Lynx and Bobcat Mounts
by Reimond Grignon
The above is a life size mount of a Canadian Lynx from a tanned hide. In the following pictures you will notice the long ear tuffs and big feet that Canadian Lynx have. They are a beautiful animal.
I love working with all cats. I spend a lot of time with the face and eyes to make the animal look perfectly life like. Their eyes are so expressive!
Here you can see how big the Lynx feet are. They are capable of walking across the top of most any amount of snow. There favorite food is the Snowshoe Hare. You don't see the claws, which are there, because Lynx and Bobcats don't usually walk with their claws extended. God made them that way so that by keeping the claws inside while walking helps to keep the claws perfectly sharp. And they ARE really, really sharp.
Lynx are beautiful animals!
Bobcat Mounts
See how nice and alive my Bobcat mounts are! I spend many hours doing this kind of work and I've been doing it and had my own taxidermy studio since I was 12 years old.
I love working on cats and I would love working on yours!
The bobcat is one of my favorite animals to mount. I love putting cats into all sorts of poses. This large cat was taken in Maine. Bobcats can become quite large up here. The bobcat above is a large bobcat in excess of thirty pounds. He also had quite long ear tuffs, but not as long as a Lynx.
I try to make all mounts look completely alive! It's hard to tell the picture above from a real live animal picture!
The fifty five pound cat is not unheard of and thirty plus pounds is very common. Bobcats are very shy and retiring, being seldom seen by the average person. These animals are extremely shy, almost strictly nocturnal and masters of the art of concealment. They can live in an area and be completely undetected for years.
It has been estimated by the Fish and Wildlife Service that there are well over one Million bobcats in the United States.
The bobcat although seldom seen, is recognized by almost everyone. It has a spotted coat, a face ruff, tufted ears and a bobbed tail. A bobcats tail tip is white with a black bar as in the photo above. A lynx tail tip is completely black.
I like to put a completely natural expression in the eyes and faces of these mounts as shown in the photo on the side. Cats are difficult to mount and to get this natural expression has frustrated many.
The
Snowshoe Rabbit, or Varying Hare, is the natural food of the bobcat. Bobcats
depend on this wild game animal more than any other to exist. It would
be almost impossible for bobcats to survive a Maine winter without the
snowshoe hare. Snowshoe hares are not true rabbits.
Rabbits are born naked and blind. Hares are born with fur and can see from birth. The hares have a much larger territory and when run by dogs can take a barking dog right out of hearing range. Hare also do not hole up in burrows as most rabbits do. They instead with hunker down in brush piles or under witches brooms as this fine mounted animal is shown doing.
The two bobcats below are more examples of my award winning taxidermy work.
Bobcats love to eat Rabbits and whatever else they can catch such as baby fawn deer in the springtime. They would be a favorite food but hard to find. Large Bobcats can also take down much larger deer as well.
The little whitetail fawn pictured here I mounted for our museum and is still on display. The kids that come into the museum really enjoy seeing the young fawn.
I try to put in great detail into my mounts. Notice the fine lines and folds of skin put into these mounts to make them look as natural as possible. These mounts are very difficult to do.
Fawns
when born and during nursing have no scent. They are taught to lie perfectly
still when danger threatens them. The spots and their coloration make
them very difficult to see.
They usually will lie down in denser undergrowth then seen here. They hold so still that humans have been known to stumble upon them. When found you should leave them alone and immediately leave the area. You can rest assured that the mother deer is very close by and has not deserted its baby. If you touch them you are placing your scent upon them making life much more hazardous for the fawn. Both the above fawns were road kills.
This Little bobcat kitten is sneaking up on a something he thinks is food. He might get a surprise when he catches it. He is trying to catch a skunk by the tail in my museum.
The bobcat above is a table mount. Its like a shoulder mount but mounted onto a rock and base. These are becoming quite poplar for many animals, coyotes, foxes, cats, elc.
Below are pictures of my Moose Antler Bobcat Mount
You can see how life like I make my cats look in the picture above. Those eyes are the soul of my mounts. I always strive to make them look as real as possible!
Seriously. Look at the picture above. Can you really tell if this is a live cat or one of my mounts! I try really hard to make all my mounts appear perfectly alive. If your mounts done by others don't look like this, try bringing them to me. I have been doing taxidermy and studying animals since I was 12 years old. I actually had my own taxidermy shop when I was 12 and taking in taxidermy work way back then. I use the best tanning, materials and supplies and spend all the time necessary to put forth the best work I can do. I've won all kinds of awards with my mounts. As per the picture above, it is a close up shot of the cat mount on the moose antler.
Bobcat Close Ups of my 1st Place Winning Bobcat Mount below!
The cat above and below is my first place blue ribbon winner
in a National Taxidermy Competition
It Got A Rating of Perfect !
