Taxidermists not stretching & drying fur properly

I was at the fishing pond the other day and the guy next to me was telling me how he got a 500 lb bear and when it came back from the taxidermist the full body mount looked like a 350 pounder. It made me wonder if that's very common with full body mounts of furbearers. I guess there are good taxidermists, and there's bad ones. Something to think about I guess if one gets a full body mount...

Not sure the quality of the taxidermy job should be in question.

Often times pelts/hides that are mounted don’t actually shrink is size. What does change is the owners recollection of how big the animal was to begin with. Hunters often think there prized trophy animal is bigger than it really was.

Just saying.........

"Ground shrinkage."

Not sure about shrinkage but If you a have beaver nailed to your broad In the drying stages and It measures 70 " It will not measure 70" when It comes back from the tannery.

I am wondering if they used a smaller mold and made the hide fit that mold. I have seen big necked bucks put up on narrow younger buck molds and make the deer look completely different. Can be poor taxidermy or lack of proper mold sizes as well. Just a thought.

I would contend that both situations are poor taxi.

I've never had any mounts done.

Good feedback so far, thanks.

I thought it was kind of an interesting comment when the guy brought it up to me at the trout pond.

Im a part time taxidermist , over the years I have found out that a lot of bears weights are guessed by the hunters and not actually weighed. Hides wont shrink that much from tanning .

Guides exaggerate,newbie bear hunters get excited and exaggerate.The only person that doesn't get to stretch things out of proportion is the taxidermist.He has to mount what is he is handed.You do not stretch taxidermy hides,nor do you need to.I have been a taxidermist for 50 years and the majority of my work is large lifesize.I know for a fact,from bears that I have killed and personally measured,that I can easily mount it back to it's original size,sometimes 5 % bigger.

It is not possible to mount a 500 lb bear on a 350 lb manikin.The legs would look like accordians.You can't hide that.There are too many other details to get into.More commonly,newbie bear hunters are told what a bear weighs,even though it never saw a scale.They are hard,even for an experienced person to judge.Carcass measurements tell the tale but they are never taken,by hunter or guide.I would bet money the hunter in question,had not killed many bears.

I have seen this happen a lot,only with bears and usually involving inexperienced bear hunters.I have never seen the issue with lifesize deer,mountain sheep,so or moose.Only bears.I was even asked to write an article about this for North American Hunters web site.

I just don't have that problem as my bear customers are very experienced and realistic with their expectations.They also take measurements that I can use.

Here is a black bear that had no taxidermist shrinkage.Believe it or not,the hunter killed 2,that size.That is a bear.Very few are killed like that.

Thats a monster black bear.

Good info. Thanks. I'm not a bear hunter, nor a taxidermist, so I appreciate your insight.

That's a big bear Taximan.

What's the heaviest black bear any of you have mounted?

I agree that guessing bear weight is hard. When I see a bear, I don't even try to guess the weight. I'm sure some people are knowledgeable enough to get a fairly accurate guess, but I bet it's a small % of people that have that talent.

I'm in for ground shrinkage, tough to judge size if you haven't seen a lot of bears in the wild. As a result, I've seen a lot of Black Lab rugs hanging in cabins... If a black bear looks like he has no ears and no legs- he has my attention