bonecentre:

Let’s talk.

Alright, listen.
I’m a taxidermist. I’m a skeleton articulator. I work with formaldehyde, I preserve animals, I could even go as far as I’m an embalmer.
And my job isn’t pretty.

My job will never be pretty. So let’s talk.

As someone in this community who likes to observe, I’ve noticed that on several social media platforms, we’re getting terminated, blocked, shadow-banned – this is where we (as taxidermists, articulators, etc) post about our work and use it as a business platform. We are not sticking our noses in other communities to expose our work to offend someone. We are not using our work as a weapon like so many people portray us to. We are working. 

Terminating our accounts because we post something with the slightest bit of blood is telling us to not talk about our work. You’re telling us, as employed people, that our job is disgusting and practically shouldn’t be a job.
My job is important. Our jobs are important.

Not being able to realize that someone has to do the dirty work to make something so lively and beautiful like a bear in a museum is on you. But, preserving animals is important. Not everyone agrees, but think about the generations to come. Think about hundreds of years from now when taxidermy is completely dead. A child will read about a species that was so common for us and it will be extinct then. They will read about what it looked like, maybe see photos. But no child, without taxidermy, will be able to appreciate an animal in it’s true form, before them, in a museum. In a zoo. That animal will no longer be talked about because it’s gone and without taxidermy? Without preservation? You lose that animal’s beauty. You lose that animal’s existence.

Taxidermy isn’t just there to tan skins and stuff an animal. It’s there to keep these animals lively and beautiful. It’s there as a learning experience.

Hell, I’m a taxidermist and I’m an aspiring Veterinarian. You mean to tell me that what I do as a taxidermist won’t help me better my work as a Vet? It most definitely will. Maybe some people don’t use it as a tool. But it’s helped me learn. It’s helped me grow. I work with the dead and the living and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Get the stigma that taxidermists kill animals just to stuff them out of your head. Stigma does nothing but portray something as the worst possible thing it could be.

We do not kill animals just to be able to stuff them. Do we work on trophies for hunters? Sometimes. Do we work with trappers? Sometimes. But we also work on pets to preserve their beauty and keep them beautiful. We also work on the roadkill fawn you saw on the highway 3 miles from your house. We also preserve the beautiful leopards you see in zoos. Those ligers people loved to look at because the concept of them was so fascinating? Being able to work on these animals is beautiful and such an amazing thing. Telling us we’re being terminated or banned from something because our job contains the uglier side (to society) of an animal’s death is telling us to shut up.
And I will not.

Life isn’t always beautiful, it never will be. But there’s also beauty in everything. Keep in mind, not everyone thinks of beauty the same way.

Definitely not otome but so important to remember. Of course I am bias this is my kid but honestly her work amazes me, her knowledge meets and in animals surpasses my own.

Beautiful things that we see in museums come from people like her, her friends. That is bloody amazing.