The 1964 guide to the everywhere-taxidermy of the South Island.
Rural Aotearoa and taxidermy go together like an all-you-can eat sausage sizzle and tomato sauce. There’s a lot of it, and both involve getting stuffed.
However you feel about taxidermy, it’s an impressive craft, one which involves fitting the clean and treated skin of an animal onto a polyurethane mannequin. Sawdust, wire and wood are also sometimes used. Despite their glass eyes and stiff postures, the creatures can be startlingly lifelike. Others not so much, like the hoodie-clad possum sitting on a toilet with a ciggie that we found on TradeMe (bid now from $300, no reserve). Also currently up for auction, a weaner piglet, starting price $480. Some people find taxidermy macabre, some rate it as an art form, and many of us don’t think about it at all, especially in the small towns of Te Waipounamu, where it’s so common it blends into the background. We see dead animals, especially furry mammals, everywhere – in tearooms and libraries, adorning shop shelves and hung in community halls.
To be clear, this is not the case overseas. Road tripping through North America, for example, you’d expect to see trophy heads above the fireplaces in hunting lodges and stuffed fish on the walls in tack shops, but not, say, on the shelf in a school library or under the treatment table in your doctor’s office (more on that soon). For one, there are laws. In America, for example, taxidermy is subject to both federal and state licenses, and some species are strictly regulated. Selling a taxidermized migratory bird is a felony offense in the States and as for bald eagles, nope. It is illegal to “possess, sell, or barter” a stuffed eagle, or any part of one.
In Aotearoa, prohibitions do apply to endangered species and protected wildlife, which is why you’ll never see a stuffed kiwi on TradeMe, but the site is swimming with mounted possums, mice, rabbits and stoats. Which brings us to our theory about the situation: rural New Zealanders are unbothered by, and even enthusiastic about, taxidermied animals because so many of them, when alive, were pests. In an ecosystem in which there were no native terrestrial mammals, and which has been decimated by introduced mammalian and bird species, we are perfectly happy to say stuff ‘em. Here’s a tour of some of our favourite South Island specimens.
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Hello baby! A fawn at the taxidermy-tastic shop Flora Fauna, in Queenstown. PHOTO: Flora Fauna
The baby fawns
The ubiquity of taxidermied fawns in our communities supports our theory. Even in trigger-happy America, they have Bambi’s back. While it is legal to shoot baby deer in most states, hunting forums are full of heartfelt posts from gun bros like, “I prefer not to shoot the little ones” (after which they gleefully go back sharing photos of themselves dressed in full camo and dripping with moose blood). Not so much here. The “little ones” are everywhere. There’s one on the shelf at Wānaka Wastebusters (not for sale) and the 1964 office recently acquired one that a reader randomly dropped off, provenance unclear.
Side note: if deer heads are your thing, head to the Hard Antler Bar & Restaurant in Haast. The walls are adorned with a rotating display of deer and stag trophies, the winners of their annual hunting competition, and the rafters are draped with dozens of antlers hung all in a row.
That little Haast goat
Speaking of Haast, is it legal to taxidermy a kid? Haast says yes. Ten years ago, before we all had magic phones in our pockets, we stopped into Heli Services in the West Coast town to ask for directions. Our original query was replaced by new questions as soon as we noticed the decor. Is that a baby goat on your counter? Yes. Why? The lady behind the desk hit me with a shrug. Why not? #HaastRules
The Lake Wānaka Centre moose
The entrance foyer of Wānaka’s community hall, Lake Wānaka Centre, boasts several trophy heads, including that of a deer taken in the Makarora area in the 1920s, and the noggin of a North American sheep. But the critter that attracts the most double takes is the moose – you need to look up to see it, possibly because the head is so big the only place it would fit is tucked under the apex of the peaked ceiling. No, it is not from New Zealand, although as any card-carrying South Islander knows, there may be a remnant population of Canadian moose living in Fiordland, the descendants of ten animals who were released at Supper Cove in Dusky Sound in 1910 (the last confirmed sighting was in 1953). This fella was shot in the Yukon Rover in 1923 by the late John Faulks, a Makarora farmer and keen hunter. The trophies were donated by his late daughter, Bell Scoular, and apparently the moose will soon be returned to the family, which is probably for the best. He’s a bit worse for wear. Whatever he had for eyes, they’re not there anymore.
Dr Brebner’s consult room
Simon Brebner has been a GP in Wānaka for 30 years, and anyone who’s had a consult with him will know why he’s included here. Dr Brebner’s room at Aspiring Medical Centre is local-famous for its taxidermy collection: a scorpion in a bell jar, a puffer fish, a piranha, a framed bat, a Congolese passion locust, a fox, a wallaby, a pheasant and Barry the racoon, who is particularly awesome. Simon has been collecting stuffed creatures since he stumbled across a mounted rabbit at the dump two decades ago and took it home. The animals echo his consulting style, which he describes as “open”. “I spend a lot of time in my room, and I want to be surrounded by things I like. The animals reflect me.” He says most patients are interested in the collection and like it too (“although some verbalise they don’t”). Children love to pat them.
The chickens in the Animal Attic
For fans of taxidermy, the Animal Attic in Dunedin’s Otago Museum is a wonderland. Organised like a Victorian natural history museum, it is packed with specimens, all lovingly organised and categorised and preserved and taxidermied – there are nearly 500 taxidermy specimens in the place, including a pair of unfortunate lions who escaped from a travelling circus in Central Otago), a ferret in the act of killing a rooster and a trio of domestic hens roosting in the rafters.
Those who love the Animal Attic, and we certainly do, have John Darby to thank. John, who is best-known for his work helping Lake Wānaka’s grebe pollution recover, flourish and win Bird of the Year, joined Otago Museum as a zoologist in 1969 and was appointed assistant director in 1971.
The attic was, at the time, part of the University of Otago’s Zoology Department, and closed to the public; John was exploring ways to make the museum more approachable, especially for teachers and their students. “I wanted to figure out how to get stories going and putting some levity into the whole thing,” he says. The Animal Attic was part of this, as were its chickens. “The story I wanted to tell was that when we were working, we accidentally left some of the doors open, and they escaped out into the ceiling. But I thought, how can I get people to look up?” He asked the exhibitions team to paint white droplets on the floor – chicken poo! It was so realistic, people would walk around the droplets to avoid fouling their shoes. Or they did, until the day the cleaner stormed into John’s office to complain that his chickens had been making a mess of the carpet. Not to worry, though, she’d cleaned it up.
NATHAN WEATHINGTON AND LAURA WILLIAMSON
