Boom In Antler Pet Chews May Have Opened A Black Market
Gus Gillespie
"If a guy comes in and he looks like a hunter and he talks like a hunter then you get a pretty good feel for it " says  Gus Gillespie  from behind the counter at the Alaska Fur Exchange.
 Gillespie  got into the horn and hide trade several decades ago after years with the Navy and as an engineer in the oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. Now he and his wife run the Fur Exchange  where on any given day  just past the rows of wolf and opossum pelts  are piles of antlers jumbled up like waist-high tumbleweeds. On the ground are plastic bins filled with spiky tines and plates sawed down into palm-sized strips. It is an astounding volume of animal matter.
"As far as antler  it's either crap and we don't want it  or it's really  really nice "  Gillespie  says with a laugh.
The four or five years since antler chews have become more popular with his customers have been good for  Gillespie 's business. Instead of trading predominantly in the large  high-end antlers favored by artisans and collectors  the store can now buy more medium-sized products to cut down into the chews they stock in baskets by the register.
But he has turned sellers away if he thinks the source material might have been illegally obtained.  Gillespie  points to the pervasive presence of substance abuse  and says  he  and  his  staff look for whether a person seems drunk  high  or in withdrawal as they assess a potential purchase.
"If it's questionable  we don't do anything with it for a while "  he  says. They might tell someone to come back in a few hours  pulling images of the person or their license plate from the numerous security cameras mounted around the store  sharing the information with police.
But anyone  he  turns away can just go to Craigslist—where every day in Alaska  plenty of people promise in all caps to pay up to $50 a pound in cash for antlers. And once they're cut down into the small chunks sold over the counter  nobody can really say whether they were stolen or not.
"If a guy comes in and he looks like a hunter and he talks like a hunter then you get a pretty good feel for it " says  [TGT]from behind the counter at the Alaska Fur Exchange.
 [TGT]got into the horn and hide trade several decades ago after years with the Navy and as an engineer in the oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. Now [TGT] and [TGT] wife run the Fur Exchange  where on any given day  just past the rows of wolf and opossum pelts  are piles of antlers jumbled up like waist-high tumbleweeds. On the ground are plastic bins filled with spiky tines and plates sawed down into palm-sized strips. It is an astounding volume of animal matter.
"As far as antler  it's either crap and we don't want it  or it's really  really nice [TGT]says with a laugh.
The four or five years since antler chews have become more popular with his customers have been good for  Gillespie 's business. Instead of trading predominantly in the large  high-end antlers favored by artisans and collectors  the store can now buy more medium-sized products to cut down into the chews they stock in baskets by the register.
But he has turned sellers away if he thinks the source material might have been illegally obtained.  [TGT]points to the pervasive presence of substance abuse  and says  [TGT]  and  [TGT]  staff look for whether a person seems drunk  high  or in withdrawal as they assess a potential purchase.
"If it's questionable  we don't do anything with it for a while "  he  says. They might tell someone to come back in a few hours  pulling images of the person or their license plate from the numerous security cameras mounted around the store  sharing the information with police.
But anyone  he  turns away can just go to Craigslist—where every day in Alaska  plenty of people promise in all caps to pay up to $50 a pound in cash for antlers. And once they're cut down into the small chunks sold over the counter  nobody can really say whether they were stolen or not.