Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511270006
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SNOWVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Sound like an endorsement for Vidal Sassoon? Nope. Blackburn prefers Dippity-Do. When this full-time taxidermist finishes up one of his deer heads, styling gel is the final step - that and a good glossing of the antlers.
The drive to Anthony Blackburn's Taxidermy & Supply on Bluesprings Road in Snowville (from Christiansburg, a right off Virginia 8 at the Whistle-stop Cafe) is breathtaking in the fall. The leaves are the color of marigold blossoms. Blackburn's hunting customers have been known to spot wild turkey and deer en route.
This reporter can attest to the wildlife, having swerved to avoid a stray chicken crossing the road .
Fall and hunting season does for taxidermists what summer does for the Good Humor Man.
"In three weeks of hunting, I take in enough work to keep busy until next hunting season," Blackburn said. "Then there's the fish in the summertime; I never get caught up."
Lately he, Mike East and Dewayne Linkous, all New River Valley taxidermists, have found themselves in elbow-length rubber gloves working from early morning to well past most people's bedtime, seven days a week. The hunters, who also work odd hours, bring their kills to these guys' homes anywhere from 6 a.m. to midnight.
"This is all I've ever done my whole life," said Blackburn, 32, who received his license through mail-order classes as a 15-year-old Radford Boy Scout. He doesn't mind too much the interruptions to his life. Blackburn knows he's in a "people business."
The door to his shop opens and in walks Delbert Holt.
"You here to pick up your ol' pig?" Blackburn asks Holt, smiling as he disappears into his workshop.
In this back room, antlers hang from rafters to dry, waiting to be screwed into the finished heads of deer, moose and caribou mounted on polished wood panels. You feel the stares of many pairs of glass eyes.
Blackburn emerges holding a wild boar's head with a frozen sneer of teeth and tusks. Hunters use these trophies "to relive the hunt - the time, place, weather, their buddies that went with them," Blackburn said.
Holt and a friend who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor bagged the boar at a hunting preserve. "We really couldn't wait any longer," said Holt, a Dublin resident, explaining the special significance of their hunt.
Game heads, such as this boar, are Blackburn's specialty. "I try to discourage people from getting their pets done," he said. "I can mount a deer to look like any deer, but I cannot catch the expression of your dog you're used to seeing every day."
Even so, one woman is having Blackburn mount her two goldfish, who now reside in that big aquarium in the sky. He figures they won't be a problem, because "all goldfish look pretty much the same."
His mounts range from a Cape buffalo, one of Africa's most dangerous animals, to squirrels on wooden logs with nuts glued between their paws. All are advertisements for Blackburn's business. "Every mount that goes out of my shop brings in six or seven more," he estimated.
"This isn't a job you get into and are successful in a year," he said. "I know people who can't make a living at it, and I know people who are millionaires from taxidermy." He might not be a millionaire himself, but he has done work for at least one customer who approaches that status, a pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Competition may be a problem for new or less-established taxidermists. The New River Valley has 20 to 30 taxidermists, according to Blackburn. Having gone into business when there were only two or three in the area, he has had time to get a foothold in the business.
by CNB