As I had stated in the previous comments, I would give the final opinion once the trophies were home. I am pleased to say; all but one occupies my living room or sitting room as we use it. After they arrived and we got them all unpacked and then you suffer the “Holy Crap” where am I going to put these things? I had figured on placing them throughout the house, tallest horns here, not so tall horns there, you get the idea…
As I start to measure up certain places, I had already mounted the Warthog on one wall next to the living room, I stood the Giraffe in the front landing - the only twelve foot ceiling in the house to accommodate a ten and a half foot shoulder mount Giraffe. As I started to eye other locations in the house my wife says, “You could put the Kudu here and the Eland there and the Gemsbok at the other end of the couch”. I replied with the most contrite, “I could Honey, but that would have the bulk of them right here in the living room and might be a bit overpowering”. Exactly she responded; I don’t want everybody stomping through our home to see your collection of dead animals, not trophies, (Dead Animals, can you believe that). So, I replied with what any smart husband would say, “Baby, thank you so much for my very own trophy room”.
There you have it; my son was also blessed with the same fortune at his home. So, here’s what we have eleven animals in total, two sets of leg lamps, one Giraffe skull, one Baboon, skull and two replica Elephant tusks on pedestals. All animals were shoulder mounted except for the Baboon and the Duiker, these were full body mounts. The Zebra was a shoulder mount on a pedestal, wrapped in the back skin. In total we had, 2 Kudu, 2 Gemsbok, 1 Duiker, 1 Giraffe, 1 Baboon, 1 Eland, 1 Mountain Zebra, 1 Impala and 1 Warthog.
I won’t go into the individual pricing of the of trophy costs. The purpose of the article is to answer the question is it worth considering havening the taxidermy done in Africa. We believed so based on our reviews of the Taxidermist we could find on the web. We were pretty much certain by the time we got to Namibia we were going with Trophaendienste Taxidermy. When we visited their shop, we were convinced we had made the right decision. When they arrived in the field to help process the Giraffe on day four to ensure the right care was taken with the hide, confidence was very high.
By the numbers; Cost to hunt the animals $17,000.00 for, species, lodging & PH. Taxidermy costs all items $15,988.00 as described above. Shipping costs $7,238.00, plus an added mystery fee at the Montreal docks of $600.00 and $515.00 Canada Customs storage fees because of missing original CITES permit. As some of you can imagine there were some tense days before the trophies arrived.
There is not much for local expertise in the province I live in, Manitoba, Canada. We would have to go east to Ontario or west to Alberta to find taxidermy shops that have any level of Africa species expertise. I mention this as there would be hefty shipping cost of completed taxidermy if we chose to have it done here, plus the higher taxidermy costs. Until we opened the crates, we would not know if we had made the right decision.
In our humble opinions we feel we did, we were extremely pleased with the trophies we received from Trophaendienste Taxidermy. Everything arrived in top notch order except for a missing set of Eland horns. We’re not sure where they went, we suspect they got misplaced in the customs inspection, who knows… A new set is on its way as I type, believe it or not the owner of the shop forfeited the horns of his own trophy Eland he shot last fall, greatly appreciated.
We feel their attention to detail was awesome, they even taxidermy’d the male part on the Baboon, who gives that much attention to detail? So, would I do it again, you bet. I’d be a bit smarter on the shipping side of it. For me, I found the whole shipping and receiving part the greatest black hole of it all. What happens when they leave the taxidermist, who handles them…
I won’t deny there is risk, were we lucky, perhaps. We did do our due diligence, as I am sure others have done. In the end I have read and heard of problems on both sides of the equation. I recently talked to a co-worker who had a fish done at one of the highest rated eastern taxidermists and there was a complete breakdown in communication to the point where the final product wasn’t anything near what he ordered. If you chose to have taxidermy done when you completed your hunt,
Do your homework, do not assume anything!
I’ll attach some photos you-all can be the judge
![steve newcombe [uk]](/data/avatars/m/0/294.jpg?1434218333){kind=avatar}
