of the record deer when alive. That money was given to the
Conservation Federation of Missouri to help pay rewards to people who report
wildlife violations. The department gave a print to Beckman.
Recently, through its nonprofit Heritage Foundation, the department announced it
was having 50 reproductions of the antlers made and was offering the
reproductions to collectors for $5,000 apiece. The $200,000 or so profit that
could be realized from the reproductions are to go to special conservation
programs, too, the department said.
When word got out about the reproductions deal, a few people who knew that
Beckman had found the deer started crying foul. Among them was Jack Russell, a
north St. Louis County taxidermist. He called the Post-Dispatch.
But even if Beckman had found the deer under the present rules that allow people
to claim, with a permit, road-killed deer for venison, he couldn't legally have
taken it. The record deer was on Pipefitters property, and Helland had to get
permission from a guard to open the fence.
And, Helland said, not even the Pipefitters could claim the deer because under
the law the ownership of wildlife is vested with the state.
Recently, Beckman got word that he might, at last, have something grand to
display on his wall. Department of Conservation leaders were planning to
recognize him for his find with one of the 50 reproductions. That news,
incidentally, came in the same week in which Beckman learned that a tumor in his
brain was diagnosed as benign after surgery March 7.
Reporter Tim Renken
E-mail: trenken@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-849-4239