[Nhcoll-l] Horrible ;-) taxidermized birds and mammals

[Simon Moore]

Hi Sergio,

In addition to Mike’s useful comments about the feathers.  One of my first jobs at Hampshire Museums was to extract all the frozen birds, replace those that were useful for taxidermy into the freezer and for those that had damage, freezer-burn that could have affected the taxidermy result , were measured and weighed and then these were turned into skulls - so useful to have the correct bird identification before the process.

With all good wishes, Simon

Simon Moore MIScT, RSci, FLS, ACR
Conservator of Natural Sciences and Cutlery Historian,

www.natural-history-conservation.com



> On 25 Jan 2023, at 12:25, Mike Rutherford <Mike.Rutherford at glasgow.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hi Sergio,
>  
> One possibility for the birds could be to reduce them down to individual feathers and then add photographs to Featherbase, see https://www.featherbase.info/en/home
>  
> Not done it myself yet as I only came across the website recently but I have been thinking about it as a way of processing some of the birds in our freezer rather than turning them into traditional round skins. 
>  
> Cheers,
> Mike
>  
>  
> Mike G. Rutherford
> Curator of Zoology & Anatomy
>  
> The Hunterian
> University of Glasgow
> Glasgow G12 8QQ
> Scotland
>  
> E-mail: mike.rutherford at glasgow.ac.uk
>  
>  
>  
> From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Sergio Montagud
> Sent: 25 January 2023 12:20
> To: Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Horrible ;-) taxidermized birds and mammals
>  
>  
> Hello everyone, 
>  
> Last week we received some items of taxidermized birds and mammals in a very bad condition. Not only they are bad preserved, with dust and feather/hair fallen, also they have no data about origin, date or taxidermist. There are not interesting species, all are common except five or six that could be considered as rare.
>  
> This type of donations is frequent because most people are received now properties of their families that traditionally have these kinds of pieces.
>  
> I would ask you if anyone have experienced with these sorts of exx. and try to reuse in other terms. I want to say if they take them, extract the skull, and discard the rest or something like these.  Ideas and experiences are welcome. Evidently, invest time to recover these is not considered.
>  
> Thanks a lot
>  
> Sergio
>  
> ********************************
> Sergio Montagud Alario
> Museu [UV] Història Natural
> Universitat de València
> e-mail: sergio.montagud at uv.es
> ********************************
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.