GAMEHEAD TAXIDERMY

by Roy Holdridge

Many people have asked me, “Why did you mount a giraffe for competition?” That’s a good question. One reason is because the Texas Taxidermy Association began a Studio Division in 2000, and my studio has continued to win top honors ever since. This division has gained popularity and the competition has become fiercer. Every year we have challenged ourselves to bring something bigger and more spectacular to ensure we continue with our current winning streak. I really wanted to win this award and thought an artistically mounted giraffe might just do the trick for 2003.

The next major reason I mounted this giraffe was it is my giraffe, rather than a customer’s. In recent years, I have vowed that any piece I mount for competition will belong to me, and came to this conclusion after spending many hours in my early years mounting my customers’ animals for competition. Mounting my own animals allows me free artistic license as opposed to being limited by a customer’s wants and desires. It also allows me to reap the benefits of the extra work that goes into a competition mount as opposed to sending it home with a client. This approach allows me to get back to what brought me into taxidermy in the first place—mounting my own stuff! It seems like once taxidermy becomes your profession, you never get to mount your own animals. Vowing to only mount my own pieces for competition ensures that at least one of my animals goes together each year. It also adds another great chapter to the story of the animal.

The story of this particular mount began several years before in Zimbabwe on what was supposed to be the hunt of a lifetime, a leopard hunt. To make a long story short, I came home with a giraffe instead!

...Continued in the Fall 2004 Issue of Breakthrough.

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