Lady Taxidermist

Hunting Belle Fontaine Melissa Wells loves her profession as taxidermist even when it involves an alligator.

by Jere Hough

Published: Mon, September 22, 2008 - 10:17 am CST

In the shop where Melissa Wells practices taxidermy, the walls and floor are full of creatures great and small, fierce and gentle...some of them seeming to stare you down.
Here is where birds and animals are stuffed or mounted or, most properly, taxied.
Years ago a family friend showed her how to mount fish. "About two years ago," she says, "I told my husband I really wanted to get back into taxidermy, and so I went to school."
She was the only female in the class, but was told that each term there were usually one or two women.
Wells is not a big person, but some of her projects are...like the alligator she and her husband took during last year's hunt.
"He actually weighs over two hundred pounds. He's only nine foot nine. But that alligator took a lot to clean out...It's not hard work. It's tedious work and it does take a lot of patience."
You have to be creative too. She uses driftwood and dried plants to make appropriate settings.
"The raccoon I have in the shop is actually from Illinois," she explains. "So he has morel mushrooms I put in the habitat to go along with where he's going to be living in his new home now."
She says that properly mounted animals and birds will last a lifetime. The cost varies with the animal: a mounted deer head is around $400, but a taxied alligator...$400 a foot.
Meteorologist Jere Hough holds a mounted wood duck. "Even if you're not a hunter," he says, "you have to agree that a talented taxidermist gives us a unique oportunity to enjoy the beauty of our local birds and animals."
Melissa's business, "Nature's Design Taxidermy Studio," is in the Belle Fontaine Community in South Mobile County. Her phone number is (251) 895-2302.

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