High quality taxidermy is available for Clark and Cowlitz County hunters at Northwest Wildlife Taxidermy in Kalama.
“I’ve been in the outdoor business my whole life as a fishing guide for 30 plus years,” said co-owner Christian Witt. “I’ve been involved in taxidermy over time, just never went into business doing it.”
That changed when he decided he and co-owner Mercedes Pittman wanted to work from home and be able to spend more time with family.
“We thought it would be a good home business for me and her to start together and have something to do with our family,” Witt said.
Another benefit is that their overhead cost is greatly reduced compared to doing work away from home.
“I don’t have to start the car and leave the driveway, I can come out to my shop and go to work,” Witt said. “Doing our own schedule plus being here with our kids is very beneficial.”
Becoming skilled enough to do this job took specialized training that both Witt and Pittman went through in the run-up to starting NW Wildlife Taxidermy.
“There’s a lot of steps and processes going from skinning, to tanning to mounting,” Witt said. “That’s a whole other process.”
Taxidermy begins with skinning the animal, then salting the hide, tanning it in brine, measuring it and ordering a mannequin, then mounting the hide on the mannequin.
“It definitely can be a little nerve-racking because you want to take your time, you don’t want holes in anything,” Pittman said. “That‘s gonna put more work on you on sewing later, so taking your time is probably the best way to go about it.”
Pittman and Witt said that taxidermy is a messy art, requiring a lot of attention to detail and includes work with clay.
Their taxidermy business takes in everything from bobcats and cougars to bigger game such as elk, deer and bears.
“I like elk better because they’re big and massive, they’re easier to work on,” Witt said. “Smaller animals are a lot more tedious to work on so I like to work on the bigger stuff.”
Perhaps one of the biggest strengths of their business is the desire to be involved with their local community and serving its members as a small business.
“We know a lot of people in our local community, we know a lot of hunters and fishermen,” Witt said. “We strive to do the best quality work possible for all of our local people.”
Though the hunting season only recently started, Witt and Pittman have already had a few jobs and each customer has left with what they asked for.
“We take a lot of pride in our work. We strive to always do better work,” Witt said. “It’s just nice to do quality work for people and see them go home happy.”
