Many Ways To Skin A Cat

[strangebiology]

Conservationists to Americans: Please stop buying so many bat mummies from Asia

EBay has hundreds of listings for taxidermy bats, and Etsy has nearly a thousand.

I’m really glad that the Vulture Culture community is taking this article seriously; I see a lot of comments from people saying that they’re not going to buy Indonesian bats any more.

Some people are also saying that they feel guilty about having bought bats in the first place, or that you should “do your research” before buying. Those are good points, but I would like you to know that, sometimes, “doing your research” does not yield any information, so I can’t blame people for not having known this.

The information that I used in this article I did not find on the internet. As far as I know, it didn’t exist in any public forum before I wrote it, and certainly not in the first page of Google search results. It took a lot  more investigation than someone could be expected to do for a $20 eBay purchase. This is what I did to find the info:

Keep reading

[manywaystoskinacat]

Bats, birds, marine mammals, primates and monkeys are all no-go for me.

Very sad that they're being slaughtered specifically for this purpose.

[manywaystoskinacat]

[manywaystoskinacat]

Made a few more keychains :)

[mydeadthingsdiary]

I’m all for outing people that publicly post illegal animal remains. Ignoring legislation for your private collection is not good for the general VC community.

HOWEVER. As an absolute bear minimum, make sure 1) they are illegal animal remains 2) try contacting the person in private first incase the person was ignorant/unaware of the legality of the animal remains and 3) have reciepts/proof to back up your claims that the remains are illegal, and the person is wilfully ignoring legislation.

Claims of illegal animal remains are not to be taken lightly, as this can lead to (and in the past, has resulted in) a police search of a persons collection, which, is not something to just wish upon a person.

[manywaystoskinacat]

I don't know of anything recent but I do remember a false accusation where someone was searched because someone lied about them having tiger eyeballs, and it turned out they had a stone called Tigers Eye.

[manywaystoskinacat]

Going to be moving my fleshing beam into the sunroom once I have it tidied up, so I can finally clean out my freezer. In my freezer, if my memory serves me right, I have... three cats, a baby rabbit, baby squirrel, opossum, woodchuck, two budgies, one house sparrow, and a vole... maybe more, I honestly have no idea. This is not including raw skulls and skeletons.

[manywaystoskinacat]

@insecttears if the only thing that was allowed under the VC tag was roadkill you found and processed yourself, there would be like 10 people posting under the tag.

Collecting furs and making things with them is part of VC. VC is “doing things with dead animal parts”, there is no specific criteria. That deer skull was given to me by a hunter I know IRL who cleans and processes his own meat. Those taxi mounts were given to me by a taxidermist's son who passed away and was going to throw them out. The marten on the right was part of a stole, the one in front of the fireplace was part of a taxi mount and is going to be part of a project to re-mount him. The wolves will eventually be rug mounts, the foxes are just pretty.

If that were the case, then even people buying and cleaning raw skulls wouldn’t be considered VC. Buying green skins and tanning them wouldn’t be VC.

I will continue to post my collecting under the tag, as well as my actual projects and creations (roadkill or not).

Which actually reminds me, I need to get my ass in gear and start making more rabbit keychains…

[manywaystoskinacat]

My newest wolf beside my first wolf. This one looks like GreyWind from the GoT series so that’s what he will be named.

He’s 7'2" from nose to tailtip so it was hard to find a place to put him. I’m going to be buying some toggle bolts this weekend so I can finally get one of my deer up on the wall above the fireplace. My living room is looking crazier and crazier. Hopefully soon I’ll have the will to re-shape ShaggyDog’s face finally.

This wolf was trapped and sold legally in my province, did not cross provincial or country borders, and is entirely legal for me to have. If you have an issue with wolf trapping or hunting, go elsewhere.

[blackbackedjackal]

When someone asks why you’re picking up roadkill:

[manywaystoskinacat]

Found a second melanistic baby squirrel but it was too far gone to keep. Poor thing.

[manywaystoskinacat]

@stippledskin Both cats, but Tizzy is the one who grabbed it! One of them also caught and killed a shrew somehow, in my roommate’s room... don’t know how it got inside.

[manywaystoskinacat]

Please excuse my dirty floor, I was in the sunroom. I found this dead baby  (melanistic) eastern grey squirrel outside, and just at the right time.. there were unhatched fly eggs. Soon as I brought it in to take pics, one of my cats snagged it and tried running away!! Her jaws were locked on tight!

[manywaystoskinacat]

Found a dead screech owl. Such a shame.

Owls are protected under the MBTA and it is illegal to possess any part of them, regardless of how you found it. This owl was left outside where I found it, I only moved it off to the side of the road so something wouldnt get hit by cars while trying to eat it.

[splattox]

By the way, a cautionary tale

If you find a bunch of bones that are A: untouched and B: supernaturally clean, there is definitely a reason for both of those things. Sometimes that reason is ants. Sometimes those ants are fire ants. Sometimes those fire ants have made a nest over the entire three meter area around those bones

[nonbinary-entomologist]

Sounds like someone had an adventure with fire ants

[manywaystoskinacat]

Have not been doing much at all lately because I've been busy with my puppy. That tank of skulls/skeletons I have is STILL degreasing!!!!!

[manywaystoskinacat]

Friendly reminder that “ethical” or “ethically sourced” is a phrase used solely to shit on people who engage in hunting or trapping or source their items from these or fur farms. “Ethical/ethically sourced” is not a replacement for the word “legal”. If you are selling something, you are doing so under the law and don’t need to say that what you’re selling is legal under the law. It’s a shady, lowball tactic used to undermine people who don’t source their items the same way you do, so that you can make a quick buck off people that you’ve taught to demonize hunters, trappers, and fur farmers.

[meskri]

While I partially agree with this, I think that selling things as “ethically sourced” caters to a certain market and allows sellers to find customers who are looking for particularly sourced items.

I don’t find anything unethical about hunted or trapped animal parts, but listing an item as “ethical” allows one to gain market ground. Plus, specialty animal parts that are collected from animals found as roadkill tend to be more expensive than others due to the scarcity of specimens. A seller who uses those phrases isn’t necessarily demo ozone hunters or trappers.

[manywaystoskinacat]

That's the entire problem. It's done to "gain market ground" by shining a negative light on things they deem "unethical", whether they use that word or not. If they want to be clear on the source of their parts, by all means do so, but it can be done without implying anything but X, y, and z are unethical. Example: "this is from a roadkill fox, this is from a hunted deer" It's a shady and lowball tactic to make money, and it encourages people to have negative opinions of people in the fur trade. VC doesn't need to have in-fighting like this, it's not cool.

[manywaystoskinacat]

Friendly reminder that "ethical" or "ethically sourced" is a phrase used solely to shit on people who engage in hunting or trapping or source their items from these or fur farms. "Ethical/ethically sourced" is not a replacement for the word "legal". If you are selling something, you are doing so under the law and don't need to say that what you're selling is legal under the law. It's a shady, lowball tactic used to undermine people who don't source their items the same way you do, so that you can make a quick buck off people that you've taught to demonize hunters, trappers, and fur farmers.

[swagxnightmare]

young man leave that dead bird alone young man put back his feathers and bones

[meskri]

It’s never fun but it’s the M B T A