A Look into the World of Taxidermy

What is that on the wall? How did it get there? Did it get stuck running through your wall? These are often the questions or comments you often hear when someone who has never been around a stuffed animal sees a deer or elk’s head mounted on the wall in someones home. For some people seeing something like this for the first time, they don’t understand why someone would put such a thing in their house. For those who have never seen anything like it before they may need an explanation of what it is to have an animal stuffed and mounted on your wall and maybe an explanation of what taxidermy is.

Why is it on the wall?

The briefest explanation is, just because! But that typically will not satisfy your someone unfamiliar with the concept of mounting a stuffed animal head on your wall. Taxidermy is the mean by which an animal’s form is preserved. This done today by game hunters and other outdoorsmen wishing to preserve their trophy kill or catch. There are also those rare few people that use taxidermy as means of preserving the family pet after it has passed away.

Where did the idea come from?

The question about where the idea for stuffing dead animals to preserve their form is in as much debate as other questions, such as when did mankind first start to stuff and preserve animals. We do know that taxidermy became popular during the age of discovery as man set out to explore the new world. Naturalists would use taxidermy as a method to preserve and catalog new species of animals that they discovered on their voyages.

How is it done?

The process of taxidermy has changed over the years. In the past the animal was skinned after it has been killed or had died of other causes. The inner part of the skin was tanned and sewn back together and then stuffed with rags and cotton. The taxidermist did their best to keep the form of the animal during the process. Today taxidermists use a somewhat similar method, but it differs in how they keep the form of the animal. Today they make a form out of wood, plasic or fiberglass. Some even use the original bones and skull of the animals to make or incorporate into the form.