GARY PEGG: My name's Gary Pegg and I'm a taxidermist. A 'taxidermist' is a person who preserves the skins of animals.

BERNADETTE NUNN: Well, you've got quite a collection here. Tell us about it. Where do all these come from?

GARY PEGG: Oh, some of these are amazing animals, as you can see. They come from various places from around the world - from Africa, from Europe, from Asia. Many of them are favourite animals or pets of persons or else they're taken as trophies of hunters who go overseas and it's a memento of their trip, and others are for scientific reasons and for education.
It all began in my early days as a teenager. We were a very active family actually living up in the country regions of Victoria around Shepparton and we used to go hunting a lot with my parents. On one particular occasion, we took a very prized duck - a black duck it was - and so my father decided to have it preserved. We all went off to the taxidermist. I was just totally amazed with what this man had done and that stimulated an interest for me. Well, my first efforts in taxidermy all came via a correspondence course. It was very difficult and it wasn't until I was 23 that I decided that I should take a trip to America and seek some training overseas because I found it very difficult to get any cooperation from those who knew taxidermy in Australia because it was a very closed scene.
Well, this is an example of a bear from Alaska that was taken by a trophy hunter, and you can see he's a magnificent animal with huge claws on him. This particular animal took us around three weeks to do and that was continual work where we had to sculpture the body and the anatomy and tan the skin. In living weight, he was probably close to 900 or 1,000 kilos, which is a massive animal, but with the use of our modern materials, of course, he's a lot more lightweight and easy to transport and move around. So he's full of what? He's full of, actually, polyurethane foam, which is a modern expanding plastic. The biggest advantage that we have is it's very lightweight, it's a type of material that we can carve, we can reglue and conform to shapes and configurations that we're able to use in our work. We study the anatomy and a lot of reference material in the way of photographs and muscle structure to get the expression right, the stance, the pose.

BERNADETTE NUNN: Is that the hardest bit?

GARY PEGG: Yes, and I think that sorts out, more or less, the good from the bad taxidermy. Some people can stuff animals but they'll never look lifelike.

BERNADETTE NUNN: What are the enemies of the bear when he's stuffed?

GARY PEGG: Well, basically, temperatures, insects which will eat the fur away. They should last for hundreds of years in the correct environment. In the early times, an example like this, which has come in for restoration, are made of plaster and a lot of the skull was used in it and it became a very heavy object to hang on the wall and hence the reason why many of the older mounts that you see are basically mounted just behind the ears - because of their weight.

BERNADETTE NUNN: And this one is made out of...

GARY PEGG: We've used the lightweight material, polyurethane foam underneath, and it is a lot more easy to hang on the wall. It's certainly not gonna pull it down. Last year, we mounted a horse for the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Its name was River Verdon and it came to Australia, actually, as part of its retirement. Well, it's the greatest horse in Hong Kong's history. It's the only horse to win the Triple Crown and it won Horse of the Year three times, so it's a very valuable horse and a very much appreciated horse to the people of Hong Kong.
I won the world title which was a huge, huge buzz for me because it meant that I beat many of the great American and European taxidermists. I won it with a black cockatoo. It was a specimen that had died in captivity here in Australia. There's no other person in Australia that's had that achievement and I'm the only person actually in Australia that's been accredited as a master taxidermist.
I do do a fair amount of work for overseas museums and collections overseas and I've been able to supply specimens to China, to Taiwan, Indonesia. In Asia, they're very keen to learn because they find it very fascinating and it's been very pleasing for me to see this enthusiasm. I've been into China and Taiwan to give some classes and I've actually been asked to give a talk in Indonesia as well. In Australia, it is unfortunate that a number of the people who have been performing taxidermy are starting to retire and there's not so many younger people taking it on I think because it's such a time-consuming craft and it's like many apprenticeships or crafts that are being lost. The younger generation may want everything quickly and they want everything instant and I don't think many of them have the patience to persevere with these sort of things. So I hope that it's not lost to this country, but I don't see too many young apprentices coming on at the moment, so... We'll see. We just hope.