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Outdoors
The Animal Artist
Longtime Flathead taxidermist Bruce Babcock gone, but his legacy of preserving the beauty of wildlife endures
BY TRISTAN SCOTT
Bruce and Trisha Babcock. COURTESY PHOTO
pair of glass eyes peers up from the worktable, casting a watchful glance at the rows of deer mounts, moose and locking elk antlers adorning the walls at the Montana Taxidermist in Kalispell,
as well as the snow-white mountain goat skin and head a few feet away.
Nearby, an Alaskan brown bear lies prostrate on a workbench, its jaws set open like a steel trap, jagged teeth and gums glistening under the shop’s lights. All around the expansive building, piles of wild game skins are stacked, sorted or stretched out in various stages of completion, waiting to be eshed, salted or tanned — and, ultimately, destined to strike a permanent pose that imitates their natural beauty.
For nearly 45 years, the man behind these carnal cre- ations has been Bruce Babcock, who stood out as the lon- gest-working taxidermist in the Flathead Valley, having opened shop in 1972 with his wife, Trisha, and built a reputation as among the best in the business.
As a dedicated hunter, Babcock cultivated a lifelong passion for the pursuit of wild game, but as much as he loved harvesting animals from the wilds of Montana, he was even more dedicated to reanimating them, and pre- serving the specimens as close to their natural state as possible.
It was that spirit that drew Babcock to the business, art and science of taxidermy — after the pursuit of the hunt, he could continue to pursue the beauty he encoun- tered outdoors, while educating himself on the untold
intricacies of the anatomy of the animals.
Babcock’s decades of work came to an end last
month, when on Oct. 22, at the age of 71, he died after an 18-month-long battle with brain cancer, ending a legacy that lled freezers and trophy rooms alike.
When Babcock started the Montana Taxidermist in 1972, there was just one other taxidermist in the region, and he quickly adopted the view that his chosen craft would entail a lifelong dedication to learning its ner points.
Indeed, early practitioners of taxidermy often did so in the name of science, as naturalists like Charles Dar- win learned the trade in order to preserve species for research purposes; had Darwin not learned the skill, he would not have been allowed to travel as a naturalist on the HMS Beagle.
And as modern practitioners can attest to, there is more to taxidermy than merely “stu ng” an animal, which is actually a misnomer — the word taxidermy
“HE HAD A GREAT APPRECIATION OF THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF WILDLIFE AND HE LOVED BEING OUT IN THE WOODS TO STUDY THEM.”
- TRISHA BABCOCK
comes from the Greek words “taxis,” or arrangement, and “derma,” or skin.
“It’s like a big upholstery job,” said Babcock’s wife, Trisha, whose primary responsibilities at the Mon- tana Taxidermist have been sewing and nishing work, including touching up the animals’ faces with paint and sewing the skin and head to a pre-made form.
When the Babcocks started their business, they were still building forms out of papier mache, a tedious job compared to today’s custom of purchasing mannequins that can be sculpted to achieve a desired position.
“It’s a lot easier now because you don’t have to do as much modeling and casting, but his aim was always for accuracy,” Trisha said. “He had a great appreciation of the natural beauty of wildlife and he loved being out in the woods to study them.”
Born in Dillon, Babcock spent his early years in Plains before the family moved to Snohomish, Washington, where his father started a mink ranch. It was during high school while cutting his teeth as a hunter that he began experimenting with taxidermy.
“As a teenager, Bruce did a lot of bird hunting,” Trisha said. “He thought they were so beautiful, so he taught himself to mount them.”
In 1965, he joined the Air Force stationed in Ban- gor, Maine, eventually transferring to the Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, where he met Trisha.
When he and Trisha were married in 1969, Babcock was working on another mink ranch in Everett, Wash- ington, but continued pursuing his passion for hunting
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NOVEMBER 9, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM