The other day, while walking across the Boston Common, I passed two fellows taking a picture of a squirrel that was flattened and spread-eagled on the walkway. Once home, I quite naturally googled ‘spread-eagled squirrel’ and learned that squirrels lie flat when they’re frightened, tired, or want to cool down. For this squirrel, with those two giant humans looming over it, on a muggy and hot day when there were a ton of tourists and eccentrics out and about to beg food from, this little critter might have been all three.
That squirrel and its urban kindred spirits, the rat, and the pigeon, and the odd wild turkey or hawk, are as close as I get to nature on a typical day. And I’d pretty much like to keep it that way. Still, it did enter my mind as I passed that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed little fellow that this might not be a bad, if somewhat unorthodox, pose for a stuffed and mounted squirrel. If I were interested in a stuffed and mounted squirrel.
If I were, I now know where to turn. Vincent Kersey lives in Western Mass, and a decade or so ago he hung out his shingle as a taxidermist. And for $350, he’d stuff and mount a squirrel for me. I crossed out stuff there, because what Kersey does is mount. And, if 
Now Sniffy was never a real animal, so he wasn’t taxidermed. He’d probably look a bit more spruce if he had been. But, back in the day when Sniffy still had eyes and a nose, he was stuffed with whatever 1950’s toys were stuffed with: some sort of yellow-ish particulate foam, as I recall. Which was replaced by my mother at some point with pre-pantyhouse nylon stockings.
So stuffed is stuffed.
Mounted is attaching the skin to an armature created to replicate the animal’s body.
Anyway, I learned about Mr. Kersey from an article that quite wondrously appeared in The Boston Globe the very same day I observed that squirrel playing quasi-possum.
Squirrels were where Kersey got his start, but he took off from there. Since becoming a taxidermist a decade or so ago, he’s won many national and world championships, and he’ll work on anything from big game like lions and hyenas to local fauna like bobcats and woodchucks. He makes rugs. And does all sorts of things with turkeys. Plus he has over a million flesh-eating beetles (harmless to humans, or so they say) that are used to strip the flesh off bones if someone wants a clean skull and antlers set up.
Kersey, a hunter, fell into taxidermy. But once he started down the path, he was hooked:
For the first time in my life, I enjoy every project that I do.
Bravo, Vincent Kersey! I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone in my professional life who could make that claim. If we’re lucky, the good projects outnumber the bad, but I don’t know anyone who’s enjoyed every project that they’ve worked on. And that’s including folks like me who thrive on dysfunction and irrationality.
In case you’re interested, here (in Kersey’s own words) is how the process works:
“The hunter shoots the animal and takes it to the butcher who processes the meat for the customer. The skin gets salted, dried, and sent to a tannery, which turns it into leather. It gets shipped back to me and I prep it, sand it, and sew up any bullet, arrow holes or nicks. I’ll order glass eyes and ears and start putting it together. I use a styrofoam mannequin in the shape of the animal that has to be carved. The hide is glued and sewn onto the form. There’s a lot of air brushing and painting and some clay work to bring back the natural colors once an animal dies.” (Source: Boston Globe)
And it’s a living:
“In the right market, I can make a very comfortable living. This past hunting season, 120 deer came in — 80 black bears; two muskrats and brown bears from Alaska, as well as mountain goats and elk.”
I made my way to Kersey’s website, Three Arrow Taxidermy, and found it to be a paragon of clarity. Unlike on many of the tech websites I routinely visit, I was able to figure out right away exactly what his business is. I realize this is easier to do when you’re product/service is something concrete, as opposed to some sort of enterprise software, but still… Tech marketers could take a lesson here. (When I was a regular 128 commuter, I would occasionally see a van emblazoned with the motto “We Clean Blinds”. Each time I saw it, I would sigh and make a fervent little wish that someday, somewhere I would work on the product/service that was that straightforward and easy to explain…)
Beyond clarity and lots of interesting information, another plus of Kersey’s website is that he posts his price list! Way. To. Go.
That’s how I learned that a mounted squirrel – which Kersey would prefer not to do these days – would set me back $350. A javelina’s $1500. A wildebeest’s $4,650.
I’m not wild about big game hunters, of course. I’m not exactly a vegan, so it’s one thing to hunt and kill to eat. But who eats hyena and wildebeest, other than other wild animals and maybe people who are otherwise starving to death? (Maybe Lil’ Donny and Eric eat what they kill.) This reservation aside, I’m all for Kersey’s business to succeed beyond his wildest imagination. Anyone who enjoys the projects he works on that much deserves it.
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