Funny taxidermy - disrespectful or harmless?

[JunesDunes]

This post is probably only suitable for people who are happy wearing leather and using feather pillows and badger hair hairbrushes etc.

PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL OF OTHER PEOPLE'S VIEWPOINTS.

I'm not saying which side of the fence I fall on because I'm after other people's views.

There seems to be an increasing number of people making funny or purposely weird taxidermy. The ones that are always shown are the deer with a fairy house created in it's side, the rat turned into knickers and the animals driving barbie cars. But there are also things like rabbits made into ballerinas or mice made into pencil cases. This morning I saw some sort of rodent with a pencil sharpener up it's bum and a duck foot that was put on a spring so you could twang it.

People always say they died naturally or are roadkill so as not to derail the thread, let's just assume that is the case.

Taxidermy is an an ancient practice. Albeit it was often done to recreate the animal in a real life setting. Necklaces and objet d'art including bird skulls and animal bones is common.

So what do people think of "modern taxidermy"? As I say, I'm staying neutral so the YABU/YANBU are random.

YABU - it's a bit of fun. The animal is dead, it doesn't care. Or it's a good way of putting something that would rot away into use. A rat turned into a pencil case is no different to cutting skin off a cow to make one.

YANBU - the animal is dead but it's remains should be treated with respect. A rat pencil case is different to a leather pencil case because the rat is being laughed at in a way that cow skin wouldn't be.

Modern taxidermy is very strict about it being roadkill/natural causes/by product of human food.

So there is really no need to imply that this is not the case.

Taxidermy has had a very long history of showing animals in unnatural settings, and creating fantasy creatures out of several animals, so that isn't new or modern at all.

If you don't like it, don't buy it and don't look at it.

I don't particularly think a rat with a pencil sharpener up its bum is clever or entertaining, but thats fine, I don't have to buy it, the rat neither knows nor cares and living rats are not capable of being disrespected or even aware that this has happened to one of their long distant cousins.

Some people are happy to eat meat and turn animals in to car seats or handbags or shoes or trousers or lampshades or glue or all manner of things, so they really can't complain about this from an ethical stand point (of course they can disagree about whether it is to their taste or not!).

I suspect taxidermists have more respect for the animal than many!

A post came up on my FB of someone who is into taxidermy. When her beloved little dog died, she had a fellow taxidermy friend prepare him into a posed skeleton for her.
Her business is turning people's pets into an art keepsake. One that struck me was the skeleton of someone's pet bearded dragon. The bones were arranged in a frame with dried flowers, and it was actually quite beautiful.

Keeping a skull, or keeping the ashes... it is all the same.

Me! I loved it

Ok so my thoughts - I guess for me it's about respect for a once living thing. Things like memorial art, or keeping a beloved rats skull or even keeping your pet dog and popping a hat on him for me are very different to making a random mouse look like a stripper on a pole purely because it's funny. As someone else said, if you want a burlesque rodent you'll be able to get some very good fake ones I'm sure.

The Gripsholm(sp?) Castle lion makes me really sad. You look at it and go OMG and maybe laugh a bit but then you (or me anyway) stops and thinks. It is just so sad what they did to that lion. From what I understand it was lack of knowledge about lions rather than intentional but it is kind of humiliating. I know the lion doesn't care before anyone says anything. But rather than the lion being significant in it's own right, it's just a joke.

Plus I guess things like sticking a pencil up a dead animals bum is never going to be funny to me, even if it was fake. And the duck foot was just awful.

The comment about assuming the taxidermists are telling the truth about where the animals came from wasn't meant to be sarcastic btw. It was just meant to not open up that discussion. Also, just like any niche business there will a lot of people operating outside of the rules

I don't have strong feelings on this - I can see both sides. I do think that an animal with a pencil sharpener up its bum is just plain crass...but a squirrel in a top hat with a moustache is adorable.

So it's more about personal taste for me than ethics, as a dead animal is dead either way - it makes no difference to the animal whether it rots away, is eaten, turned into a handbag, or made into a pencil sharpener.

YANBU, it's disrespectful.

Personally I think it’s weird to play with dead bodies. Let them rest in peace, regardless of how small or insignificant the animal may seem.

I don't know what it says about me or DH, but the first time we saw the rat with a pencil sharpener in it's arse we howled for ages! I think part of it is the guy that's made it, he's so blunt about it. "I made a pencil case out of this dead rat, it's got a sharpener in it's arse".

If the animals truly are road kill or have died of natural causes, I don't really see the problem although I can understand why some people would be upset by it.

We've got a really old, much loved and super vocal cat that's not far from the knackers yard now. We often joke we'll get her stuffed with a recording of her meow in a squeaker inside her so whenever we miss her we can give her a cuddle and have a conversation - I wouldn't actually do it though, mostly because her best mate is in the garden and I fully believe she's waiting for her to join her, but that's a whole different thread!

We have a taxidermied mouse on a cross. Called Cheesus. It's in the porch and seems to amuse amazon delivery drivers.

This is what I thought the op was meaning.

I think that is ok if it tickles you: it is meant to be cute.

But a pencil sharpener up its bottom is going too far. It is undignified and exploitative of its dead state.

I think it's quite offensive.

Well luckily it's not in your house.

I wasn't a fan, dp bought it, not me, but I've grown quite fond of it over the years.

You could view it as the mouse's existence still having value and acknowdgement post death, unlike most of them.

I remember our primary school having a taxidermy owl , fox and badger

This is not a new thing. It was very big in the victorian era.