REAL TAXIDERMY: It’s July of 2017 and I am wishing I hadn’t come to the Harvard Natural History Museum alone. Mostly I wish I had gone straight to the museum gift shop instead of attempting to capture unrealistic portrayals of animals posed in the museum’s taxidermy dioramas. I spent a while near a grizzly bear on its hind legs, kneeling in front of a tiger with its mouth agape, both seemingly about to pounce at their prey. What I should have been doing was inquiring about the cardboard taxidermy kits for sale in the museum gift-shop. Is this how you take the art home with you, like the scarves printed with Van Gogh scenery? (Insert a quote about taxidermy and objects of desire here). What I know is that fake taxidermy, such as this cardboard elephant head, does not require the death of an elephant or dismemberment of its body. Is this the compromise mainstream consumers are making for their yearning for nostalgic, authentic animal trophies without the guilt or stigmatization of hunting the animals themselves? All in the spirit of “preservation” and “conservation,” I suppose.