Ally: want to slice and stuff a dead animal to celebrate the launch of Dinner for Schmucks?
Ehh ok… Why?
I missed Dinner for Schmucks, so using taxidermy as a PR hook to pull journalists’ artstrings seemed a disconcertingly odd move as a premise for a DVD launch.
Nonetheless, a spiffing public relations lasso to promote the film – where taxidermy is a hobby of anoraked goon Steve Carell in attendance at said dinner – saw a small dray assembled in the South London studio of taxidermist Sean Douglas; spitting distance from Wimbledon.
An elephant’s foot waste receptacle; a fox umbrella stand; bats hanging from the rooftiles; reptiles in glass cases and large hunting game – free-standing or wall-mounted – make this studio in London’s Southfields quite a spectacle.
Sean, 48, has been stuffing dead animals – hunting trophies, vermin obliteration or roadkill how they generally meet their end – for 25 years and married just as long. His wife doesn’t mind the carcasses anonymously draped over her house by local donators wishing their kills and finds to go under Sean’s knife.
This morning’s poor specimen is a squirrel – we called him Cyril, or was it Steve – who met his end under a wheel and delivered to Sean, as so many are, for no remuneration but to be made of in death.
The carcass is frozen before the process begins: some animals lie in the freezer for months and even years before their thawing and sewing for commercial purposes.
The numbers make for interesting reading: Maybe £85 a squirrel to a regal £160,000 for a rhino head, but that’s like comparing an Ikea print with a Van Gough – the six-figure end of the market is not Sean’s concern and such sales are rare.
The biggest animal Sean – a former airfield marshal – has worked on has been a Kodiak bear which he resisted the urge to painstakingly stuff and instead rolled into a headed rug which stretched to dimensions “bigger than my lounge” said a journalist from the Mirror. I’m glad national journalists live in similarly pokey accomodation as I.
The taxidermist can use all manner of materials to stuff his subjects, but Sean’s bulk of choice is woodwool which has been used in the game since the 1800s.
“It’s a rough science, not an art” he says masterfully twisting, moulding, and manipulating the woodwool which was used generally as a crude packing material until very recently.
Taxidermy is something I’ve always viewed from a position of wilful ignorance – I don’t want or need to know how and why rich people furnish their manor houses with dead-eyed and once-proud animals; yet the business behind this rough science is intriguing unto itself.
Online businesses are dedicated to selling the hollowed out furs of exotic and rare animals, especially in hunting-happy regions of Canada and the northern United States. One can – if they so wish – buy brown bear furs from the Northern Territories which a craftsman like Sean needs but three measurements from the living beast to justify the fur in its free-standing glory. A Polar bear can fetch upwards of £25,000.
A bear body can be made of his favoured woodwool; and indeed Sean has dedicated whole weeks to constructing their frame out of the stuff. But for time and ease, read-made fibreglass bodies can be purchased over the internet; ready to don their bear-suit.
Sean squares the makeshift body of Cyril as the real one, now hollowed and looking like a butchers’ display, is cast to the bin and destined for the incinerator. Sean admits he can be lax in disposing of his raw meat in a timely fashion, leaving it to breathe in the bag for a week at a time.
The fur sits in a bowl of methylated spirit which sterilises those pesky sinews, and extracts traces of flesh that prevents the mounted object from smelling. This was another of my preconceptions about the finished article – why would they not smell?
Aside from the butcher-shop smell of animal meat – and you can eat squirrel, Gordon Ramsay says so – there isn’t a discernable taxidermist aroma. Sean doesn’t wear gloves when working unless he’s dealing with a badger or other potentially diseased or otherwise stinky creature. He also wouldn’t eat the meat of any animals he works, his only indulgence taking home the insides of a soon-to-be-stuffed salmon. “It would be a waste” he says.
The rodent is wrung out like a paper towel, the fur and skin are unlikely to rip and we are told squirrels are hardy wee things – except when it comes to car tyres – compared to hares and rabbits which require meticulous care.
The head is crudely sculpted using a polyurethane block – like in flower arranging – and a scalpel. Sean barely has to look as he sizes the squirrel’s cranial dimensions and effortlessly slices away shards to create a skull fit for Cyril.
The feet and tail are crafted from wire last before Cyril is blowdried with a household hairdryer. His fake eyes – not dead-eyed as my preconceptions held – are attached and Cyril is brought to life. In a manner of speaking.
He is then mounted onto a log, manipulated into a gentrified and desirable pose and walla.
One stuffed squirrel, retail value: £85
Boke-value: less than I thought.
PR value: Priceless.
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