Preserving the hunt: Florence taxidermy team brings life to game animals from around the world

Steve Brett and Eugene Streekstra are both passionate about wildlife. And though both men get up close and personal with hundreds of wild game species every year, neither has to travel very far for the experience.

By ROD DANIEL Staff Reporter

http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2004/11/05/bitterroot/68-outdoors.txt

The two taxidermists share a shop just south of Florence, with each man specializing in a different form of artistry. Brett handles all the big game and fur-bearing species, while Streekstra focuses on feathered wildlife.

"We’re really a specialty shop," Streekstra explained, while preening the feathers on an emperor goose. "That way we both can do what we do best."

With more than 40 years of taxidermy experience between them, the two men accept virtually any and all forms of wildlife, but each runs his own business. Brett calls his half of the building Game Trails Wildlife Studio and Streekstra’s business wears the name WildFowl Unlimited.

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Game Trails Wildlife Studio & Wildfowl Unlimited

415 Wolfville Lane

Stevensville, MT 59870

Phone: (406) 777-5580

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"Most people just assume we’re the same business," Brett said. "But it’s easier for us to keep it separate. I like doing mammals and Gene likes birds. If we get fish in we send them out to a guy in Wyoming. That way we’re really a full-service taxidermy shop."

But regardless of who creates the myriad mounts adorning the otherwise Spartan studio, the lifelike beasts would leave even the most clear-sighted Kansas schoolgirl shaking in her skin – lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

The mammalian half of the studio features elk, moose, black bear and big horn sheep that would turn the heads of Boone and Crockett (and perhaps turn the stomachs of unsuspecting PETA members). But not only is almost every charismatic mega-fauna of the Northern Rocky Mountains represented, so too are odd-looking beasts that recently roamed plains as far away as Africa and New Zealand – kudus, nyalas, impalas, elands, leopards and cape buffalo.

"Any more, a lot of what we get isn’t from this continent," said Brett, who last month shipped off a finished mount of a giraffe. "We just got two shipments of African animals that had 10 each. I’ve got nine customers who bring in exotics."

Such clients, he said, are usually local hunters who travel to Africa for safaris, and after bagging up to a dozen animals, ship the salted hides and heads home in crates for Brett to make into trophy mounts.

"I got a full-mount baboon that I have to do this summer," he said. "And I’ve done several zebras."

Pointing to the contents of a recently unpacked crate from Africa, he shows the hides – salted, dried and folded like shirts in a suitcase. The heads, lying in an adjacent pile, arrived in the same crate.

Not all the animals are as majestic as baboons, buffalo and giraffes. Many are down-right dainty, like the diminutive duiker, the skull of which fits in the palm of Brett’s hand. An ungulate similar to an antelope, the duiker is about the size of a pygmy goat.

While exotic animals add spice to Brett’s business, his bread and butter still comes from the animals that roam the nearby forests (and cross the nearby roads – Streekstra, that very day, brought him a couple road-killed raccoons that he saw on his way to work).

"Most of what we get are deer, elk, moose, bear and mountain goats from around here," he said. "But we do it all. If it’s huntable, we’ll eventually get ’em in here."

On the avian side of the aisle, Streekstra performs his artistry on much smaller and lighter animals. But what his mounts lack in grandiose girth, they make up for in intricate detail. A taxidermist for 24 years, he used to work on big game animals in Alaska, but over the years, he said, his focus changed from fur to feathers.

"With bird taxidermy, you’re paying more attention to detail," he said. "I’m totally in control of the bird; I even make the body myself, out of packing material."

Streekstra said he does more than 350 birds each year of all shapes and sizes, and because of the variation, even within a species, he’s learned not to rely on taxidermy supply companies.

Seated at his work bench, with a recently completed blue vulturene guinea fowl from Africa eyeing his artistry, the master taxidermist compared the Alaskan goose on which he was working with a picture of the same species in the wild. Like a museum archivist, he relies heavily on reference material, he said.

"I almost always have a picture of the bird in front of me when I’m finishing the mount," he said. "The most time-consuming process is getting the feathers just right. It’s the small details that make the difference."

From start to finish, he said, an average bird takes him about six hours to complete, but he usually has one or two more started before the first one is completed.

Soaking in the bathroom sink in soapy water is the skin of a soon-to-be mounted bird. Streekstra laughed at the thought of how some of the birds arrive at his shop.

"Some people are so careful with the birds they bring in," he said. "If they saw the intense process the bird goes through before it’s mounted they’d be surprised."

When a bird comes in, he said, he tosses it in one of his four chest freezers until he’s ready to work on it. At that point, he thaws it, skins it and removes the fat and other debris through a multi-step process that includes spinning it on a fast-moving wheel, washing it in Dawn dishwashing liquid, wringing it out and finally submersing it in white gasoline to get the water out of the feathers.

From there the dripping and highly flammable skin goes into a tumbler with sawdust to remove the solvent. After that Streekstra uses a hair dryer to dry and fluff up the feathers.

Once that’s done, he creates a body and head for the boneless, lifeless bird and begins the tedious process of arranging the feathers and getting the anatomy just right.

"It’s important to know where the center of gravity of the bird would be so you know where to place the legs," he said. "Once I get that right, I work on the habitat."

Because of his impeccable attention to detail, Streekstra has created scores of bird mounts for museums, including the visitor center at Nine Pipes National Wildlife Refuge.

As a federally and state-licensed taxidermist, he can possess and mount federally protected birds as long as the client has obtained them legally.

"People will call and say a bluebird or owl hit their window and they want me to mount it," he said. "I can’t touch it unless they have a federal permit."

For wild game birds, he said, he has to enter the name of the hunter and the bird species in a log, and the hunter has to fill out a tag. "There’s a ton of record keeping," he said.

Streekstra said he’s passionate about birds and, through his career, has learned a lot about ornithology. And while he’s an avid bird hunter, much of what he knows about exotic birds has come from his work.

"It’s neat," he said. "I’m not fortunate enough to go to foreign countries to hunt, but getting to do the mount is just as good for me. There are a lot of bird collectors out there, and I’m one of them. I’ve got a bird trophy room at home."

Brett and Streekstra started their respective businesses seven years ago after working together at a taxidermy shop in Missoula. Since then, the animals they’ve resurrected number in the thousands.

Brett is actually so busy that in August he hired his first employee, Chris Kirschenheiter.

"I always wanted to keep it a small business," he said, "but I needed the help. Chris walked in at the right time."

Also an avid hunter, Brett said he makes it a point to take time off when he needs to.

"This is the wrong field to be in if you like to hunt a lot," he said. "But I do take weekends off, and that’s when I hunt."

A bit of a recluse, Streekstra said he’s happy to be working beside the gregarious Brett.

"Steve’s a great P.R. man," he said, "and few people realize we’re two different businesses. We complement each other a lot."