Klumme: Der sker mystiske ting ved konservatoren

[ran]

Odd stuff happens in taxidermy
Published: June 08. 2006 6:00AM PST
af Gary Lewis, fiske- og jagtbogsforfatter

It happened a couple of years ago while I was writing my deer hunting book, readying the manuscript for publication. Maybe it was something I wrote about him.

I came home to find that my trophy mule deer had attacked my computer keyboard. It waited till someone shut the door to the garage then leaped off the wall, stabbing the backslash key with one of its back tines. Thank goodness its aim wasn't any better. It could have skewered a more important key like the CAPS LOCK.

Instead of putting the head back on the wall of my study, I moved the critter to the front room, next to my wife's sheep trophy.

Many people who have never darkened the door of a taxidermy shop have no idea how a taxidermist does his job. Let me tell you, those eyes aren't real.

Here's how it works: First, the hunter removes the skin from the animal and puts the meat in his freezer. Next, he brings the hide and antlers to the taxidermist. The taxidermist tans the hide with the hair on, and mounts the antlers on a foam body. Then the taxidermist mounts a pair of glass eyes and stretches the hide over the form.

Subtle paints are used to make the nose, mouth and eye sockets appear lifelike. The final product is a piece of art that honors the species and reminds the hunter of a crisp October morning.

The hunter takes the trophy home and mounts it in his front room. When guests come over, he'll relate the story of how he took that buck. Each time he tells it, the weather gets colder and the hills get steeper and the shot gets longer. Finally, the buck can't take it anymore. It's payback time.

The mule deer and the sheep looked pleasant enough together. From time to time, I took them down to wipe off the dust. Once I took the sheep down, cleaned it and hung it up again. But instead of hooking the nail on the hanger, I hung it on a flap of the hide. It waited three months before the leather tore away and the sheep sprung from its perch.

When it came off the wall, it jumped four feet out as the horns rolled over to butt into the hardwood floor. The ram left an impact crater at ground zero and a not unsubstantial bill for taxidermist repair.

Sometimes, a trophy mount will enlist the aid of another animal. My friend Matt was visiting at his fiancee's house before they were married. The couple was sitting on the couch in the early afternoon. His future wife's trophy mule deer head hung above them on a high wall, adjacent to the balcony on the second floor.

Because Dee's cat liked to sleep on the deer's shoulders, Matt had taken the precaution of stringing fishing line as a barrier between the buck and the balcony. Matt and Dee saw the cat leap onto the railing. Before they could stop it, the animal was in mid-air, flailing in fishing line. In desperation, the feline clamped her claws into the nose of the big buck and down they came, crashing to the ground in a melee of meow, monofilament, mule deer and drywall dust.

I know we're not alone in our adventures in taxidermy. I've heard of six-point bull elk spearing leather sofas and a long-dead lion leaping from the fireplace to frighten guests at a dinner party.

In the late 1990s, I shared an office with a friend. Bill had several trophy mounts on his wall, including a rare jackalope from Wyoming.

The company for which we worked hired a consulting firm to connect our plant computers to a new network system. Two consultants from Seattle spent two weeks on the project.

One day I was sitting at my desk when in walked one of the computer guys. He held a digital camera and was talking on his phone. "It's real, I tell you. I'm looking at it right now. I'll send you a picture," he said. When he punched the "end" button, he took several photos to prove the jackalope's existence to the skeptics back home.

I'm not the one to shatter a computer geek's notions about a legendary antlered lagomorph, but I will tell you to be careful how you hang your trophies. They don't have much for brains, and those eyes aren't real, but I can't help but wonder when I look at the remaining taxidermy, which one will go next. I'm not afraid of the bear rug or the harlequin duck, but I think the blacktail deer, 12 feet in the air, is watching me. And I see there's still room left on the wall.

.....nu OGSÅ ejer af en 243win :-)

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