DA: Antlers Ahoy!

Antlers Ahoy!
1994 Darwin Award Nominee

Unconfirmed by Darwin

(1985, Montana) Two locals decided to increase their income by illegally transporting shed elk antlers out of Yellowstone Park. The antlers sell for about $7 a pound, and a big set can weigh thirty pounds, making their theft a lucrative venture.
The two men, dollar signs in their eyes, thought long and hard about the best way to get the largest haul of antlers out of the park without being observed. Cars were too risky because there was a ranger checkpoint on the roads. Backpacks couldn't carry enough to make it worth their while. They decided to use a boat.

Well, not exactly a boat. A rubber raft.

These two entrepreneurs decided to take the raft on a nighttime voyage on the Gardiner River, which runs out of Yellowstone and through the town of Gardiner, to minimize their chance of being spotted.

After loading the raft to the bursting point with pointy antlers, the men pushed off and began their journey. It was late springtime, so the river, hazardous in all seasons, now had twice the normal flow of water. They hadn't gone far before they hit some treacherous rapids, and the bouncing antlers punctured the raft.

Deprived of transportation, the men had to fend for themselves against the current. One of the antler thieves swam to shore, hiked the road, and hitched a ride into town. The other was not so lucky. A week later he floated onto a beach used by local sunbathers.

I know because I'm the one who found him, and I was also in the car when my cousin gave his buddy a ride into town the week before.

Can you confirm this?!!

(Love the story...)

The local newspaper might be a source. I could not search that far back on-line.
The paper is a weekday afternoon published in Livingston:

Livingston Enterprise, The
Livingston, MT (37 miles away)
http://www.livingstonenterprise.com/
http://www.livingsto...llowstone_news/
401 S. Main St.
PO Box 2000
Livingston, MT 59047
Tel. (406)222-2000; 1-800-345-8412
Fax (406)222-8580
E-mail: enterprise@livent.net

Also:

Livingston Library
http://library.ycsi.net/

There is a historic society, but their link was 404'd.

The river has a 150 foot waterfall in the middle of it called Osprey Falls. An awesome way to die if this is what they went over.

Another place to try might be a ranger station. The rangers I've met have a quirky sense of humor about these things, and if this story hit a newspaper somewhere it is surely on their wall to deter would-be poachers...

Keep in mind that this story as told almost certainly wouldn't appear in the papers even if true. There should be a story about a person washing up on a beach, and possibly a mention of a punctured raft. But I think it's very unlikely that the whole antler aspect would figure in at all, and there would probably be no evidence of the dead man's partner in crime. (Unless he was dumb enough to tell his story to the cops/paper. [edit to add...] Or Darwin's correspondent told the story upon discovering the body, in which case the report isn't really confirmation anyway.)

Edited by Skallagrimsson, 19 March 2003 - 06:10 AM.

It is true, but some details are wrong. Here is the account from Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park by Lee H. Whittlesey (copyright 1995, page 115):

"George Palermo of Gardiner, Montana, drowned in 1982 while trying to illegally smuggle elk antlers out of the park. Palermo, 27, hiked into the northern end of the park and gathered cached antlers. He loaded 250 pounds of them onto a raft which he then tied to a one-man raft that he was to ride in. While running the river, Palermo's raft apparently overturned about one and one-half miles above the mouth of Gardner River early on September 1 or late on August 31. His body was found washed up at eh mouth of Gardner River on September 6, and his raft was found near where it probably overturned. A second raft carrying the elk antlers was found near Palermo's body."

I highly recommend Death in Yellowstone. It is very informative, as is Over the Edge, Death in the Grand Canyon.

Karen

Here are the sources if they are needed for the confirmation:

Billings Gazette, 8 September 1982, "Body of antler smuggler recovered"

Livingston Enterprise, 2 September 1982, "Gardiner Horn Hunter Presumed Drowned in Park"


The online files for the Billings Gazette don't go back that far, but here is there address anyway: http://www.billingsgazette.com/

Thank you, Karen! Darwin

As Karen's version seems to be more authoritative, this story has lost much of it's Darwin-worthyness. The only thing mildly Darwin worthy in the first story was loading pointy antlers into a rubber raft, which is probably not as dangerous as it sounds. He wasn't even riding in the raft with the antlers. This now sounds like a simple rafting accident.