On the third floor of Oliphant Hall at the University of Tulsa there is a small overcrowded laboratory where, over the last 40 years, birds have been taxidermied and studied. Most of them are cliff swallows, the study of which is the life’s work of the university’s ornithologist, Dr. Charles Brown.1 In 2012, as a freshman pre-medical student, I was introduced to Brown’s collection through a work-study program advertised as an opportunity to learn taxidermy (specifically, working with bird skins).2 I was unsure what to expect, but I was attracted to the chance to get up close and personal with the anatomy of an animal.
The process of preparing the specimens was gruesome but also oddly satisfying. Removing the skin from the body required turning the bird inside out, extracting its body except for the leg bones and wing bones, removing the flesh from its limbs and the fat from the skin, squeezing the oil out of its preen gland, digging out its brain, popping out its eyes (my favorite part), and continually applying borax3 and cornmeal to dry out the skin. From there we would stuff the bird with cotton, tie its feet together, and finish by tagging the bird with a label that stated its scientific name, the date, and our names.
Perhaps unintuitively, tagging the animal was the most gratifying part. Dr. Brown, instructing me on the process, informed me that if I did a proper job, the specimen would last hundreds of years. It became a salve for the fear of eventually being forgotten by the world—my name would live on on these tags far longer than the last utterance of a loved one. Through this work I had a legacy.
It’s been 12 years since that work-study program, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it—so much so that earlier this year I enrolled in a class on mouse taxidermy at Black Moth. A self-described “natural history store,” the establishment is a unique one in Tulsa, packed with mounts of exotic animals, including a giraffe head and a peacock, as well as crystals, bones, shells, and on-theme journals. (Jack White reportedly purchased a taxidermied opossum there last fall.)
A recent Saturday afternoon found me sitting with around 20 other adults in the vast back room of the store, eager to learn this new skill.