I was looking back through my archives and found this photo, which was sent to be by a reader one time: Mike, I don't know anything else about this other than it is cool as hell! The message with the picture read: From the World Taxidermy Championship. Notice how carefully this was put together...look at each angle and consider, there are no ropes or lines holding any of this up. The lion is held up by its tail, where it contacts the zebra leg, and the entire mount is supported by the zebra’s back leg. Pretty amazing. Yes, cool as hell. Might be the best taxidermy work I’ve ever seen.

In its latest study on outdoor recreation the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) reports that 11.5 million people hunted in 2016, and of those, 9.2 million hunted big game.  Take away I million or so that hunted mule deer and elk (my estimate) and that leaves more than 8 million that hunt the white-tailed deer each year. As I have long said, hunting the whitetail is what supports our industry. If whitetail herds were to crash significantly across the country, it would be devastating. That is why the threat of Chronic Wasting Disease is so concerning. Back to the survey, the 11.5 million hunters spend about $25.6 billion a year on licenses, equipment, trips, gas, land leases, etc. That [...]