In our current age of ecological awareness and concern for animal rights, natural history museums are experience a strange shift in fortunes from the nineteenth-century heyday of taxidermic glee. The shift seems towards, in part, transforming themselves into museum of the cultural history of nature, if such a thing could exist.  

While amateur taxidermy was once a delightful occupation for even young ladies, it has taken on a darker aura in recent years, perhaps even embodying ruination of nature.

a look at that particularly American flavour of cheese: the Daniel Boone aesthetic. Part tall tale, part Old West, part diner décor, the Boone aesthetic belongs to log cabins and hunting lodges, red plaid shirts, lamps made from deer hooves, and - of course - tacky taxidermy.