Today we call it the Irish elk, or Megaloceros giganteus. The biggest males weighed 1,500 pounds, about the same as an Alaskan moose, and they sported the largest antlers the world has ever known ...

“I could see far off where I’d hunted that morning and two bull elk were in another all-out fight several miles away,” says Burtness. “They were acting like it [was] pre-rut, and here it is Oct. 19. I ...