Sussex taxidermist shows how it's done
Mark Van Leuven stuffs his turkeys with urethane molds, serves it with feathers and charges about a thousand bucks a bird.
That's the taxidermist's recipe for the perfect turkey - the kind that looks better dead than it did alive.
Van Leuven has a few in his shop, each frozen eternally in flight. Want to win a Mannequin Challenge? Bring your cellphone to Van Leuven's display room.
There, you will find fish in midjump, raccoons in midforage, a variety of birds in midflight, a baboon on all fours, a wild boar on the prowl and antlered deer heads mounted, along with gazelle and other horned game.
Van Leuven's shop is in Beemerville, right across from Space Farms Zoo in Sussex County. The largest piece in his showroom, a giant white elk, came from the zoo's herd.
"It died of natural causes," Van Leuven said.
He's won taxidermy awards for that animal. And for the cute little bear cub that Van Leuven set in a trout stream, stealing a fish from a fisherman's basket, and many, many others.
"That's one of my favorite pieces," Van Leuven said. "The little guy got hit by a car. That's how I got him."
Van Leuven was this year's Taxidermist of the Year in New Jersey and New England. In a room full of still, glassy eyes, it's hard not see the shiny trophies and silk ribbons he's won in his 26 years in the business.
"It was something I always wanted to do," said Van Leuven, 61, who lives in nearby Wantage. "I always loved animals. I was always in the woods, hunting, fishing. That's what we did."
After a few years in the building trade, Van Leuven taught himself the art of taxidermy and now teaches classes.
"People don't understand what we do," he said. "They think we kill the animals. But when they come here and want their pet preserved, then they understand."
Yes, through swinging doors with "employees only" signs that lead to the back shop where Van Leuven does the work not for the squeamish, there were three cats whose remains were ready to be mounted, and a lap dog of some sort, caught in mid-yap.
"Pets are becoming a big part of the business," Van Leuven said.
This time of year, "I got a place full of deer heads," he added. "Watch your step."
But twice the antler of the six-point buck, whose head was in a bag, tripped him up. The six-pointer was one of several fresh deer brought in, awaiting the 10-month journey from forest to man cave.
This begins with Van Leuven stripping all the meat and fat from the flesh, extracting the skull and bones, washing the skin and degreasing it, then shipping it off to a tannery in Michigan. When they come back leathery, Van Leuven glues them to the urethane models that have replaced the old plaster and papier-mache methods.
Birds are a different feather, altogether.
"Birds are much harder," Van Leuven said. "You have thousands of feather patterns to match up. All those feathers are like shingles. You have to lay them on top of each other and line them up."
To fully preserve and mount a turkey costs about $1000, compared to about $600 for a typical deer head.
"It takes about three days of work just to get the feathers right," he said. "For a deer, you just glue the skin down and brush it out."
Turkey hunting in New Jersey is more popular than most people think. The state issues about 12,000 permits for the one-month spring gobbler (male) season from mid-April to mid-May. Last season, more than 3,000 birds were taken.
In the one-week fall season, in late September, birds of either sex can be hunted.
"You can't go out and get a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving," Van Leuven said. "You have to freeze it. It didn't use to be that way."
Back in the day, wild turkeys almost disappeared from New Jersey woodlands. But a restoration project in 1977 led to a resurgence. From 22 imported birds, the population of wild turkeys is now about 20,000.
Most turkey hunters don't want to spend the money to memorialize the whole bird, so Van Leuven offers options to display the tail feathers and beard on wood mounts.
"The feather and beard are really the trophy pieces," he said. "We can do that for $150."
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.