So Much For The Dignity

This is Joe.
After death, his once beautiful pelt is now ruined and turned into a cheap soft mount shitface because some kid wanted to claim themself as a taxidermist. In his afterlife he was cuddled like a plushie, treated like a toy, sold and bought, sold again and propably will neither get the appreciation he deserves nor the respect for what he once was. A living being.

The End.

~


„Taxidermy is trendy! Owning a bunch of pelts is cool! Why do we collect? We collect for the bloody sake of collecting, fucker! Found a rad and rare ranch fox pelt on Ebay? Dear God, i need to sell shit, get money and BUY it because i fucking WANT it. Fuck yeah, got it, i'm so happy now!
No, wait....i just found a pelt that is even MOAR awesome. Oh shit, where do i get money again. No big deal, i'll sell the other fox that i got two weeks ago, don't have the space for it anyway! But damn, now i don't have any money to pay my bills, what do i do now? Ah fuck it, let's desperately try to sell more shit. What do you mean with „vulnerable“? Fuck you, Cites, i WANT that rare animal!“

…

Some of you who saw that certain hyper-ironic journal of us might be surprised about it. What the hell was that about? Here is an explanation (or rant, because i know that it will grow fast).

Wherever i look here on the so called Taxidermy-dA-Community, i see shit that increases the wish to be not seen as a part of it. I see kiddies buying, trading, selling and handling dead animals as if they were no more than toilet paper. I see kiddies who claim themselves to be taxidermists because ohohoh, they skinned something already or tried practicing soft mounts (on expensive ranch foxes of course. Why should you even bother practicing on a small animal first? Aw hell naw, squirrels are boring, let's go and ruin the expensive, awesome fox right away!)


I see journals with search lists, ridiculous journals where ebay-auctions are discussed to the ground (i mean...wtf, come on?), journals with questions like „What is your favourite kind of PELT?“ Not favourite kind of animal. No one gives a shit about the actual animal anymore. They become experts in all the exotic ranch pelt variations but have no clue when it comes to the biology and rest of the animal. Serious interest in zoology, comparative anatomy, research or art reference? Forget about it, we collect because it's cooler than collecting stamps!

I wonder if some people ever understood the very reason of what taxidermy actually is and why it exists. Taxidermy is the art of preparing animal skin for afterlife. Why? For study, for research, for reference, for the preservation of the past. We do know so much about so many species today because people like Wallace and Darwin collected and prepared skins on their travels back then. We can consider ourselves so extremely lucky to have skins, skulls and preservations of creatures like the thylacine or the dodo – animals that are gone forever now.

Yes – taxidermy is art, a profession that should be taken seriously. Skinning or defleshing two or three animals does NOT make you a taxidermist. Crafting some soft mounts does NOT make you a taxidermist either. Years of practice do, an education with knowledge of anatomy, sculpting and painting does. And the results are no fucking toys you can cuddle with but objects of natural history that should be used for display, studying and treated with respect. Heck, if you want to cuddle or play with something, go and buy a bloody plush toy, that's what they were made for. Even though pelts and skulls are „dead and would not care anyway what someone is doing with their remains“, they still were living beings and this alone makes them different from, let's say, CDs or as said above, a piece of toilet paper.

Also – why can't some of you just learn to appreciate what you already own? I'm tired of these puberty kids with the "wanna wanna WANNA"- attitude. No – i'm not asking to adolise your collection and treating every little thing as if it was a holy item, i don't do either. I also don't say that you are forced to keep everything you've got. But in my opinion, it is not the rarity or high price that makes a pelt or skull special – but its background story. The memories that are tied to them. Some people here ain't seem to have any sense of value in terms of their taxidermy collections.


But i know that i'm pretty alone with our zoological interest that explains why we, – Skia and I – do collect these things. Our fascination for the animals itself rather than their pelt and skulls only, the enthusiasm of learning and studying first hand anatomy. Collecting pelts because of...scientific reasons? Yes, exactly. Sheesh, how boring. I also know that my opinions about these things might appear just plain oldfashioned to some kids nowadays.

Still, it is a pity. And so it goes.


„Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.“
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde


- Culpeo (who does not blame any special person here but only enjoys giving food for thought from time to time)