By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
There was quite a discussion about stuffing Tuesday at the Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center and it had nothing to do with Thanksgiving turkeys. But those there were stuffed with knowledge on tanning and taxidermy.
Shawn Bloomfield of Bloomfield’s Taxidermy presented a brief history and methods of taxidermy from the 1700s and upholstery work with arsenic used to keep the skin intact to the 1980s in which dry tanning was used to the wet tanning that is used for taxidermy today.
Bloomfield who has been doing tanning and taxidermy for the past 22 years got into taxidermy when he shot his first buck at age 15.
“When I was fifteen I got into shooting long bow, and I shot a buck, and I thought you know what I should have this mounted, so I took it to a taxidermist, but I didn’t have the money,” Bloomfield said. “I was like ‘Well shoot, I am already doing the tanning, and preserve the skin I just didn’t know how to do the structure.’
“So I ordered a kit out of Van Dykes catalog from the 1980’s and I ordered one out of there. It started.”
Bloomfield explained that after starting out as just a hobby business soon picked up.
“It went from one deer a year to two then some for the neighbors and now it is almost 200 deer per year plus birds, fish, full body mounts. Freeze dry, plus we tan for almost 40 other taxidermists from in and out of state. We have two employees, work 12 to 14 hour days 6 days a week.”
Mary Fayne Jones attended the event because she enjoys coming to the Crawford Park District events, and wanted to see how taxidermy is done.
“To look at the animals that are here it is just amazing how good they look, they’re just real.” Jones said. “It was a very, very good demonstration on how to get to the finished product.”
For more information on Bloomfield’s Taxidermy visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bloomfields-Taxidermy/162806203738701.