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Retrieving the Arrow
Published: 2012-08-05 07:56:47 +0000 UTC; Views: 20516; Favourites: 1116; Downloads: 0
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Description
This was project intended to exemplify humanity's modern disconnection from Nature. The hunter is wearing modern clothes and exists in a modern setting, yet is using primitive weapons and techniques to 'survive' in a world which has been all but destroyed by Man's inability to live in harmony with the planet.The wolf in the image is called Teva. She's my personal headdress. She and her sister were both removed from a population in Southeast Alaska by a friend of mine who works with the State Fish and Wildlife Department in population control.
Once Teva was tanned so that she could not rejoin the Earth, I purchased her to make her into the headdress above. Due to some damage to the leather and a missing rear foot, her hide was not deemed suitable for traditional taxidermy and would be otherwise bound for the fur market to be made into clothing instead.
She is the first wolf I ever mounted, and Iβm very pleased with the way she turned out considering. From start to finish, it seemed that Tevaβs creation from tanned pelt to finished headdress came together like a dream.
Photography by Teddy Anderson. Editing and taxidermy by me.
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Comments: 412
The more people like me the less people like you? Sounds fair enough to me.
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More people like me and less like you. You advocated for it, why not do it?
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Ah! Then you should go on a rampage against the Vatican as they're trying really hard to tell people all over the world that birth control is evil...
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Well I don't belive in God and I don't want to have anything to do with catholic freaks. So yeah...
Plus, who the hell cares? You have your own brain right? I do too, everyone does.Β Whatever dumb b**** believes that birth control is "evil" has either been brainwashed or not well educated. People that believe that BS shouldn't reproduce either.
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You hit your head on the nail there, but the people are not dumb, just lost. This is happening in Africa where millions of poor and starving humans have lost all hope. Now, if you add fear to their minds such as telling them that they will burn in hell if they use birth control... well, guess what's gonna happen?
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again... humans *sigh*Β Β Give them the f*cking possibility to grow their economy, education etc and see for yourself. We are destroying our own kind. Simply because of skin color for that matter...Β
Fear is blinding. But you have to create something to be afraid of, therefor I call christians bullshit-worshippers.
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Well, the human race will be gone in about 100 years. But it wont be through war, it will be through medicine. We are making a lot of different virus resistent against drugs. We will all die soon because of this...Β
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Honestly, I wouldn't mind to live the day "the world ends". Meteor-impact for example.
Β
By the way,some species(cockroaches for example)are hard to get rid of ->Β Humans are so rotten they'd survive bad times easily. Prolly Ending up eating each other. If they have to.Β
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I wouldn't eat a human, our flesh got a foul taste thanks to everything we eat...
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I'd rather eat a human than my dog/cat/cow/Horse.... No matter whan you won't see me intentionally kill any animal... well except spiders and mosquito's hahahah
I know there are people who eat tarantullas(or however you spell that) but the idea of putting a spider in my mouth makes my stomache wanna crawl up and come through my throat kicking and screaming like a little bitch haha
Β
I've watched an interview about cannibals. They say human tastes like chicken.Β I'd never want to try it, but in case of "to live or to die" I would eat your leg before you'd eat mine, sorry bro. hahahah
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Don't you worry, I wont eat you. Im just gonna kill you for sport!
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Was thinking the same over here.
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Population control on human...You're a human, so...practice what you preach?
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I'm going to repeat myself on every stupid reply to my post.
I'm not like you people. By population control I'd lean towards : Don't let some people 'breed' and spread their genes hehe.
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I don't know how that was a stupid reply, you're the one who didn't fully explain yourself in your original post. Besides, what is "you people" supposed to mean? How do you know everyone who agree with animal population-control don't also agree with human pop-control? Or that "you people" are just art-lovers tired of the same old regurgitated nonsense posted by fanatics on every piece dealing with leather/taxidermy?
And by having some people not breed means that most people will still be contributing to the ever growing human population...
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I admit. I should've been more clear about my opinion in the first place. Honesly, I wouldn't mind if the whole world would had a 1-child limit. Some people breed like rabbits, even worse.
Β
I understand it might be tiring to hear the same thing over and over again. But it's allso not okay to defend killing wildlife no matter what?
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While I agree on the 1-child rule (I myself personally don't even want kids), population control is a very serious issue, even when it comes to loveable animals like wolves. Where I live, for example, there's such a large deer population, the deer not only outnumber humans, but it's coming to the point where the deer are starving to death because they eat out all their food. I hunt deer because one can easily feed a family for 6 months and hunting is good population control (unfortunately, there are not enough hunters in my region to really make a mark).
In terms of wolves, they live in packs, they need to kill more. Eventually it gets to the point where there is more predators than prey. Wolves are competing with mountain lions and bears for the same animal whose population is dropping. I like wolves but I can see the reason for the population control. We could let nature take its course and let the wolves overhunt their food and eventually all the predators die out from the area due to starvation (or they end up moving). Idk, population-control is a very touchy subject, either humans can try to keep populations balanced with guns and relocation, or we can let the population devour itself.
I didn't mean to just ramble on, some other thoughts came up in mid-type.
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I understand your point. But I can totally imagine a balance point between birth control (humans) and nature having a free hand. Eventually, there would be a 50/50 stance and there would be no need to disturb the way things roll in the wild, nor would humans be disturbed by nature.
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True, but as they say, easier said than done.
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Wow, this is a really cool looking headdress. All the others I've seen on DA look just like a pelt flopped over their heads.. which just looks silly. The arms being wrapped and tied around really add to it too. I'd like to own something like this, maybe a bear or coyote... but I know it'd be expensive to buy one and i don't have the skills to make my own.
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Grats on the DD! You definitely deserve it- your work is always stunning!
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I don't know why, but this image somehow disturbs me. Just the fact that you call the wolf by name, and then call her 'your personal headdress' like you own her.Β Don't get me wrong! I have nothing really against you or your artwork, I just don't believe that kill animals is an appropriate way to control a population. I understand that people used to use animal skin as a means of keeping warm, and some people still do, but in this image, it doesn't look at all like you're using this wolf to stay warm; you're just using her as an accessory. Also, back when people killed animals for warmth, they used every bot of the body. Did you use the wolf's bones, too? Did you eat her for nutrition? I highly doubt it.
This wolf, and her sister apparently, were killed and their bodies used in a way that I find to be very disrespectful.
Feel free to disagree with me. I'm simply getting my opinion out there.
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The wolf certainly doesn't care what happened to it's body after death. It is dead after all, and has no further need for it. That's a fact; not opinion. And any opinion worth listening to is based on fact in my book.Β
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Of course the animal doesn't care what happened to it's body after it's dead. I never said that this wolf cared, I said that I found it to be disrespectful. We don't go around wearing dead humans as accessories, even though they are dead and 'wouldn't care', because that would be disgusting. I find it equally disgusting to wear animals, things that were once alive, as if they are objects. It's unnecessary.
I never asked you to agree to my opinion, but I believe everyone's opinion has a right to be heard and listened to even if you disagree. If you refuse to even listen to others opinions, then you are a very closed minded individual.
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I actually wear human bones and teeth as adornment all the time. Besides, what about leather? And what about meat? Or for that matter, what about products made from palm oil? If you wipe your ass with more than 6 sheets of toilet paper each time you shit, you're doing more harm to the environment than I am by recycling a long-dead wolf.Β
Yes, you have a right to an opinion. But an opinion based on emotional bias and no actual logic or fact is hardly worth listening to.Β
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Look, I didn't comment to argue. I could argue with you all day about how eating meat is different than wearing a wolf, because once you eat the meat of an animal you are putting it to use. Leather? Also WAY different than what you did in this picture. I don't know enough about palm oil to argue anything about that, and I never said anything about the environment being harmed by you 'recycling' the wolf's body.
And, you know what? I actually agree about opinions being flawed if they have no factual base, but the fact to my opinion is this: This wolf was killed, simply because it's population got too big, which makes it seem like it was killed for no reason to me (that is an opinion, as there may very well have been a good reason she was killed). Couldn't the wolf simply have been relocated? Now, if the wolf being alive was putting lives of humans in danger, I can understand why she needed to be terminated.
I guess the fact that she was killed just because her population got too big is really what gets to me. You had nothing to do with the killing of this animal, you simply used her body after she was dead, and while it does disturb me, I didn't mean to offend you or anything like that.
The more I think about this, the more I see how I was wrong to post my truly emotion-based opinion. I'm just very much against the killing of animals if their is no reason behind the animal being killed, and seeing the beautiful wolf being used as a headdress made me incredibly sad and I felt impulsed to comment. D;
I should have thought it through before commenting, and I'd like to apologize for wasting your time with this meaningless argument I created.
Again, I didn't mean to offend you. You and the wolf are both beautiful. I would just rather see the wolf alive.
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How is eating meat or wearing leather any different from using fur? Most people do not need meat in order to live; plenty of people live on a completely meat-free diet. Meat, then, is consumed purely for selfish reasons by many people. I eat meat because I believe that as a human animal, it's in my nature to be omnivorous, and I have lived for weeks on end without consuming it. I don't need meat to survive, but I chose to eat it because that's the way that nature created me.
Leather is literally just fur without hair follicles on it. It's actually worse for the environment than fur because the process in the tanning stage which removed the hair makes use of harsh chemicals, whereas hides tanned with the fur on are treated much more gently. I get that you "don't want to argue" but when you make a statement which is not backed up by facts and which has no logical foundation behind it, I can't help but point out the obvious discrepancies in your remarks.Β
It's okay to be sad that the animal is dead. I would personally rather see her alive, too. But the fact of the matter is that she's not, and there's nothing anyone can do about that. The best that can be done is ensuring that her remains are cherished and given a renewed purpose so that they are not wasted. That is my job as a taxidermist.Β
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The wolf headdress is amazing!
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Teva looks like a husky T.T
Beautiful artwork.
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Wonderful piece. The concept is great, and so is execution. The taxidermy looks really nice 
Also - It's so weird to me how people think the wolf head-dress ruins the connectivity with nature -message. How I see it, getting seriously in touch with nature would require going back hunter-gatherer kind of culture. Hunter-gatherer, not (traditional) agriculture. As I see it, that was where humans started getting separated from nature.
We used the depend on killing animals to get meat, clothing and a lot of other things we produce mostly industriallyΒ today.Β Back then people understood that using other living beings for your own survival was nature's way, and I dare to say most people had respect toward the prey animals. As without them, life would could have been very difficult.
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Excellent! You hit the nail on the head here. So many people want to think that living with nature means existing in some kind of Disney-esque alternate reality where animals are all our friends and help us do chores and stuff. The reality is that ancient humans lived as a part of nature as omnivores, which means that they were often the predator in animal-human relationships. That was survival, and it was a beautiful thing. People seem to forget or deny that humans are animals, and that do have a place in the food chain. We are not at the top. But we are not at the bottom, either. There is balance in nature, and denying it is what's made modern humans such destructive creatures.Β
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"People seem to forget or deny that humans are animals, and that do have a place in the food chain."
I think so, since we started creating farms of livestock out of pigs, cows, horses, sheep, chicken etc.
Population control by "killing" just doesn't come right for me. In the past, ancient humans were eating the killing, they were wearing the furs in harsh weathers. (I know furs are worn and needed nowadays as well.)
This was everything for the sake to survive. But now? Are there really no ways of controlling the population other than killing? The wolf species are way less than the human species. I believe that we have no right to do such thing, as our population itself is quite huge and devastating.
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Irregardless of whether it is 'right' or 'wrong', biologists and Alaska's Fish and Wildlife Department will continue to allow population control hunts on wolves while their numbers are strong. The hides are a byproduct of these hunts, and are usually sold at Fish and Wildlife auctions to raise money for other conservation efforts around the state. So long as they are around, someone may as well make use of them instead of letting them go to waste.Β
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There actually is a need for population control- if animals become overpopulated in an area then there can be a shortage of food for those animals and they can become sickly and then they will die because there isn't enough of a food source for that many animals in a place. Population control is strictly regulated. It really doesn't matter their population compared to ours- there are always going to be many more people than wolves but population control is necessary to keep the animals living in an area actually healthy.
Β I do know that many people who participate in population control do also practice taxidermy so those parts of the animal are definitely not wasted and quite a few put the animals remains (like meat that cannot be eaten) out back in the area for the wild life to feed on. There are exceptions to every rule of course but most people are not just killing for the joy of taking life of the animals.
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so barriers would be of no help at all? 
I didn't mean to redirect wolf population vs. human population, but why are the animals in general the only part which experiences "population control" directed by a long ago over-sized, damaging, population?
the human kind who is overpopulated and is driving extinction faster than species can evolve also endangers forests and erases animal habitats : www.environmentalgraffiti.com/β¦
We are 7.106 billion.
"wasted" and "not wasted" can only be determined by the human kind. The fact that the wolf died, in some way or another unfairly, won't change. You are alive, and can say that.
Ancient humans killing wolves for fur and meat to survive and us killing wolves for "saving species" and "livestocks" are so different. My opinion...
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I understand that humans are very overpopulated- but it's kind of illegal to mass cull people... "against humanity" or something like that.
I don't think animals really care about human barriers.. They'll find a way around them or through them.. and who is going to pay for that? Do you have infinite resources to put up countless amounts of barriers and provide food for those animals once they have used the resources in that area. Animals die.. animals are killed and eaten and it's a fact of life.. These animals are no longer hunted to extinction. Population control is again very strictly regulated so that things like that don't happen. And not all areas call for this either.
"the wolf died, in some way or another unfairly" since when has life been fair or death for that matter. No one dies and says "that was fair and good" you die.. death is part of life.. everything comes to it's end. I would rather an animal die of being shot and killed quickly than wasting away due to lack of food/resources or widespread mange and things of that sort.
minotaur-queen.deviantart.com/β¦ is a good journal to read in regards to humane death opposed to natural death by the elements.
And how is it any more unfair for a wolf to die than say a cow- it's okay for the cow to die because they were bred for that purpose?
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oh but of course it would be illegal. I didn't even think of that so directly. How about limiting the whole planet population reproduction to 1 per person. (I know China failed yes) How about encouraging people to ADOPT abandoned children even if there's a tough process ahead? Holding this desire of having "a child which inherits direct blood" is of course natural but since we are humans, we should be aware of the devastating situation we are in. Not sure how in the world the human population would stop increasing so drastically though. We'll need help from a natural disaster, and by help, I mean, in fact, hell.
They do find ways through the barriers nowadays as well, but why not think of another barrier mode? they have enough examples in zoos / natural reservations...and yes I'm sure it would be very profitable to allow hunting rather than this.
What if humans didn't spread across the land so much? The wolves would have had enough to hunt OR become the main predator, fight with other predators, and die more naturally than by a gunshot. How about humans who hunt the wolves' prey? If you care about their prey, I'd say to not hunt it at all.
Hunt wolves, and the wolf prey population increases. (good for humans, they can hunt deer, elks, caribous and use them in many variations)
Re-introduce wolves, and their pray population decreases. (supposedly bad because a species would disappear, but can't this be managed by increasing/re-placing the deer population in another environment? )
How would you balance those? is killing wolves the only option? killing both?
An unfair death is when let's say your friend dies shot by a murderer in a shop while he could have lived a long, happy life. Death is the end, indeed. But it does have values. Trying to cover or "lighten" the act of culling wolves by saying death is a part of life is quite unreasonable from my point of view.
The species bred for the purpose of human consummation are again, a good example of our current situation. We are domestic, and it's practically impossible for us, everyone to "hunt". We have gotten used to consume the same species over thousand years, and this led to the invention of "livestocks".
The animals bred there have no rights to live from the start, and of course just thinking about it makes me break walls. But I do consume meat, it would have been wonderful if I was a proud vegetarian.
Breeding livestock is the only way for humans to live in the world they created while leaving the important things behind, in a world where the surroundings cannot catch up with their movements.
That's why I'm saying : why hunt for fun, why reduce the population by killing unnecessary deaths that won't do either good or bad to us, why deforestate forests and endanger species?
we have livestocks, and yet hunting deers for their heads and trophies is horrible. Hunting polar bears for their FUR when they're massively endangered is miserable.
I'm done. Thank you.
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The problem with adoption is both the parents and the children have to be fit and able. Not just anyone can walk into an orphanage and be like I want that one! and just take that child home. And adoption is very costly. And there are people desperate for children without the money to go through the adoption method and they are going to have children of their own. It's a crappy cycle I know... I don't agree with it.. I agree that humans are over populated and we do destroy quite a bit. But right now there aren't many people working on a change for that.
Wolves are not the only animals that rcv population control- deer and other animals do as well. That is why there are hunting seasons. And there are also strict restrictions on hunting as well. You are only allowed to take animals of a certain age-gender etc etc and only a certain amount.Β " yes I'm sure it would be very profitable to allow hunting rather than this." This has nothing to do with it being profitable.. I am not sure if you noticed but the world isn't particularly keen on spending enormous amounts of money to help preserve animals which is ignorant and a shame. But you must understand if no one hunts the animals to control their population they will grow as numerous as people and then where will we be? People will be killing them anyhow because they would be in too close proximity of people and humans don't like that... There would be billions of animals with no where to go and nothing to eat.
I am in no way trying to lighten the death of the animal. But you are implying that taxidermy is disrespectful to the animals when it isn't. We are giving them a chance to be loved and respected even after their death.
I would like to also note that polar bears are no longer hunted for pelts except by poachers. It is illegal to hunt them as they are on an endangered species list. The people here who happen to own polar bear parts have preban parts that were harvested before it was illegal and most are handed down. While I don't support the fact they were killed I know that they are treated with respect.
Taxidermists love animals.. if they didn't then they wouldn't spend so much time with them.
I am sorry you aren't willing to understand two different sides.
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Very true. And sadly most people use the "humans are animals too" arguments only to support the statement that anything living shouldn't be killed for any reason. Makes me sad how twisted view so many people who claim to love nature/animals have of these things. In my eyes it's pretty much as bad as people who don't care about nature at all, or downright hate e.g. wolves and want to kill them all.
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Amazing pic Milady~ and I am glad you showed respect to the wolf and made something worthy of it~ I have an old fox skin, that was my grandmothers. I bear it on my wall, alongside my coat of arms, as a sign of respect. -chuckles- I also bear the name "Fox Knight"
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