World Record Elk Caught in Utah

A special judges panel determined a final score of 478-5/8 B&C non-typical points, an incredible 93-plus inches above the Boone and Crockett minimum score of 385 for non-typical American elk, and more than 13 inches larger than the previous World’s Record.

It is the only elk on record with a gross score approaching the 500-inch mark, at 499-3/8. Official data dates back to 1830.

The giant bull has 9 points on the left antler and 14 points on the right. The larger antler has a base circumference topping 9 inches.

The Boone and Crockett scoring system, long used to measure the success of wildlife conservation and management programs across North America, rewards antler size and symmetry, but also recognizes nature’s imperfections with non-typical categories for most antlered game. The bull’s final score of 478-5/8 inches includes an amazing 140 inches of abnormal points.

Online hunting forums buzzed with rumors that the bull had escaped from an elk farming ranch or a hunting preserve. Columnists from national hunting magazines joined the fray and criticized the program that allowed Austad to bid and win a $150,000 elk conservation permit to hunt anywhere in the state for several months.

Money from the permit program funds conservation projects around the state. More than $17 million has been raised by the program in the last 12 years, $2.9 million of it in 2008.

But investigations by the state of Utah and B&C confirmed the animal was wild, was taken on public land, and was killed legally, which qualified it for the record.