Middletown taxidermy studio is biggest in the East

MIDDLETOWN — Lions, tigers, and bears — oh my. No need to fear, though. They're dead. The only things that are real on these animals are the skins. Underneath are just foam forms.

Some of these trophy animals look scary, however. In fact, they appear so frighteningly real that it's not difficult to imagine what would happen to us if they were still alive. And you can thank Bob Vitro for that.

Vitro, 41, owns and runs True-Life Taxidermy in Middletown. If a hunter wants a life-sized memento of a hunting adventure, Vitro is the man to call. The Record spoke to him to find out how he creates these life-like beasts in action poses.

Taxidermy is an art form, just like sculpture. We create mounts that accurately reflect the animals' anatomical features, habitats and behaviors. The idea is to make them look like they're still alive. The animals teeth, claws, horns and antlers are real, too.

I've been doing this for a long time. I was 16 when I was given a home-taxidermy mounting kit by a friend and mounted my first animal (a striped bass) in my Scotchtown home. I never lacked for things to mount, because I was big into fishing and hunting. Eventually, I'd hunt all over North America and hunt in Africa 13 times, including in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

After I graduated from Pine Bush High School, I took some business courses at Orange County Community college in Middletown. I also did some apprenticeships by going away to see some of the finest taxidermists in the business at the time. By the time I was 19, I started my own business in the basement of my parents' home.

I am able to create shoulder or life-size mounts because I've studied all kinds of game in their natural habitats, and I have a working knowledge of their anatomies. Therefore, we can construct and mount all kinds of fish, fowl, reptiles, and mammals — from a piranha to a bull elephant.

We moved into this converted barn in 1994. I have eight full-time employees working for me, and each is a skilled artisan with a specific job to do.

Let me show you how our process works. When we receive an animal's skin, it needs to be fleshed, tanned and salted. The salt preserves the skin until it gets to the tanning process. Then we send it to a tannery to get the skin tanned and turned into leather.

When we get the hide back, we soak it in salted water to rehydrate the tanned skin. Look at this one. This is a polar bear hide. It has already been to the tannery and was soaked a couple of nights ago. The underside has a leathery texture to it and it's pliable enough to attach to a form.

At this station, you can see how the hide is fitted over the form. I buy all my forms from the best manufacturers.

Depending on what the client wants. I can get a full-body or a shoulder form in almost any pose. Facial expressions are created by our taxidermist using clay to sculpt fine details.

If a form is too big, we can cut it down to size so the skin will fit over it perfectly. Then we'll use a special hide paste that will keep the skin adhered to the form. At True-Life we always alter the form to fit the skin. What the client will eventually have is an animal that is the same size as it was in life.

At the airbrushing station, getting the color details correct is important.

Look how colorful this turkey's head is. Each color on the head and feet had to be painted on by hand because the natural colors are washed out during the mounting process. Ever notice how the noses on certain animals appear wet? Well, we have to paint on that wet look.

As I've already said, we create the animals' expressions. Lets say we're mounting a snarling lion; we'll sculpt in clay around the mouth to represent muscles that protrude in the snout, giving the appearance of the snarl.

Of course, the animals are finished on the base, or we can build a habitat around it with artificial water, rocks, grasslands and even other animals.

We do business with people across the country. We book hunts in the U.S. and all over the world. I'll use my contacts and resources to provide hunters with reasonable airfare costs, comfortable living accommodations, meals and a guide, I can book a trip anywhere on the globe.

We are considered the largest taxidermy studio on the East Coast.

Sheldon Scruggs profiles people in unique professions and odd jobs. He can be reached at sscruggs@th-record.com. In Their Words appears Sundays.

What: True-Life Taxidermy Owner: Bob Vitro Phone: 733-1313 Web: www.truelifetaxidermy.com

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