BYU taxidermist 'going public' in crafting white rhino display

PROVO — Brigham Young University taxidermy specialist Wesley "Skip" Skidmore will be shaping, carving and stitching for the next several days crafting a life-size southern white rhinoceros for public observation at BYU's Monte L. Bean Museum just southeast of the Marriott Center.

"The whole process will be competed right out there in front of visitors," Skidmore said. "People can see it from start to finish."

The rhino, originally weighing about 3 tons, has been professionally skinned, tanned and donated to the museum by Salt Lake residents Fred and Sue Morris, who acquired a special — and expensive — rhino hunting permit in Africa.

"When I tell my friends we're putting together a white rhino they freak out; they're like, 'Aren't they endangered?"' said Katy Knight, museum education specialist. "But they're really not, not as much anymore."

Although the rhinos have made a strong comeback in numbers within the past century, hunting them legally is still exceptionally rare.

Only about three hunting permits are issued every year, and they have strict conditions: "Only surplus males can be hunted so they don't cut down on the population," said Knight.

The master of taxidermy isn't overwhelmed about putting the third-largest land-dwelling animal on its feet, because he's recently raised the first largest.

"I've already done an elephant," Skidmore said. "So, maybe I'm a little cocky, but this rhino just doesn't scare me."

Other than a few students, Skidmore says, he'll be on his own as he carefully assembles the two-horned "river horse," as it's sometimes called, on a 20- by-24-foot plywood stage in the museum's center atrium.

Knight and her colleges will soon show a 17-minute DVD of interviews with the hunter as well as run a slide show of the rhino's day-to-day taxidermy development, "so people don't miss a thing," Knight said.

Skidmore and other officials would not give a timeline due to uncertainties that arise when building such an exhibit, but the museum plans to keep the display up until Jan. 31.

Museum admission is free and doors are open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information call 801-422-5051.

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