Maria / 19 Sep, 2007 at 09:52 am
I was wodering if anybody else suffers from fear of taxidermy. I can deal with small birds, maybe a squirrel, but any bigger than that I just have to cover my eyes and be led out of the room. Bears are the worst, especially if standing on to legs. The natural history museum would be my worst nightmare.

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Sonya Gonzalez / 24 Aug, 2010 at 03:43 pm
yes yes yes..im not alone..it freaks me out so bad..any store or restaurant or museum..Philadelphia has a giant ox or something with long wooly hair.I couldnt look at it.I think i know where mine came from..as a child i was bitten by a dog..i had to see a plastic surgeon who was a big game hunter..his entire office was covered with dead animals from Africa..

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Xandra / 25 Aug, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I've been known to start shaking/crying and be unable to move when there's taxidermy nearby… totally freaks me out.

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Alma / 18 Apr, 2011 at 07:56 pm
i also have this. Sometimes it’s so bad that I’ll have dreams where taxidermy falls on me, or i am impaled on antlers, or i am forced to put my head in the mouth of a stuffed bear. Sometimes if i see a deer in the wild i freak out because, duh, it looks like taxidermy.

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Toby / 11 Jun, 2011 at 05:59 pm
I too have this fear (well, I’d really call it a phobia at this point.) I once had to accompany children to a nature museum for work, not realizing that the museum would just be rooms FULL of taxidermy animals. Huge panic attack.

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Emily / 29 Jun, 2011 at 11:58 pm
You’re not alone.
I’m twelve years old; since I was about . . . six, I’d say? I’ve been terrified by taxidermy. I went on a trip to Germany a couple winters ago, and the bed & breakfast we were staying in was packed with taxidermy. thank god our room didn’t have anything, but it was humiliating — i literally had to be led in and out of the building by the hand, my head down, so i didn’t freak out. The one thing I could handle was the little bird by the stairwell, but even that sent a shiver down my spine.
For me, the bigger the animal is, the worse it gets. That’s the general rule for me. But all taxidermy just throws me into a state of panic.

The simple idea of animals being killed, having their skins peeled off and smacked up onto the wall is just horrifying for me. The ironic thing is that when I was about three or four, I would apparently visit my friend’s house and go in the basement to play with the taxidermy animals her father kept down there.
I think it was when I was old enough to realize that those things were DEAD animals, not stuffed playthings, that the phobia really started for me.

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Heikold / 20 Jul, 2011 at 03:38 am
I suffer from this and I agree with the size thing – it definitely makes it worse.

Do the others here have issues with things the higher up they are too? I can usually deal with stuff on the floor, but if it’s above my head I tend to freak out.

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jfrater / 19 Sep, 2007 at 09:53 am
Maria: wow – that is fascinating! I love stuffed animals – I just can’t imagine being afraid of them. What do you think brought that on?

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Maria / 19 Sep, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Well, there are no childhood traumas that I can think of, but I have wondered myself why this is, many times, since my reaction is so severe, not just thinking stuffed animals are gross. I simply cannot enter a room if there is one of those things there.

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rebecca king / 20 Jul, 2010 at 04:55 pm
I also have this fear and everyone just tells me its rediculous. Its the first thing I look for in a steakhouse or a cabin. I KNOW that they can't hurt me, but its still just creepy. I am of Indian decsent and my father used to say it was because we could feel their souls. Little strange I know, but its the only explanation I can think of. I just think it is a sick practice that our society needs to let go. I feel it is just as unacceptable as stuffing a human body. Its sick and wrong.

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Amy / 17 Sep, 2010 at 05:14 pm
I am also terrified of any and all taxidermed animals. I have never met anyone else with this fear so I'm glad I'm not the only one. I tried getting over it by waitressing at a restaurant where we had many dead animals on the wall- I only lasted a few months and it was a nightmare for me everytime I walked into work. We had a fieldtrip in 5th grade to a natural history museum, I tried walking in and had to run back out and sit outside the entire time with a teacher b/c I was having a panic attack from going in. Has anyone found a way to get over this fear?! I am okay with fish and the occassional bird but anything else freaks me out. It's also the first thing I look for when I walk into any restaurant or unknown place which could possibly have them…AHHH!

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Wowzer / 24 Sep, 2007 at 08:33 pm
Maria: I sympathise. Though I don’t have a fear of stuffed animals (such as teddy bears, plushes, whatever), I am uncomfortable around taxidermied animals. I haven’t a clue why, but I get away from them as fast as I can (I refuse to enter a furniture store at the local mall because it’s covered in taxidermied elk heads.) Just thought that was noteworthy.

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Maria / 24 Sep, 2007 at 10:56 pm
No exactly! I don´t have a problem with toy stuffed animals, of course, but taxidermy just like you Wowzer. If I suspect that there are any in a store or a house I usually have someone check it out for me. Like in the local Viking restaurant, were I totally panicked and the people there probably thought I was completely crazy…! I am glad I am not the only one!!!

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annie / 1 Aug, 2010 at 06:02 am
I have the same problem! Museums are the worst. I have nothing from my past that could have triggered it. Are you also afraid of wax dummies and things behind glass with spotlights on them like in museums?

Its like Hollywood's version of taxidermists,,they portray them as some skits out wierdos in some dank dark room. Just about every movie Ive ever seen with taxidermy in it, the CRAP they have looks like amateur city- the likes ones finds on EBAY...Ive never seen one DECENT mount in a movie, so that perception becomes ingrained in the deep consciousness..

we had a newer taxidermist who was mounting a hyena

Now for those that don't know, Hyenas are a bit weird and "large", but they have a HUGE amount of "foreskin". This guy had no clue, and when he wheeled into the finish room,,,,,here was this hyena with a nearly two foot long appendage! LMAO!!!