Taxadermy theft

[CRHUNTITALL]

Has anyone ever had trouble with a taxidermist shutting down shop and disappearing with a mount of a lifetime???

 

[Whip]

Not exactly the mount of a lifetime, but I lost a grey fox that I had shot with a bow once. Such a beautiful animal animal and it still bugs me 25 years later.

 

[Hall256]

Never had a taxidermist run off with a mount, but my dad had an amazing Mule deer mount stolen from his storage unit (had it in there temporary as we were moving houses). His mount was stolen almost 20 years ago, and we still talk about it every time we are in a Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop and see all the mounts on the wall...maybe one day we will see it hanging somewhere.

 

[aclawrence]

I know a real horror story that I won't share to many details of but apparently there was some kind of fight between the taxy and his wife and she went out and unplugged his freezers. I think all the animals were ruined and he panicked and skipped out of town or something to that effect. I couldn't imagine being in his shoes. I don't know all the details of the story but he did get back into taxidermy for a while and I had him do a whitetail mount for me and it's my favorite out of all our mounts. Unfortunately he doesn't do taxidermy anymore since he has a new job.

 

[CRHUNTITALL]

Man all those are hard for me to believe. I had never heard of it before! My buddies 2015 OTC CO bull was his first and he was super cool. The taxidermist he took it to took a deposite and the bull. 9 months later he's not answering the shop phone so my buddy goes down and the shop is vacant! Heart breaking! We have been trying to hunt the guy down with the help of CA game wardens but no luck yet.

 

[realunlucky]

I had a similar experience except I had recommended the taxidermist for my buddy. Payed half and never a phone call. Over two years even stopped at the guy's house a couple time. Called fish and game and better business bureau. One day out of the blue fish and game calls and says they have the cape and skull from the freezer, and we have three days to pick it up. Luckily we double bagged the cape before dropping it off turned out not being freezer burnt and made a beautiful mount. That taxidermist never even open the bag the cape was in. My current taxidermist mounted it at cost and started it the week I dropped it off. Hope it works out for your buddy

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[CRHUNTITALL]

That gives me some hope

 

[oopslala]

I got a 600+ pound black bear in 2015, the taxidermist sent it to the tannery and it's been "lost" since.

 

[W.D. Crawford]

I would be real hesitant to trust a Taxidermist who is running a shop out of his garage. Way back in 1981 I shot an absolutely beautiful Pheasant, this thing had a freakishly long tail and the colors were just amazing. I take it to the Taxidermist, give him some money a 100.00 I think, he tells me it should be ready in 4 to 6 weeks. 4 weeks goes by I give him a call "nope not done yet " he tells me, I call 2 weeks later, still not done. He tells me he's running a little behind. I call 2 weeks later and this is what he tells me " I had to sell the mount because I had taken to long to pay him!! Moral of the story is this, If the Taxidermist doesn't have a studio and a list of customers I could call for references I wont do business with him. Hope every thing works out for your friend.

 

[Beendare]

I had this dude in Kansas that separated from his wife and then just disappeared.......never sent me my [paid for] nice 140s gross whitetail with a 14" long second main beam coming out of his right side....it was a really cool rack. That was after him getting more $$ for a crate.....

i didn't push it as he had been friends with my rancher buddy and he felt bad enough.

PT Barnum would be proud of me.....

 

[5MilesBack]

There was a guy here that skipped town with dozens of animals. Sure glad he didn't have mine. I'm not sure I'd stop that tracking job until I found him if he stole my mount.

 

[CRHUNTITALL]

Oh we will hunt him down and we won't stop until we do!

 

[LongWayAround]

I had a guy with beetles do a European mount for me and it turned out great. So when my dad shot a 4x5 bull last year I decided to take it to the same guy. Everything was good when I dropped it off and I didn't leave a deposit. Just like the first time...

Only this time the guy would not return any of my calls/messages/notes at his shop. I have no idea what he did. But on several occasions there were heads laying around outside his shop in various stages of disregard.

 

[CRHUNTITALL]

This guy was in northern CA

 

[Hayguide]

There are some good taxidermist out there, but -a bunch of bad ones who cant manage there money with the deposits. My experience was with lost bears-20 to be exact. The taxi did not pay the tannery, the tannery sold them after a while. No names were on the hides, just numbers that matched the Taxi records. The warden got involved, charges were filed and the Taxi turned up not having a license. This guy had a store front, did decent work and was fine for a few years. Then he went into hiding when he started getting calls from hunters and from me.. A bunch of bear hunters lost there trophy's. I no longer recommend anyone- my hunters are on there own with Taxi,s and most of them take them out of my walk in after the kill and drive 300 miles back home and get them to someone. I have lost faith in a good Taxi in the area that I live in.

 

[cody covey]

Nothing as bad as what is listed above but i did have an issue with my Taxidermist this year. Talked to him about doing my Mountain Goat rug while i picked up my bull elk i had him european mount for me. 2 weeks later i kill a goat and go and drop it off at his shop with another taxidermist that is "helping him out". I find out a couple weeks later that he sold his business to another local taxidermist and there are now 3 people working out of this shop. Fortunately all their work looks great, but i was heated to find out that the taxi i have used for 4 years would just sell his business and not tell his customers what was going on. Shitty business in my opinion.

 

[Mtncowboy]

Our first bobcat that we ever caught was a big beautiful tom and we took it to the taxidermist only to have it disappear. Fast forward 15 years and we decided to try again, sadly the same thing happened. Our two best cats, gone forever! I will never give anything to anyone that I don't know and trust 100%!!!

 

[KClark]

Happened to me once with an antelope, caught up with the thieving taxidermist at a gun show in another state and he had my head displayed in his booth. He claimed that I moved and he couldn't get in touch with me. A couple years later the mount strap broke and it fell on my step son who was sitting below it watching tv, it put a big slice in his arm.

Bad as that is I've had far worse luck with gunsmiths, they are an elusive animal that you need to covet like treasure when you find a good one.

 

[KClark]

I took a whitetail hide in to be tanned with hair on, it came back with virtually no white hair left on it, it was trimmed right up to the brown hair and the tail was pretty much gone. The whole thing was reduced to a ridiculously small size. It didn't make any sense until I noticed he sold whitetail hair for fly tying.

 

[KClark]

I killed a nice big mature 4x4 mulie and had no intention of mounting it so my teenage son asked if he could cape it out and sell it to the local taxi, same guy who tanned the above whitetail hide as he had a sign in front of his shop offering $150 for deer capes. I watched and he did an excellent job caping it, I was impressed. He was back in a few minutes and told me the taxi said it was no good because of a cut inside the lips and had offered to throw it away for free. I knew there was no cut on the lip so I jumped in the truck and confronted the shiester. I told him I wanted the cape back and he said it was too late, it was already in the dumpster, I said it's only been 20 minutes and regardless I want it back. Again he says too late, dumster was just emptied. I pointed out there was snow in front of the dumpster and that the easiest thing he could do was hand over the cape, I was leaving with it no matter what. He went and pulled it out of the freezer and threw it on the counter and told me to never come back, that really hurt my feelings.

That was 20 years ago and I haven't been to any taxidermist since.