Assignment5

   I think the author wrote this as her travel essay about the time when she went to 2003 World Taxidermy Championships. Orlean starts with describing what she saw there, like dozens of taxidermies , taxidermy equipments. Author continues writing about taxidermy's history. People starts to make taxidermy about 18c, by 1882 Society of American Taxidermists established, annual meeting  and scholarly reports were created and by many people think it's black arts, it temporarily daunted its strength, however about late 1960s its business started to seem more acceptable to people, and again the National Taxidermy Association formed, and many magazines treating taxidermy created. Susan keep telling about taxidermy skills, the factors needed to become a taxidermists, their attitude towards their works, and she introduce regional and global championship of it and websites about taxidermy. Not only that she explained about contenders of the contest, Walker's Panda- made by sewing two black bears.
   As I looked through the essay, this is the piece which introduces a lot about taxidermy. She may start writing the essay to show her experience, however , because it is so precise and contain a lot of informations about taxidermy, It seems like promotion material of taxidermy. I think author wants readers to know more about taxidermy, not just treat them as the thing which feels weird, but the piece of art created by a lot of people's passions to make 'LifeLike' features. I got to feel that as Orlean keep telling about taxidermist's attitude toward their objects. I could feel their seriousness, I got to know their effort to make more realistic figure of nature.

   I had bias about taxidermy before encountering this article. I thought they are weird, and they are only  a bad hobby of cruel poachers. However, I got to know the different aspects of taxidermy, which is not a toy of illegal hunters, but the piece of artwork created by many ardent people who are eager to accomplish one of their life goal, making the most 'LifeLike' objects. I think making the figures of pandas and other extinct or endangered animal is such a cool thing. By this fact, I'm started thinking about taxidermy's potential as keeping earth's history vividly. I think this is similar with author had expected readers to think about the taxidermy after reading the essay because I think unlike her former purpose was to describe her experience and information she got in the World Taxidermy Championship, she got to express her feelings about the attitude of taxidermists and interests in many attractive artifacts of taxidermy.