August 27, 2024 – Town of Wayne, WI – Hannah Stolz from the Town of Wayne, WI, took third place in the 2024 World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championship held in Coralville, Iowa. The 21-year-old Stolz entered the non-game bird division.
“I took third, second place is a new friend from the Netherlands, Christel van Ommen-Verdaasdonk and first place is Patrick Rummans my mentor and dear friend,” said Stolz.
The hanging parrot pose was inspired from a photo I found online of a wild one eating a rambutan fruit while hanging in that same pose.
The rambutan fruit I molded from a real one then put together and hand painted . The leaves I were not able to get, so l cut down some very similar veined leaves and molded them.
I made the branch with thin wooden dowels, apoxie sculpt for texture and then painted it.
For Stolz this was the biggest competition she ever entered. “It was also the biggest competition ever held for Taxidermy in history,” she said.
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There were over 800 people attending from 15 countries and 42 US states with a total of 717 entries. The prize package was $42,000 in cash and awards.
“It was absolutely incredible to see the amount of taxidermy and the variety all in one place,” Stolz said. “There were many different people from overseas with all of their unique mounts. After seeing how many were there, I was honestly not expecting to go home with anything.”
Stolz said the competition was rigorous as “nearly every single piece of Taxidermy work was perfect. Very few had any flaws.”
There are a total of 12 possible bird world titles including:
Waterfowl
Game bird
Non-game bird
Turkey
For Stolz, who has a considerable resume, it was very difficult choosing what to enter.
“I had even mounted some previous birds I wanted to specifically take, but they had slight flaws that would be devastating at a show,” she said.
Settling on six mounts, Stolz took a gray crown crane, recreation eagle, paradise tanager, golden pheasant, blue crown hanging parrot and a family of swans.
Only the recreation eagle and hanging parrot placed.
The recreation eagle took third in the recreation division. “Many people think the eagle is real or that I pick up fallen eagle feathers to re-create it,” she said.
“Even picking up an eagle feather is illegal. I use a variety of domestic bird feathers to create it.”
“I color and trim the feathers to size and shape, and the head is a cast I made from a female bald eagle,” said Stolz.
“The feet I hand sculpted with clay then molded them to give me an exact cast set. Then everything is assembled piece by piece.”
