The Octagon
Teacher Bell recalls youthful taxidermy careerThursday, January 18, 2007 By Lana Preszler, Reporter
Most nine-year-olds spend their time playing ball and skipping rope, but not teacher Ron Bell. He sat with his mother at the kitchen table skinning small animals and mounting them on artificial animal bodies that he made himself. Bell learned the delicate process of taxidermy through a nearby natural history museum. “I wanted a hobby and I saw an ad in the paper for a taxidermy course,” he said. “When I began working on taxidermy projects, I was interested in learning about everything, and my parents encouraged any interest I showed in biology or zoology.” In this course Bell was given access to a freezer of dead animals from an animal hospital run by the museum. He was also able to purchase mounting tools with grisly names such as eyehook, fat scraper, and brain spoon. Less graphic, but still abnormal for a nine-year-old to have, were a set of surgical scalpels and assorted fake eyeballs, which were also required. Bell learned the process of mounting animals through a correspondence course intended for professional taxidermists. He said that, at the time, it was very popular to mount frogs into bookends. “You would dress them in little costumes and pose them arm wrestling, fishing, [or] playing cards,” Bell said. Bell didn’t partake in this trend, however. Even though a large portion of the books in his correspondence course was on frogs, Bell felt that birds were easier. “The feathers can hide a lot of mistakes,” he said. Although Bell hasn’t been through the process of taxidermy in about 40 years, he can still recall it at the drop of a hat. “You start with your specimen, also known as one dead animal,” said Bell. “Make an incision from the throat down, but don’t cut into the body cavity—you don’t want guts everywhere.” Then carefully peel the skin away from the flesh with a scalpel, cutting the membrane between the two bit by bit until you are all the way around the torso. “Then you have to turn the wings, legs, neck and head inside out and remove the body completely,” Bell said. Using the fat scraper, cut away all of the flesh from the bones. Then use the eyehook to scoop out the eyeballs. “Cut away the membrane and clip the nerve in the back,” Bell said. “Insert the brain spoon into the hole where the spine would go into the skull, and scoop the brains out. They look a lot like bloody mayonnaise.” Then measure the length of the body you removed in the beginning and cut a piece of heavy-gauge wire to that size. This will serve as the animal’s new spinal cord. Nine-year-old Bell would now use a combination of hemp fiber and wood chips soaked in glue to rebuild the torso, being sure to leave a few inches at the top for the head. “You’ll want to put the eyeballs in at this point, too. Then you can turn the head and neck right side out and stick the wire through the skull until it comes out the top,” Bell said. Then run wire along the wing and leg bones and use fiber to build up tails. Once you hook the wings (if your animal has wings) into the correct place, you can place the skin back over its new body. “Sew it up and pose it, and presto! You’re done!” Perhaps his memories have been kept fresh by his encounters with taxidermy in the years since he was mounting animals with his mother on the kitchen table. “I had a friend in college who was a professional taxidermist,” Bell said, “But she preferred the term ‘museum preparator.’ I’d go to her house and she’d have something disgusting like a seal head in a bucket in her kitchen.” Bell has only a few animals left, as he recently threw many of them away because they “weren’t very good.” He currently has two owls, a gamecock, and a snake in a display case in his home. “They are mementos of my childhood,” Bell said. “[Taxidermy] was just a childhood hobby that I lost interest in; I don’t think I even kept the tools. But I do think I still have a box of random eyeballs somewhere…” Tricky Stuff: Ever wonder what the most difficult animal to mount is? If taxidermy interests you, then listen to Dr. Bell’s viewpoints. Noobies beware! Snake |