High School Taxidermy Class: Excellent Learning Experience or Completely Unnecessary?

Despite many of our strong beliefs for animal rights, we’ve all (mostly) come to terms with the fact that animal dissection is an essential learning experience of any science major’s curriculum. Sure, it kills me a little bit inside knowing how often my friends have to cut into these poor, little animals—but, I get it. However, when I read about a new taxidermy class offered at a Michigan high school, I was taken aback quite a bit. After all, taxidermy isn’t nearly as necessary for students as dissection can be. And honestly, it’s a little too Norman Bates-ish for me.

            While recreational taxidermy is initially off-putting given the idea of stuffing a dead animal, I’m more disturbed by the means of retrieving the dead animals that the high school students experiment with. Croswell-Lexington High is located near Lake Huron, a place where hunting is still permitted and widely popular. In fact, teacher Kyle Hubbs suggests hunting as one of the various ways for students to get the animals to work on in class. He says, “They can hunt it. They can pick it up as road-kill. Or they can trap it.” I never thought I’d say this, but in this case, picking up road-kill sounds like the best option.

            Though I don’t support hunting or trapping animals with the intent to kill (much like many other Californians), I can’t control the people and states that do. However, it upsets me that the school is not providing the animals for the students. I know that the animals used for dissection are often animals from shelters that would have been euthanized regardless of whether or not a school needed them as resources. While I still question whether or not the shelters always have valid enough reasons to euthanize the animals, it seems more ethical to be provided the animals that way—especially when we’re not really sure how the students are killing the animals that they use.

            With all of this being said, it’s concerning that high school students are given this “privilege.” Sure, some high school students are more mature than others, but there are less students whom I could trust are taking this class for purely educational purposes. Student Matt Barker, who trapped an opossum in his grandfather’s backyard, admits, “I’m gonna take and make some earmuffs out of this, actually.”

… Did he really just say that? In 2016?

            Of course, I don’t know the students taking this course and I can’t assume they all have irresponsible intentions. In fact, some of the students explained that they value the course as a learning experience (though I’m not too sure what taxidermy teaches students other than to skin, bleach, and “recreate” animals). But, if Barker’s comment is any indication of why his peers are taking this class, then Principal Ryan Cayce may need to rethink this new addition to students’ curriculum.