The guy was very proud of his work and, mostly, I suppose, it was good. Unfortunately, it’s hard to say what amount of good is good enough when it comes to taxidermy. Whatever that amount is, it was more than he had displayed.
I was visiting with a taxidermist whose shop was in a town on the Great Plains. We had stopped in there having left one activity and on our way to do something else. The taxidermy shop did not play any particular part in what I was in town to do, and I was very glad of that. It let me out of having to tell this guy the absolute truth, which was that his work with birds was not at all something I would want to pay any amount of money for.
On display in his shop were mule deer, whitetails, pronghorn and elk. There were also a couple turkeys, several pheasants, then quite a few ducks and geese. Shoulder mounts of the various four-legged critters all looked fine, I seem to recall. I’m no judge of taxidermy particularly, so I couldn’t get into the finer points, but I guess they looked fine. It was the eyes of one of the geese that caught my attention, and I carefully let my gaze wander over the heads of the other birds. They were all pretty bad too.
The goose whose right eye first caught both of mine was mounted with wings outstretched. Overall, I seem to recall he looked OK, but his right eye looked like it had been done with crafting supplies from a dollar store, like something from a vacation bible school project involving a plastic google-eye, Elmer’s glue and Liquid Paper. I honestly thought it had been done that badly on purpose as a joke, but thankfully I got my eyes on some other eyes in the shop before I could compliment the taxidermist on having done something funny. That would not have been funny at all, because the goose eye certainly was not meant to be. None of the eyes on any of the birds looked right. Just exactly what was wrong with them I could not say, but whatever was wrong with them was very wrong – so wrong I would not have wanted to hang any of those birds up if they were mine to display.
There are taxidermy companies that make eyes to put in critter mounts. Every eye on every mount you’ve ever seen is glass or hard plastic. It still has to be fixed in place with considerable art, however, and how much art that takes I had never, before that moment, considered. Apparently, it takes quite a lot.
My mind went immediately to the customers who would be expected to soon pick up and pay for those mounts. Taxidermy can be an expensive proposition, but one in which you usually get what you pay for. When I have gotten some done, I have always paid the best taxidermists I could find to do it. I’d rather have it cost more than average and be done right than to hunt a bargain and risk disappointment. I have no idea what the guy in this story charged for his bird mounts but, with their eyes looking like these, there’s no number I would have considered a bargain at all.
I had come up with my get-the-best-taxidermist philosophy long before I ever had anything to submit for taxidermy, but I really couldn’t imagine going any other route. I never have and, with a strong memory of the Great Plains result firmly in my mind, I never will. Still, it can get very expensive, which is one more reason I’m happy to have the All Feathers Taxidermy options near to hand.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected].
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