In general the taxidermy in the USA is the apex of the art form world wide. No other country on earth comes even close to the amount of astonishing quality of work.
South Africa, has an enormous volume of work, which reduces the quality time per trophy. It's staffed with marginal skilled workers that have no real concern over the end result. It's just a paycheck. This can be seen in the poor handling of the boiling of skulls and the basic preparation of skins.
I was an instructor at the PH academy to teach trophy handling and preparation. During this time I had quite a few "indigenous" people come through this part of the training to learn the process for the outfitter they were going to work for. They could learn the process mechanically but not emotionally. I know this sounds odd, but it's the best description I can offer. They knew the mechanical process of remove the hide, flesh the hide, and salt the hide. However the emotional aspect of this being an incredibly important item for the hunter was blank. They just slopped the salt on sometimes old used salt and often roughly handled the items.
The tough part for many outfitters is the amount of time invested to get a good skinner up to speed and qualified. They they drift off not really caring, or being properly attentive. Replacement skinners means generally starting over from the beginning and sending the next candidate to the school again. It's a struggle to have the best quality of care from a culture of people that don't grasp the end game or even care. Or at least care for some period of time, they seem to care during the training to get the job, but that fades and your back to starting over.
There are, and have been for me several amazing quality guys that have worked with me a very long time. They are attentive and caring about the trophies. It's difficult to keep them on staff seasonally as they move away or vanish between seasons. Sometimes they just simply vanish during the season for weeks ( after getting some of their pay). Then come back begging to have the job back after having left you in the lurch with 10-15 trophies a day being shot and your best guy just left without a word!
The early preparation of the trophies is critical to the end result. In this we all have struggles from time to time. In our current arrangement our best most experience Skinner has also become a full fledged licensed PH now. So he is on staff all year, he oversees the other skinners and takes this serious. It's the first time in my 25 years we have had such a great resource that completes the circle of the business with confidence.
We had another fella that was equal in every way, but did not speak any english, and had no interest in anything outside of the skinning and tracking role. I could live with that. He was one of the many that eventually passed away under 35 years old from AIDS.
Now that the trophies are properly cared for, they have to go to the dip pack process. We have them dried out as hard as plywood, this process requires they be soaked and processed to meet the global safe shipping regulations from any bacteria or disease etc. This then requires the dip pack to handle them perfectly. Once they are soft and wet again their attraction to hair slip bacteria is enormous.
After this they are again dried in the shade and then crated to be shipped. This crate is going to sit at the airport until there is space on a flight. It's considered non perishable so they are sitting on the outside tarmac often for weeks in the Que waiting to get loaded. This is especially true in Late October through Jan. There is also the complications of this being the warmest time of year, and the the rainy period. If that crate gets wet and the trophies get wet, it's gonna be big trouble upon arrival.
Once these hurdles are managed the crate arrives at the taxidermy shop in America where they get soaked and stretched to order proper sized forms. From there off to the Tannery where they get soaked up again! The fact that any taxidermy gets done with a high level of quality is an amazing accomplishment with the amount of people that have to handle these items with several that don't have a focus on the end result, jut their little piece of the process.
Now when something does not turn out good, or the hair slips, etc. whose fault is it? Think about the process and how many places it could go wrong. It's quite impressive to see African mounts with high quality when you understand the process!
Today I have about 1 in 5 hunters bringing back all the trophies. This is down from 3 of 6 about 5 years ago, which was down from near 100% 15 years ago. The advent of digital photography happened about the same time as trophies being left behind. Coincidence? Maybe, but knowing you have quality photo's on the spot being able to see the pictures the instant they are taken, being able to edit and crop and manage them provided a quality of the hunting memory that became good enough when compared to the cost of the taxidermy.
There are a number of very high quality Taxidermists in South Africa and Namibia. Interestingly many have sent their best guys to the USA to work as apprenticeship taxidermists for a year or more to learn the proper skills and artistic talents they needed. They can do equal work with the quality and skills you would get in the USA. The down side is that the price is also higher then other African based Taxidermy. The savings with shipping and delivery plus the timeline is not going to be much better. It's a tough call to be sure, I'm in no position to tell anyone what to do.
I will give this opinion in closing. Look at the auction houses and Ebay and see what these trophies sell for. It's pennies on the dollar when you're gone and the kids and family have to figure out what to do with them. The space they take up and the value is near zero to anyone but the fella that shot them. I have a client in PA. He has a giant trophy room with well over 100 various mounts and skulls. He bought almost everything from auctions and eBay. He said to me when I visited him,
" I have a beautiful trophy room that consists of trophies that I hunted and now can enjoy seeing them. They are not the ones I shot, But if you look over at the wall that has the fish, they are all fiberglass reproductions from the catch and release. They are not the ones I caught either. With the shipping taxidermy and pack and dip money I have saved, I have gone back to Africa and Alaska 10 times hunting!"
He is the ultimate trophy recycler, with one of the most impressive collections I've ever seen! He hunted and shot every one of the species in there, jut not the "exact" one that's mounted.
