March 2006 OutdoorIllinois / 21

Harvey Zeigler is not youraverage brooding artist.

“Dust,” the southern Illi-nois taxidermist muttered,squinting into the air as he

imagined one of his old works. “I’ll betit’s covered in dust now, or...” hestopped himself, unable to speak ofother, imagined atrocities of taxidermycuratorship.

He has reason to be persnickety.Winner of the highest international awarda taxidermist can receive, the 58-year-old Williamson County resident neverceases to care about his creations. Evenafter they’re long-gone and on the wall ofthe customers who bought them.

“It’s probably ruined,” Zeigler eventu-ally dismissed the matter.

Such passion for aesthetics sepa-rates Zeigler from the old image of ataxidermist: a guy who merely preserveshides, then stuffs them with straw andadds a couple of glass eyes.

“People get tired of looking at thoseold trophy mounts on the wall,” Zeiglerexplained. “They bring them home, putthem up, and for a few weeks they lookat them.

“I want to make something peoplenever get tired of looking at.”

Story and PhotosBy Joe McFarland

emphasis on artistic composition isincreasingly powerful. A great taxider-mist today must also be a great artist.

For example, Zeigler spent monthstinkering with the mounted arrangementof a group of snow geese in flight beforeentering them in the World TaxidermyCompetition in 2001. Any variety ofposes might have looked acceptablyrealistic. But Zeigler wanted to createlasting art, as memorable as classicsculpture or music.

Take a lookat how thisancient scienceis now art.

It’s no small goal. The demands oftoday’s taxidermist include an under-standing of mortuary science, wildlifeanatomy and artistic ability–all rolled intoone. But while the craft hasn’t changedfundamentally over the years (essential-ly, it’s still the job of preserving a crea-ture in a life-like resemblance), the

Following his father’s tradition of

excellent aesthetic details in

taxidermy, Ryan Ziegler already has

gained international recognition.

T h e N e w

Taxidermy

22 / OutdoorIllinois March 2006

and they realize what they thought theywanted has already been done a mil-lion times.”

Not that Zeigler pushes his ownideas upon anyone. But customersquickly figure out it’s best to leave theartistic decisions to someone whoknows the medium.

When the Zeiglers aren’t producingmounts for the public, they often createmounts of their own design, totally freefrom customer influence—art for art’ssake. Many of those mounts aren’t typi-cal “trophy” taxidermy mounts, either.

Harvey Zeigler bagged a diminutivesnipe while waterfowl hunting a few yearsago and turned it into a small, coffee-table mount for himself–and later won amedal at the world competition. RyanZeigler won a national championship fora quail mount he did for art’s sake.

Quail and snipe aren’t standardsportsman mounts; but that’s part of theallure of modern taxidermy. Artisticexpression has replaced simple preser-vation when it comes to technical priori-ties. Clearly, a mount must be preservedin a lifelike condition. But how thatmount is composed makes all of the dif-ference today.

Harvey Zeigler concedes his artisticemphasis doesn’t compensate for thefact he cannot preserve a creature tolook truly alive, according to his stan-dards. This champion taxidermist stillmarvels at the real thing, deferring to theliving creature when citing perfection.

“Look at that iridescent sheen,” Zei-gler said quietly as he stared at a back-yard pond of live ducks. “I don’t comeclose to that—-nobody does.”

One of the challenging differencesbetween a taxidermy bird mount— Zei-gler’s specialty—and the actual, livingcreature, is the preening oils lost duringthe preservation process. And there’s justsomething about how waterfowl constant-ly pluck and ruffle feathers that makesthe “soft” look of the real thing a nearlyunattainable detail for even Zeigler.

“If I could get that...” Zeigler said, butinterrupted himself with typical restraint,“I never will.”

His demands for excellence paid off.Competing against crowds of the besttaxidermists worldwide—including hisown son Ryan—Zeigler’s descendingsnow geese was judged the best overallwaterfowl mount in the world competi-tion. For Ryan Zeigler, whose Canadagoose mount was judged the best for hisdivision, having a mentor-father whoseskills are unsurpassed in the world couldbe intimidating. But the Zeiglers don’tcompete against each other—at home.

“We help each other out,” the 26-year-old is quick to note. “Dad will seesomething I don’t notice, or he’ll ask meto look at something he’s working on.We don’t really compete against eachother; we work together.”

The growing family tradition of taxi-dermy artistry has brought the freedomto work instinctively, opposed to simplyfilling orders. Neither father nor sonfeels compelled to create the usual,cookie-cutter taxidermy mounts the pub-lic recognizes. When they stop by Zei-gler’s workshop with a frozen bird to bemounted, customers quickly changetheir expectations.

“Make it like that,” Harvey Zeiglerrecites in a customer voice. “They seethere are different ways to do a mount,

Taking lessons from life, acclaimed

Illinois taxidermist Harvey Ziegler

raises a small collection of various

waterfowl for continual study.

Today’s taxidermist works to

create lifelike details in every

aspect of the mount. The Zieglers

are master artists.