Anyone here know anything about taxidermy?

[InDarkestNight]

I can't seem to find a dedicated board anywhere to ask a question, which is rather annoying, so this seems to be the best place for me to ask this question.

Now, I don't know much of anything about it, and I'm not looking to get into it just so we know. I'm just asking this out of curiosity. A few days ago I found a blue jay laying on the ground beside my car. I left it be thinking it just ran into the windshield and knocked itself out. However, the next day I found it was still there. Obviously, its not often you get to see those things close up. In particular the thing was bigger than I expected. Looking at it, I thought that its feathers looked rather pretty. This made me ponder getting the thing made into a taxidermy. Of course, I never did that. I left it on the ground thinking either one of the local dogs, cats, or vultures would claim it. Oddly, nothing ever did. Its feathers started to lose their color (its white feathers in particular started to turn grey). Finally, I got sick of seeing it next to my car, and transferred it to my ditch. I also wasn't interesting in that thing rotting right there in my way.

I wonder now if I could've gotten the thing taxidermied. Can you even taxidermy a blue jay (I know its illegal to taxidermy a lot of birds, but not being into it myself I wouldn't know which ones you can and can not)? Would they accept something I found just laying on the ground? I have no idea why that thing was dead, or why nothing claimed it. I think it may have been really bad sick or something. It didn't appear to have any injuries on it. This makes me think it may not have been safe to handle (and no I didn't touch it, I put in a long-handled dustbin using a broom and transferred it to the ditch that way, and even then I wasn't too happy about having to do that for obvious reasons).

Could I have actually gotten the thing taxidermied? It was laying outside for 24 hours before I even contemplated it. Of course, its been freezing out the past few days. It didn't have any apparent cause of death, and can you even taxidermy a blue jay?

[Guest deleted156886133]

I know nothing of taxidermy other than it's creepy as hell and is usually used as a means to display some sport hunter's trophy collection. Yeah, yeah... Hunters that kill for food also utilize taxidermists as well. That doesn't diminish the creepy factor.

In my opinion, I would have picked up the carcass and transferred it somewhere out of the way, maybe at the edge of a wood line instead of close-by in the ditch. If no scavengers had yet to claim it, you can be assured something was and that something was decay. It's most likely flies had found it, depending on your region I guess, but if they had then it's possible there were maggots brewing within that blue jay's carcass.

And abandon the taxidermy idea for the future. Blue jays and animals in general are far more beautiful and interesting when they're still alive. It seems rude to me to take a living creature, kill it and then use it's innards for whatever reason to finally stretching it's skin and coat/fur around some styrofoam form or whatever taxidermists use. And then stick some plastic eyes in the eye sockets. Creepy. What a macabre practice.

[Drakefell01]

I think it's when they kill an animal and then stuff it and set it up as a prop, i've seen it in a couple of shows and movies.