NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/708333
30 NEBRASKAland • AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016 O f all the titles they could go by – fixer, hairdresser, mixed media sculptor, zoologist, mortician – the people who take apart and rebuild animal bodies tend to stick to just one: taxidermist. According to Lincoln taxidermist JD Oenbring, this name is a pretty accurate one, because in Greek, "taxi" means "to move" and "derma" translates to "skin." For these professionals, the challenge is similar to that of the Six Million Dollar Man: take apart something fragile and temporary and build it back together as an indestructible substitute. It becomes exactly as it was before but, somehow, is simultaneously completely different. In doing so, the processes of taxidermy and replica creation turn a body that was not meant to last forever into something with an incredible shelf life. Like an artist, each taxidermist's work turns out differently than the rest. Like a scientist, though, the general steps are widely respected and followed with precision and attention to detail. When You Bag a Bird Oenbring grew up on a farm where her parents raised show birds, so her specialization in the flight- inclined and feathered began with peacocks. Since then, she's worked her way to turkeys, ducks, pheasants and geese, among others. For all of these birds, the process is the same, and it starts the way many other jobs do: with paperwork. Each bird is tagged to keep up with state and federal regulations as well as for Oenbring's personal organization. Once a mounting pose has been chosen, Oenbring skins the bird out with one cut from the wishbone to the vent, right along the belly line where the feathers don't grow. The wing bones and leg bones are cleaned of meat and emptied of marrow with a pick. She holds the skin, now floppy and shapeless, to a wheel that looks like a wire bottle brush on steroids. It serves much the same purpose, too, degreasing the skin and removing fat like the world's most aggressive steel wool. The bird is then cleaned at least three times with Dawn dish soap, which works just as well for taxidermists as it does for baby seals rescued from oceanic oil spills. "At this point, it's almost like being Story and photos by Sarah Kocher A Life of Taxidermy