国家地理:Alaska: Bear Taxidermist 动物标本剥制师

Grizzly 1 bears once roamed much of the United States. But two centuries of hunting and habitat loss have devastated 2 their numbers. Today, less than 1,200 live in the Lower 48. If there is a last remaining stronghold for the North American Grizzly, it is in Alaska where estimated 32,000 grizzlies 3 can be found.

Alaska boasts a wide range of habitat in which the grizzly can thrive, from rich coastal 4 areas to barren arctic tundra 5. Alaska's grizzlies can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and can consume as much as 35 pounds of food in a day. They eat just about anything in sight from flowers to whale carcasses.

It's their very size that gives grizzlies an aura of invincibility 6, and in Alaska, it's also what makes them a valuable commodity.

As Joel discovers in downtown Anchorage, the bear business is booming. At Knight 7's Taxidermy, Russell Knight turns over more than 200 bear rugs and mounts a year.

We offer you the mounting services or expediting services. Whatever the client wants us to do, we are glad to do it.

How many bears they think there are in Alaska and how many are taken every year, do you know?

Roughly between 1,000 and 1,500 are taken a year.

But since bears are thriving in Alaska, some biologists believe that taking 1,500 bears a year is sustainable.

So there's plenty of bears in Alaska, right?

Plenty of bears in Alaska.

Making a bear into a rug takes time. Russell's clients can expect to wait up to a year for their merchandise.

So this is the skull 8. And he's, he's skinned the skull out.
So now he's, he's doing the detail work. He's split the lips, turning the nose inside out. And now he's going to turn the ears inside out. They put them over a beam and they're fleshing the fat and meat off skin so that it can dry properly.

He had to have a bear sit in salt for 3 or 4 days. (OK). And then after the like the 4th day, if everything is looking good, then we hang them up.

And you kind of look (yeah) and see that the skin is turning white, which is a, the good sign that it's drying proper.

And once the head is mounted, then we gotta bring it back to the original size. We have to rehydrate the skin in water, repair all the holes and then he stretches it for size to get the maximum amount of size out of skin.

They want big?

They want... everybody wants the biggest thing in it.

So we've got a special clay that dries very hard. And, and, and once the, the clay is put on and roughed into shape, then we can come back and mold it and put it on a little details and the creases 9 and we can still shape and move the eyes around and, and get the expression that we want.

We use plastic teeth and fake tongues. That's a black bear tongue, grizzly bear tongue. Now these would be ... this would be a bear eye.

I'm... I'm a wildlife artist. I work with wildlife, I work with all....
Taxidermy really is an art.


tundra: (n.) A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently 10 frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation such as lichens 11, mosses 12, and stunted 13 shrubs 14. 苔原
invincibility: (n.) 无敌
Taxidermy.: The art or operation of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of dead animals for exhibition in a lifelike state. 动物标本剥制术(n)