Is Taxidermy Creepy?

I must admit I did think that taxidermy was creepy back when I was in high school and there was a buck's head mounted in the midst of the school cafeteria in honor of our high school sports team mascot, the Buckeye Bucks. At the time, this décor struck me as rather unappetizing and maybe even inappropriate, or at least it certainly was not a good fit for my sensibilities. Then again, questionable sports teams mascots at the high school level and beyond were nothing new at the time (or even now). My dad taught at a high school where the mascot was an angry looking blue devil (fairly innocuous by my standards, but some took offense) and I can think of more than one sports team that uses an Indian mascot, in which the Indian is depicted as some sort of cartoonish red-skinned savage, which is pretty politically incorrect to say the least.

I thought this article was supposed to be about taxidermy, not sports team mascots, you might be thinking right about now. Well, I actually do have a pointed comparison to draw from this preamble. My main point is that whether or not taxidermy seems undesirable to me is linked to the motivations behind it. Back when I found that stuffed deer head so unappealing, part of my distaste was derived from the fact that hunting in general struck me as unappealing. I thought of it as kind of a redneck pastime that revolved around killing animals and then displaying one's kills in some kind of dominant show of brutal machismo.

Since then, my perspective on hunting has changed and I know that many individuals who enjoy hunting also have a genuine respect for the natural world, as well as for the animals they're hunting, and think that they are positively contributing to nature's balance. I know that some animal populations as a whole, such as some kinds of deer, actually benefit from the population control that takes place via hunting; without such controls, more deer would starve to death during the harsh winter months. I also know that many hunters subsist upon the meat of their prey. So while I might not have much personal desire to embark upon a hunting expedition myself, I can appreciate some of the impulses behind such a pursuit-and similarly, I can even appreciate some animal head décor (or the preserved bodies of fish, fowl, or other small creatures), especially if there is a good story behind the specimen. Mind you, if the story behind the specimen is overly cruel or sadistic, if the animal was senselessly slaughtered just for fun or profit, or if it is an endangered species, I would probably feel differently about the matter.

Similarly, with the preservation of deceased pets through taxidermy, although that notion might make some people feel a bit queasy or otherwise uncomfortable, I think that if the pet owner's motivations are genuine and not blatantly rooted in perversion or dysfunction, then what is the harm in having a dead pet preserved? Certainly, such a route is not for everyone. It wouldn't be for me, because much as I love my dog, that bond is based on my dog's personality and the way we interact-and once he is no longer interactive, as cute as he may be as a physical specimen, I think it would make me feel even worse about his demise if he was rendered into something like statuary and I was continually confronted with the fact that I could no longer experience the unique joy of interacting with him. For other people, though, perhaps having a physical representation of their dead pet continue to inhabit their space would offer comfort to them or ease their loneliness. Perhaps they would like to talk to their departed pet, similarly to how some people visit the gravestones of departed family members or friends and talk to the stones, regarding them as a kind of symbol or stand in for the dead. Perhaps part of the uneasiness some of us might feel in association with the idea of preserved pets is connected with our uneasiness associated with death itself. I find it interesting enough to note here that most of us preserve our dead humans (via the rather unnatural process of embalmment); the big difference there being that we bury their preserved forms instead of keeping them around and continuing to behold them.

Ultimately, I don't much care whether taxidermy is creepy or not, because that just seems like such a subjective kind of assessment. Creepy to whom? What does creepy even mean? Is creepy necessarily a bad thing? Such questions are nearly impossible to address in any kind of objective way, so I'm more concerned with the motivations behind people's desire to preserve these creatures. As long as such motivations are not negative, then my stance on taxidermy is very openminded.

In fact, I am quite interested in taxidermy art, also sometimes known as rogue taxidermy. If that sounds intriguing to you, then please feel free to read one of my personal favorite articles, here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1856189/rogue_taxidermy.html?cat=2