Vulture Culture Blog

Welcome to the Bone Cave

[kronkk]

[blackbackedjackal]

I'm not mad I'm just disappointed because if you spent two seconds to think about how fur and leather alone has deep ties to human culture and our understanding and appreciation of the natural world it's honestly really beautiful and just feels so strange to me that people who say they love nature want to divorce themselves from it.

Like yes, capitalism bad. I don't agree with the way that animals are treated as products to the point where blatant animal cruelty is excused by mega corporations. I want places like that to be held accountable and made to follow higher welfare standards for the animals they raise and the underpaid employees out there working in sometimes awful and very unsafe conditions.

But if you're simultaneously ignoring the culture of African leathermaking or the beautiful leather and wool textiles crafted by Indigenous artisans or the ways that ancient humans appreciated the animals they killed for meat and clothing by telling stories and making art depicted on the skins of the animals they took, that's what bothers me.

So many people are willing to just attack vulnerable communities instead of learning about thier culture and how animal products were used traditionally and today. There are better ways to raise animals for products sustainably and humanely and many of these communities have spoken very loudly about it but are yelled over by people who just want to be right or don't want to listen or just don't care.

So yes, I will continue to speak my mind and educate myself because if nothing else I wanna be the start of the change I wanna see in the world. I love animals and I love learning the history of humans and our relationships to animals. I want to be able to appreciate them in the ways we always have. With respect to the natural world and understanding that we're also a part of it.

[felisglacialis-stuff]

I have a different view on this, but first I need to point out that that humans are animals. I can appreciate indigenous art and indigenous peoples but there is a nasty catch to it.

So to the point: yes usage of another species is normal in nature. So is a base level of cruelty. All heterotroph organisms (animals and fungi) use other organisms to live. However, in humans the use of other animals has gone haywire already in the Ice Age. A naked ape that moved up North, had to kill many more animals for fur than a normal predator of this size would do. Of course people could use the skins of prey animals they killed for eating (one can already argue that meat is not the default diet for a primate), but it didn’t stop with that. Many more non-prey species (e.g. cave lions) have been killed by the masses for fur which contributed (if not led...) to their extinction. This level of consumption by humans is therefore more akin to parasitism which has highly likely led to the megafaunal extinction in the early holocene. In addition to this; there  is a lot of evidence for massive surplus killing to extents that is rarely, if ever, seen in other animals. This already happened by the end of the Ice Age and it continues in disastrous amounts today. With the human population (and thus already excessive consumption) growing unlimited, this is just the recipe for a gigantic mass extinction which is already going on. Had the consumption of other animals been similar to that of other (predatory) animals, I wouldn’t have had a problem with humanity. However, now I have and I will not romanticise specific killing for fur in any possible way. 

So with this, speak up for the much, much more vulnerable communities of non-human animals who have been victims of this excessive human consumption. The human species is not endangered. Many others are.

[blackbackedjackal]

Parasitism is a weird way to say colonizers and corrupt capitalistic pigs but go off I guess?

I'm really not trying to be rude but it's round about perspectives like this that are what drive me nuts with this topic and seem to completely miss the point I'm attempting to make.

The Indigenous peoples you said you respect are the same people who know how to gather and utilize animal remains in a way that is sustainable to the environment. Yes, there are cases where humans migrated to new environments and wiped out certain species there, but many times humans weren't the only driving force towards certain species extinction. Overhunting was absolutely an issue in certain cases, but environmental disasters, disruptions in the food chain, disease, etc. also contributed. I really don't like the assumption that just because humans were there we were this unnatural plague that destroyed entire ecosystems. In some cases, yes we have evidence of that or we were a major driving force in an environment we migrated to that was already very delicate and tipped the scales. But in others no. Humans lived in these places for thousands of years and only in the last few centuries of industrialization have problems occurred due to greed or overconsumption from a very powerful minority. To me it's important to acknowledge that because we are animals and other animals have caused similar mass extinctions or changes in their environment long before we started fumbling around. Hell the evolution of trees caused a mass extinction before modern mammals were even a thing.

The point I'm making is that I want people to understand we aren't just some plague on the earth. I feel like that perspective is what makes people feel like they can't change. If you believe you're a parasite, then why choose to behave any differently than a parasite? And if you believe you're disconnected from nature because we have allowed ourselves to accept unsustainable lifestyles, then why bother to help protect it and save it from the people who are actively harming the environment and building up these unsustainable places we live in? Imo just speaking up for non-human animals isn't the best route for change. We need to shift our perspectives back to understanding that we are a social species that is highly adaptable and can make big changes for the better if we're willing to fight for it. Humans have the ability to learn how to live more sustainably than many of us do now. But intentional misinformation, fear mongering, the feelings of burnout from being in a modern industrial culture that doesn't allow us to behave in a more natural human way, the chokehold we allow governments to hold over us, and the general apathetic response people have toward these external factors are all major issues in what's keeping us from changing. It has to be a sweeping cultural shift to do this on larger scales, lest we continue to have these smaller groups of people who do live sustainably and in harmony with nature silenced and bullied and wiped out.

It's important to open the conversation and especially listen to people who still live in harmony with nature to this day. Those are the communities we need to learn from and speak up for and fight for because they've already found ways to live with and speak up for non-human animals. I'm sorry if an emotionally charged post I wrote when I was tired was poorly worded (applies to this response as well), but I'm not trying to romanticize the use of fur or animal products. It's just something that I believe connects us as a species historically and culturally and seeing people who think our unsustainable human-made alternatives are somehow better than using natural products is really frustrating and strange to me. Not to mention the whole fatalistic outlook of humans will always be bad doesn't really help either.

[coyotebrisket]

Coyote - full skull - M

Big greasy Colorado yote. It was one of the first skulls i ever bought instead of cleaning myself and i never got around to degreasing it properly. I think I’ll start degreasing him and maybe post an update when he’s looking better.

[flayote]

My Tanning Process

My Tanning Process by Valley Fur Shed (Instagram, Tumblr) Skin The majority of the pelts I work on are case skinned, unless requested othe

just finished writing up my tanning process! it's not necessarily a tutorial, i would have to write a book for that haha, but it's a detailed explanation of how i personally do things to get the results that i do. hopefully it's helpful!

this is probably a good place to also link the tags i have for some of these steps which have some more information on them that i've posted here

all general tanning/vulture culture info

skinning

fleshing

prepping

salting

pickling

shaving

degreasing

oiling

breaking

[naturepunk]

This strange brindle-patterned canine was shot by a New York State coyote hunter. Many suspect it to be a true rare coydog.  

[canis-specialintris]

Real old post now but any thoughts @isthedogawolfdog ?

[isthedogawolfdog]

That sure is an odd canine! I’ve seen canines like these on the absolute mess of a site that is taxidermy.net every now and then, so my guess is just a good old coydog. Brindle doesn’t occur naturally in yotes!

[schrodingo]

By far one of the DOPEST sheds found. This pic is very telling and shows sometimes the predator underestimates the prey; inevitably paying the ultimate cost. I can imagine seeing this buck stroll about with a rotting carcass hanging until it shed that late winter/early spring. Imagine all the doe loving it missed out on spooking the ladies with a predator puppet adorned its crown. (SRC: Urban Outdoorsman on FB.)

[teaboot]

I understand why people dislike leather and animal products. But leather is such a good resource? Like… My mom bought a sturdy leather coat in 1989. I’m in my 20’s and I now wear that coat. That’s a 30 year old coat? 30 years, two generations, one coat. Versus, like… A plastic one, that rips and gets thrown out, or releases bits into the ecosystem every time it’s washed, takes a billion years to decompose, lasts maybe a decade if you’re super duper careful, and uses oil products in it’s construction. Like, yeah leather is expensive and comes from a living animal, and I’m not saying that you should go out and buy fifty fur and leather products for the he’ll of it, but like… Maybe the compromise is worth it? One animal product, valued and respected and worn down for generations, versus like… Six plastic products that will never ever go away?

idk, I could be wrong.

[800-dick-pics]

this is why im so fucking pissed white colonial fucks and white vegans get so enraged at indigenous people for using hides/leather and animal bones as if that shit breaks or rips like cheap polyester does

[drtanner]

Remember, kids:

It’s not “vegan wool”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan leather”, it’s plastic.

It’s not “vegan fur”, it’s fucking plastic. It’s all plastic.

It’s all fucking plastic, and every time you wash it, or damage it, or try to dispose of it, that plastic winds up in the water, in the earth, in the air.

Hell, the damage has already done when the fucking thing’s been made. As the OP says, it’s all oil and oil products; it creates pollution just to produce synthetic fabrics and materials, even before you try to throw them away, which, I mean, good luck with that.

A lot of vegan ideology is built up around a very superficial set of ethics that are supposedly about protecting animals, wildlife and the environment, but they fall apart when you look even a little bit below the surface. Every time you eschew an animal-based product in favour of something “synthetic” for the sake of “saving an animal’s life”, you’re creating pollution and trash that won’t go away for thousands of years, damaging the Earth and making life so much worse for countless animals and people.

Think about this stuff more than not at all, please.

[appropriately-inappropriate]

Eeeeeeverybody loves to get up my asshole because I wear fur. Yeah? Okay then.

When you live somewhere with -40C winter temperatures, you realize that pragmatism and warmth trump all other considerations.

I’m in and out of cars and buildings all day, every day. I have to dress for the weather and fur is hands down one of the warmest things you can wear — ask the fucking Inuit.

So you know what I do?

I check consignment stores. I check estate auctions. I get family heirloom furs.

I buy furs that are literally older than I am, in styles that would consign them to the dumpster, and then get them tailored to fit. My fur earmuffs? Salvaged fur from a coat that was ripped and functionally useless. My fur short coat? A fur that got raggedy and moth-eaten at the bottom and so was hemmed to hip height. My long fur coat is almost fifteen years older than I am, and I’m thirty one years old. Do that math.

So yes. I wear fur, because it fits my needs, my budget, and my ethics. The vegans wearing pleather can kick a brick. Only one of our coats is going to destroy the planet, and it isn’t my grandmother’s mink stole.

[mycroft-valentine]

Not to mention the fact that buying these natural leather products from indigenous peoples both subverts capitalism (that wants you to buy cheap shit that breaks), and also supports indigenous communities and artisans.

[appropriately-inappropriate]

I’m reading the notes and it’s really cute when people go “but use hemp! Use cotton! Try linen!”

Yeah?

Imma wear linen when the weather looks like this:

I am NOT going to wear hemp, linen or cotton when the weather looks like this:

When the weather outside is frightful, I’mma make like an Inuit and dress like this:

(Also, as you say: it is possible to responsibly source ethical furs. I prefer furriers like Victoria Kakuktinniq, who is an Indigenous Inuit fashion designer who interprets traditional fur designs for a modern sensibility. The funds from her clothing — and from other northern Indigenous communities — allows those northern communities to maintain their cultural traditions, while also introducing a much-needed revenue stream. If you have to buy fresh fur, Indigenous furriers are a good bet!)

[ms-hells-bells]

@acti-veg this is just…. *sigh*

[appropriately-inappropriate]

Which part is *passive aggressive sigh*?

Would it be the:

-reuse of fabrics and furs that are generally anywhere from 10-50 years old?

-recycling and repurposing of old or otherwise unusable materials like leather and fur to make smaller items like jackets, vests, gloves, hats and balaclavas?

-support for Indigenous traditions, handicrafts and artisans?

-recognition of the fact that there are very few plant-based products that will stand up to winters where the average temperature is anywhere from -20 to -50

I know, I know. Your ethics are itchy and it’s very simple to talk that good shit.

But let me introduce you to a Canadian phenomena: frostbite.

Frostbite occurs when your cells freeze. Your cells.

Ice crystals begin to form in cells in temperatures lower than -4C, which is what Canadians call “spring, fucking finally”.

In the teeth of winter, you get maybe ten hours of sunlight a day and your highest temperature is still double digits below 0C and the weather channel is saying “WEATHER WARNING: skin freezing in 30SECONDS”, and the government has put out a WEATHER EMERGENCY: EXTREME COLD WARNING.

When the weather is that severe, we don’t actually get the luxury of waxed cotton, woollen peacoats and a few layers of linen.

Sanctimony and sighs and good intentions don’t keep us warm.

[systlin]

Seriously, it hit -50F here last winter, linen and cotton don’t do fuckall in those temps.

Well, that’s not true. They DO, actually. They get wet from sweat and then get clammy and suck the heat out of you, leading to frostbite. Polyester is plastic, and I avoid that, because it’s bad for the environment.

You know what actually keeps you warm when it hits -50F? Wool, fur, and down. All animal products, all renewable and biodegradable, and all of which will last years with proper care.

I have two fur coats, both of which I paid $20 or less for at thrift stores, and both of which are vintage. Wool doesn’t harm the sheep it’s sheared from…they need to be sheared to stay healthy, actually…and down is harvested from animals that will be eaten, meaning none of the animal goes to waste.

[skekteksfurby]

Decided to change Nilbog’s name for reasons. It was kind of a joke name back when (similar to Schmebulock’s). Henceforth Nilly will be known as Komo! I may still rename Schmeb, too? Not sure what to call him, though.

Bonus bedhead expression:

[beardless-bearded-vulture]

He’s so cute!

[clowderofcloudies]

[schrodingersvulture]

Coy.ote; Canis latrans  

[knuxtiger4]

Zen is ready to go!

Might be doing some finally touch up tomorrow and Wednesday but otherwise she is completed!  This was a fun personal project and looking forward to my next coyote.

Also was noted that she has a few issues, she’s probably going to get knocked some points but hoping to stay within range for a First Place ribbon at the show.  More photos of her to come later in the week!

[elegantwolves]

via taxidermy.net

[elegantwolves]

(via)

[ozu]

A pretty wolf by Skywalker [x]

[elegantwolves]

by Artistic Taxidermy

[elegantwolves]

via aeon film: Taxidermists

[immota]

Wolf - Finished!

So, here he is! I picked him up this morning. Considering the terrible condition of the pelt, John, from J.R.’s Taxidermy, did an amazing job! His ears were missing a lot of skin, but that has been hidden fairly well. The marks on his snout are battle scars from his life. I think they give him a ton of character and I absolutely love him. Now, I just need more walls for taxidermy display…

And here he is in his permanent home on my bedroom wall.