This is the 2019 World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships, which gathered some 1000 experts in the art of bringing the dead back to life at the Springfield Expo Centre in Missouri. DAVID CARSON/ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/TNS Taxidermy judge Fred Vanderburgh uses a flashlight to examine the eye of a mounted bison during the 2019 World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships. "This is basically the Olympics of taxidermy," said competitor Ashley Barrett, who has won two Best in the World titles, the equivalent of a taxidermy gold medal. The biggest point-scorers pull off the equivalent of a quadruple axel in the taxidermy world: taxidermy that requires metal work to keep the animals in gravity-defying poses. Then there's the female-dominated subgroup that's been ruffling feathers in the taxidermy world for the last decade: "rogue taxidermy", traditional taxidermy's rebellious cousin.

Source: Stuff May 13, 2019 20:48 UTC