The Insanity of Taxidermy
Last weekend I had the opportunity to meet my high school friends for a girls’ spa-weekend at the Big Cedar Lodge in Branson, Missouri.
We had an absolute blast, but for me it was a bit tainted by the insane amount of mounted animals everywhere we turned. In hindsight, I should have boycotted the idea of staying at a property run by Bass Pro Shop, but I didn’t imagine they would fill every wall of an upscale hotel with dead animals. It was a bit extreme.
I spent the majority of my life living in homes with animals mounted on the wall, and I hated it long before I was an animal rights activist. My Dad used to hunt “Bambi” every year, but I threw such a fit about it, he eventually stopped. Then I married a hunter, and my solution to the “heads” issue was to quarantine them in his man-cave. We have been divorced for over 15 years, and I had not realized how long I had been away from these cruel displays until last weekend.
This started me contemplating, “Why do people want to put a dead animal on the wall?”
I find it so incredibly gross. It is literally the rotting flesh of a once-living animal that has been treated with toxic chemicals and stuffed.
Most hunters will tell you they do it out of respect for the animal, but that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. If they respected the animal, they would not have ended its life. I would rather they be honest and admit they need something to show off; they call it “trophy hunting” for a reason.
As an activist, there is not a lot we can do about this ridiculous practice, but you can do a search on a phrase such as “animal trophy petition” to find petitions like these:
https://www.change.org/p/fedex-end-the-transport-of-hunting-trophies
https://www.change.org/p/delta-air-lines-end-the-transport-of-exotic-animal-hunting-trophies
After the uproar over Cecil the lion being murdered by James Palmer, there is a movement growing to ban the transport of dead animals, especially out of Africa.
It might not seem that petitions do much, but they send a message and can be used to push for legislation. They are a simple, fast way to make a difference. Join in!
