In the Eyes of a Tanner - Part 2
In part 1, I hope you saw the importance of getting the skin off the carcass and freezing, salting or just plain getting it to your taxidermist as soon as possible. If you are a taxidermist reading this, make sure you impress this subject upon your clients. If your clients are hunting overseas well, I guess its Russian roulette so to speak. Some countries in Africa are getting better however; work is still needed in the salting and curing process to assure a good quality skin of those trophies.
In part 2, we will explore bacteria, the good and bad of it.
So, put on your thinking caps and let’s get to it.
We’ve all heard about the “Big Bang” theory right? Some astronomers claim the Universe was created by a big bang. However, if you look a little deeper into this, it could not have been “BIG” because according the scientific community; it started with nothing more than an Atom. We all know how minuscule an atom is. The Radius is one tenth of a billionth of a meter. According to some, there are as many atoms in a cube of sugar as there are stars in the universe. My friends, that’s really small. Also, because there is no air in space there could be no sound. So, “Big Bang” is an over statement.
Something did in fact happen to create all of this wonderful stuff and whatever you choose to call it, it happened. It happened in such a precise way that, my belief is; a higher power than what I can fathom had a hand in it and has its hands in it every waking and sleeping hour of the 23 hours 56 minutes it takes for the earth to rotate once on its axis.
It took billions of billions of years to get where we are today. Where we are today is wonderfully becoming. Each day is still becoming. This is an ongoing process of evolution. This it must be, else it would not be. Think about that for a minute……..each day is a new day but, in reality it is just a continuum. The difference is; it got dark and light and so we humans put a time frame on that calling it….yesterday, today and tomorrow. However, all in all, it’s really just space or time as we would call it or as in Einstein’s theory of special relativity. (Look it up, it’s interesting)
Okay, enough of that, onto bacteria.
Scientists have discovered bacteria dating back as far as 3.5 billion years Precambrian. Fossilized bacteria such as, Cyanobacteria or blue green algae are amongst the oldest. These were found in Western Australia. The area in which they were found is rich with fossils of the bacteria type. The University of Western Australia used advanced chemical analysis to determine how old the fossilized bacteria are. This bacterium is quite possibly the oldest signs of life on earth. That is until they find another.
It is truly unbelievable how much time and money is spent each year to try and figure out the source of the origin of life as we know it. The study of bacteria is call “bacteriology” a branch of microbiology. What’s interesting about all this is the fact that bacteria are an organism that’s really hard to kill. Think about it, researchers have been able to find 3.5 billion year old bacteria (the cells can no longer be seen under a microscope) however, they can see the large clusters of microbes or the scales structures that the microbes constructed before they died.
So what does all this mean?...That trophy of a life-time is filled with bacteria. It is a must to stop the degrading of the proteins if you are to have a skin that will not slip or rot before it has a chance to go through the conversion process.
We need bacteria to live. There are many good things bacteria does that help sustain life on this planet. For example…in recycling nutrients, nutrients have many cycles that are dependent upon these organisms such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere and putrefaction which we talked about in part 1. A bacterium, by converting dissolved compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide and methane into energy is a good thing. According to researchers microbes are everywhere. They thrive where they are and are very adaptable to conditions.
The bad bacteria are pathogenic and cause infectious diseases. If you look back through the pages of history, one might remember some of these diseases. Leprosy, bubonic plague, cholera and yes, even syphilis. We humans have done a pretty good job at keep most of the bad bacteria a bay but, you still see it today with the flesh eating disease “Necrotizing Fasciitis,” it still remains. The most common fatal bacteria diseases are in the respiratory. Both of my parents died of respiratory disease. My mom had a condition called “Sarcoidosis” which is an inflammatory disease that affects multiple organs but mostly the lungs. My Dads was pretty much self-inflected…..smoker. If you smoke, stop it now. Your lungs can repair most of the damage “YOU” caused. However, if you already have emphysema, it’s too late. The tiny air sacs in the lungs are destroyed and this is irreversible damage. The good news is this; if these sacs are only partially damaged they may begin to repair themselves. So, stop smoking!
Okay, I’m done with that…For now.
You see, It’s so important to make sure you as a taxidermist or hunter to do everything you possibly can to make sure you stop the growth of bacteria and it’s spores as soon as you can and let us, the tannery, use all the specialized products we have at our exposure to keep them at bay. Let me just say this, it is not the tanneries fault your skins slipped. I have actually had taxidermists tell me, “It’s always the tanneries fault.” It seems like every time our QC department makes “the call” the taxidermist is shocked, even though, there was a note on the acknowledgement of a rancid smell when we checked it in.
If you’re fleshing your own skins it wouldn’t hurt to use salt on the cape or hide while you’re fleshing it. When you’re turning the lips, eyes and nose, your thumb placement will generate heat in that area and the bacteria will be teaming up and eating a buffet of tannable proteins. Each hair grows from a tiny sac filled with life giving nutrients to that hair. When the bacterium takes over that sac, the hair falls out. Also, included in the schema of bacteria in animals, are the bears. I can’t tell you (other than what I’ve already explained) how important it is to completely flesh “ALL” the heavy grease and fat off the bears and fully dry them. If you’ve ever gotten a bear back from a tannery only to find dandruff, 9 times out of 10 it is because they didn’t get properly fleshed, salted and fully dried. Here, I want to explain why it is so important to salt dry your capes and hides. As I mentioned above, each hair grows from a tiny sac. That sac if fill with fluid. When you apply salt to the skin and really rub it in, that salt draws out all of the moisture from the skin as well as from that tiny little sac which in turn causes the sac to shrink up like a raisin and grip that hair and hold it in place. My disclaimer here is this; if that sac has bacteria in it, when that skin gets to the tannery and begins the wetting back process, the bacterium which has been lying dormant, comes back to life and may in fact cause the hair to fall out anyway. You may be thinking, “What’s one hair?” Well, it’s not so much one hair but more along the lines of an area filled with bacteria. Think of the area as the size of a quarter, that’s hundreds if not thousands of hairs. Now, multiply the area times three, or more. That’s a problem. If your bears are really greasy, it will be next to impossible to get them fully dry and that is okay as long as it’s just interior grease. This is something common with bears.
With small mammals, their bodies are teaming with bacteria. These little buggers are playing volleyball, soccer, football and whatever other game they can find to destroy these valuable proteins. (I’m just kidding about the games. Though it would be fun to watch through a microscope; THROW THE FLAG!!!) Anyways, always wear rubber gloves even in the field. If you don’t have any with you when you kill it, make sure you wash your gloves when you arrive home. If you happen to get blood or interior matter on your glove and you don’t wash it, the next time you pull a sandwich from your back-pack and scarf it down may be a trip to the hospital. It won’t be food poisoning that got you; it’ll be coyote guts bacteria. Explain that to your doctor or worse, your wife….It will probably be some time before you get a kiss from her again.
We’ve come to the end of this segment and I hope this gives you a bit of insight as to bacteria and the effect it has on you and or the animals you harvest. I hope as well, my humor hasn’t offended any of the readers, but, that’s my way of teaching and I like to have fun with it. After all, if you can’t have fun while working, you’re in the wrong line of business. As I mentioned in part 1, there are many types of bacteria. As many as 100 trillion live in the stomach alone so; there isn’t enough space or time to go over all of them.
The next time you’re skinning and/or fleshing a skin, as a taxidermists or hunter, ask yourself a couple of questions; is what I’m doing right now helping or hurting the outcome of this trophy? If you answer to yourself anything other than helping, you have some work to do. You need to figure out what’s more important right now. Goofing off, procrastinating, or taking care of the business at hand?
In part 3 let’s look at collagen as this the most plentiful protein.
Until then, I’m Mark Marlette
