Want an elephant in the living room for $65,000? – Seymour Tribune

An adult walrus can grow to be 4,000 pounds and 12 feet long. This is a replica of the real deal by Advanced Taxidermy of Toronto.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Replica polar bears are popular items for American hunters because international laws prevent them from importing skins and the like from their hunts.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Replica polar bears are popular items for American hunters because international laws prevent them from importing skins and the like from their hunts.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
This is a real lion mount, not a replica.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — This can provide new meaning to the phrase “elephant in the room.”
Stringent rules under national policies and international laws that have prevented hunters from bringing souvenirs of their hunts of certain animals back into the United States in recent years have dissuaded wealthy American big-game hunters from taking some international trips.
Now, the adaptable taxidermy industry has responded with a method to fill the hole in the marketplace and remove the hassles faced by hunters who wish to pursue elephants, polar bears, rhinos and more and commemorate those hunts with mounts.
The operative word is “replica.” Instead of the time-tested reliance on taxidermy mounts, creative taxidermists are now offering substitutes. Rather than using the actual skin and body parts from an animal harvested on a safari in Africa or an animal in Canada, where polar bear hunting is still legal, masters of this fairly new art are essentially building and shaping new animals as stand-ins with a truly realistic look.
“It’s realizing there is a desire for a joyous memory of a hunt that is more than a picture,” said James McGregor, a co-owner of Advanced Taxidermy with Shawn Galea in Toronto. “It gives them something. This is the future.”
Although polar bears inhabit northern Alaska, it has not been legal to participate in hunts for the animals there for more than 50 years and it is illegal to import polar bear skins and parts. However, there are outfitters who guide polar bear hunts in the Canadian territory of Nunavut for $50,000-plus.
Some African countries have out-lawed hunting for elephants, but it is still legal to do so in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Certain areas need population control of the gigantic beasts so they do not wipe out villages’ crops, or villages. All meat from a safari kill is distributed to local residents. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service keeps a tight reign on elephant parts and ivory is banned from importation.
Hunters from the U.S. who signed up for such overseas hunts in recent years – conducted under very restrictive rules – sometimes have experienced challenges in bringing materials home to be transformed into a taxidermy mount for a trophy room. Replicas are the supply and demand answer.
McGregor, and another outfit called Kanati, based in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, appeared at the recent Safari Club International convention in Nashville advertising their wares. Their displays garnered considerable attention, especially among hunters who had never seen artistic replicas in person before. They passed the eye test for looking like the real deal.
Kanati distributed price lists. For a hunter who wishes to commemorate a polar bear hunt in Canada, the cost of obtaining a life-sized mount is $18,500. McGregor had a few specially made polar bears on view and they looked realistic enough to provide a shock if one bumped into a look-alike in the wild.
Between cost and space, probably fewer hunters order life-sized elephant mounts through taxidermists than any other animal, but some do. To obtain a full-mount replica from Kanati costs $65,000.
Replica lions are more common, said Darryl Gould of Kantai, and that end of the business has expanded over the last few years. Life-sized lion mounts are costly, as well, going for $22,000. Kanati displayed several lion head and shoulder mounts ($9,800) at the show.
McGregor had a full-sized walrus on display. A male walrus can weigh nearly 4,000 pounds and grow to a length of 12 feet. This enormous replica was a show-stopper.
Replicas, instead of skin mounts, really got their start some years ago as fill-ins for fish skin mounts. The desire for replica fish stems from an increase in conservation practices revolving around catch-and-release.
“We don’t do any skin mounts of fish anymore,” McGregor said.
On its website, Advanced Taxidermy states it has been making fiberglass fish replicas for 35 years and makes the claim, “Our fish reproductions are made from the most advanced molds in the industry.”
McGregor said the demand for polar bear replicas has burgeoned and the interest in that animal boosted the replica market.
“It was the polar bear that started it,” McGregor said.

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