The "art" of taxidermy and the people that produce it are endlessly fascinating. There is a simultaneous passion for nature and destruction of it. The taxidermist wishes to preserve life forever, bringing the wild into their own living room and looking into a deer's marble eyes every day. Carl Akeley is considered the father of taxidermy and the creator of the Akeley Hall of African Mammals in the Museum of Natural History. Akeley's approach to nature is contradictory, startling, and disturbing. Although he is known for being an avid conservationist and believed that the dioramas of animals in their "natural" setting was a just and moral cause, his actions did not conform to his naturalist ideologies.
Akeley's appreciation of nature is evident in his writing. He admires the elephant for its "sagacity, his versatility, and a certain comradeship" and refers to it as a "friend" (48). However, by murdering his friend, the elephant, he negates the supposed respect he has for nature. Murdering an animal for "art"'s sake or for the enjoyment of recreating a jungle scene in a civilized world is inherently unnatural and disregards the rights of the animal. It places more importance on humanity's need to connect to wildlife in an urban setting than the wildlife itself.
Akeley would argue that his hunting expeditions were in the name of science and helped to raise awareness of jungle life and educate people about wildlife. However, by looking at Akeley's hunting experiences, it is clear that there is more to his taxidermy than pure love of science. He often looked for animals that were not only beautiful but also with "character". He wanted an equal match when he went in for a hunt. He seemed to have some sort of attachment to the challenge it took to kill an animal and then preserve it, an ultimate representation of his mastery over nature. He was also reported to have "chocked the wounded infuriated leopard to death with his naked hands as it attacked him with intent to kill" (47). This image of Akeley conflicts with his own self-concept of an "advocate for nature in which man is the enemy, the intruder, the dealer of death." If Akeley truly wished to be an "advocate for nature" and desired the conservation and appreciation of nature, he should have chosen a different course of action. His words make him out to be an avid nature lover but his actions prove that he did little more than dominate nature in his own quest for art and beauty, harming what he loved most in the process.
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Merany: You are right to point both to the "mastery of nature" inherent in taxidermy and a kind of domestication imperative. Akeley's animals lie somewhere between the status of trophies and that of scientific objects. Some might say these stuffed animals are part of a longstanding tradition of scientific representation that began with illustrations (e.g. botanical drawings). Others might add that taxidermied animals have made the culturally more "safe" transition to the cutesy stuffed animals we all own today--after all, who do you think the classic "teddy" bear was named after?
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