What It Takes To Be A Taxidermist

Amber Maykut, a professional taxidermist in New York City, talks about her experience as a taxidermist and demonstrates her skills. 
Amber sources her taxidermy with frozen feeder animals that would be used to feed reptiles, euthanized animals from the NYC Animal Care Center, deceased animals from zoo and wildlife preserves as well as pet stores, deceased house pets, and leftovers from butchers.
Historically, taxidermy was used to study animals that lived outside one's geographical region. 

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What It Takes To Be A Taxidermist

[invalidcode]

Business insider: What It Takes To Be A Taxidermist
Me: *Whatever it takes*

[serenesnape]

I go to school in the city and my friends thinks taxidermy is “weird”, “gross”, and “animal abuse” -_- but I love it my family have so many squirrels, foxes, deer, elk, and stuff like that on our shelves and walls and I can’t wait to build my next project: A Scorpian! I’m making it out of foam and soda boxes but it’s still a work of art! I hope it turns out good! Thank you for the tips!

[SulwanaH]

I am wowed and grossed out at the same time....

[thegreatestfartofalltime]

I think a lot of people feel that taxidermy is morally wrong. Prepare for my 5 paragraph essay, hear me out. Personally, I feel that it is an art form. I respect your opinion, but I also respect the animal's bodies. I've noticed that the same people who criticize and insult taxidermists or hobbyists are often hypocritical. These people use products that test on animals and eat meat from an animal who was born and killed for the sole purpose of being eaten. animals being tested in labs for drugs, beauty products, etc and then killed when they no longer have a use for them, animals being raised and killed in inhumane, dirty and disease ridden environments to be killed for their meat, fur, or skin (leather, reptile boots, fur coats), animals being forced to breed for profit. And yet finding an ethically sourced (roadkill, stillborn, death from natural causes) cadaver and creating beauty out of death is more awful than the torture that living animals go through daily for your satisfaction? You eat the bacon from the corpse of a pig that was forced to breed, kicked, abused, forced to stand in its own feces, blood, disease, and corpses of its friends in a wire cage for its entire life, force fed until it got obese, and then forced into a gas chamber/stunned with a mallet before being hung upside down and having its throat slit? Which is more humiliating? which is more cruel? Taxidermy, or the torture you turn a blind eye to daily for your own good?

[IfshesIm-vzjk]

Thanks for this. I was really curious about taxidermy and afraid to ask people I know because they might burn me or perform exorcism on me.

[zuko]

I wonder if she has a super secret basement with creepy human figures

[bigoof]

Pretty cool how everything is not wasted. The skin is used for her taxidermy. Specimens come from various places that would otherwise just gone to the dump and decompose into methane. Which in the bigger picture contribute to greenhouse gases. And the most of the animals are given to local zoo's and pets to be eat by the animals. Thank you for your work and the attentiveness you have to it.

[pinkskies]

i am suddenly very interested in trying taxidermy lol

[Ohmygodaprayingmantis]

I've been wanting to do taxidermy forever and this definitely confirms I can do this :)

[jeanmyers]

amber is my new hero i find roadkill to beautiful to leave and let bugs eat so am learning to taxidermy myself it has been an expensive hobby but i love it i have rescued a few not dead and love that too i always return the animals i can save to the wild and the carcasses for the wildlife to eat and always move the animals i dont pick up out of the road so nothing else gets killed

[jackdevinskuzinsk]

Idk why but I want to buy the squirrel mannequin at 3:44 and give it to my friend as a bday present

[bloatedsodium]

It rubs the borax on it's skin or else it gets the hose again.

[alienatingmyaudience]

I've always had a fascination with this, kinda wanna do it as a job ngl

[zeropoint]

would never imagined a taxidermy business in NYC....good on her.

[KnightSlasher]

So my skin can be made into a statue?
*fear me mear mortals*

_wait i'm dead_

[Luci.fer]

I’m new to taxidermy, and have just been using feeders so far. I didn’t know about the euthanized animals being possible. How do you go about getting those animals and do you pay for them? I think that would be so cool to give those babies love too

[CandiedCarrion]

A career that I’m interested in, I will work hard for this job!

[mortemoccasus]

I really hate this. This is such a connoisseur's profession but look how underrated. Not even a 100k view...get them what it takes to be a kpop idol...millions of views within minutes. The world is evolving...backwards.

[toomanyhungrycats]

I didn't know you needed a license Im still an amateur practicing on natural cause small birds. I give them names and give them a little bandana around the neck

[shahimagesyt]

Dunno why but I came here for the thumbnail