Mounted animals on my walls? No way!

I can’t imagine having the stuffed head of a black bear hanging over my fireplace mantle. I can see it now: When I move left, its eyes stalk me. When I move right, they still trail me. The thought of it is unnerving.

That apparently doesn’t bother some people, because the half-dozen taxidermied animals at auction this week were snapped up very quickly. One of my favorite auction houses was selling mounted heads of deer, a black bear, two turkeys, an antelope and more. One of turkeys was captured with its head and neck pressed toward its tail as if it were afraid (which it probably was).

The animals were displayed on a wall at the auction house – the best way for you to envision them at home.  

Even before the auction started, absentee bidders had stuck red stickers on the nose of the bear and some of the other animals. I watched as two men stood for a long time trying to decide if they wanted to bid on the antelope – “an African antelope,” one of them said. I’m not sure if it once roamed the land in Africa, but now its top half was tucked under a table (well maybe not “tucked,” since it was so big). On the floor were its two horns, which had fallen out of their sockets.

The men finally walked away. Later, though, one of them called the other over after having pulled the animal from under the table and stuck the horns back into the two gaping holes. They placed a red sticker on the animal’s head.

The table below the stuffed heads held a cobra, turtle, and blowfish, all well-preserved, along with several horns, a raven (which looked to be carved), a small alligator (or crocodile?) head and three white-washed jaws with teeth. The prize, though, was a stuffed armadillo in full form, looking as good as it did the day it gave its life to perpetuity.

Lately, a famous mounted animal was in the news: Roy Rogers’ famous horse Trigger, who was sold at New York’s Christie’s auction house for $266,500. Also sold at that auction this month was Dale Evans’ horse Buttermilk for $35,000 and their dog Bullet for $25,000. All had been in the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Branford, Mo., until it closed in December.

The word was that Trigger was stuffed, but apparently he wasn’t. He was mounted: When he died in 1965, a plaster replica was made of him and his hide was stretched over it. Buttermilk and Bullet were similarly preserved.

I remember learning the word taxidermy when I was a child. On the way to school, our bus passed a shop with its name on the door; part of that name was the word taxidermy. I had never heard of it before and I looked it up; all I remember is that it had something to do with stuffing animals.

Googling recently, I found that taxidermy today is considered a work of art and that taxidermists are considered skilled artisans. According to the site taxidermy.net, the tissues of the animals are recreated with man-made materials (including the eyes, nose, mouth and tissue), and only the natural parts are used on the outside (in the case of deer, for example, only the hair and horns).

Apparently a lot of taxidermy is going on. There are schools to learn how to mount animals, local and national associations, a how-to magazine and lots of supply companies. And as shown at the auction, plenty of interested folks.

Here’s a sampling of was offered and the prices (these do not include the auction house’s 14 percent premium):

2 rams horns – $22.50

Cobra – $35

Blowfish – $22.50

3 deer – $20-$25

Bighorn sheep – $60

Black bear – $110

Turkeys (2) – $36

Armadillo – $120

Turtle – $37.50

Corkscrew horn – $42.50

Steer skull – $20

Antelope – $70

Alligator jaw – $65. Auctioneer said it looked like a shark to him. Not to me.

Shark jaw – $40