Straight from the Schnare A

How a couple’s love for all animals, alive or dead, led to a rewarding career

By Todd Hollett

As a conservation officer,

one of my goals is to educate as many people, particularly kids, about wildlife, nature and conservation. I often depend on the use of props to teach, especially taxidermy items such as skin mounts, skulls, articulated skeletons and displays. I’m always on the lookout for a source for these items, as they’re not often easy to come by. That’s how I became aware of a small family-run taxidermy business in Nova Scotia that provides quality products to private collectors, educators, museums and research institutions.

Savanna Schnare and Stephan Bakir are the owners and operators of Straight from the Schnare, and they genuinely love what they do. Steph was 14 when he developed an interest in taxidermy. He’d always been fascinated by how things work and had a lot of access to biologists growing up in Gatineau, Quebec. “I was close to the Museum of Nature in Ottawa and spent a lot of time there, and learning what I could from both the exhibits and the staff,” he says.

Savanna always loved animals and found herself gravitating toward them, whether they were alive or dead. She says her introduction to taxidermy in her 20s came through necessity.

Savanna Schnare has turned her love of the natural world into a career.

“After getting divorced, I found myself getting behind in the bills and looking for a little extra income. Hunting season was coming up and while talking to one of my neighbours, he said, ‘There’s no good taxidermists around anymore.’” That got her thinking, “I bet I could do that.” With some help from her good friend, Jim Grandy, and by watching instructional videos from McKenzie Taxidermy Supply, she started doing traditional skin mounts.

“Not long after that I started doing the skeletal side as well; and, needing to speed up the process, I started looking for a dermestid beetle colony.” Finding a Canadian beetle supplier was a problem. Who was the only one she could find? Stephan Bakir. “About four years after that he moved in with me, and we have been working together ever since,” Savanna says.

You’re likely wondering, where do they get their specimens? “We work with zoos, museums, universities, farmers, hunters, trappers, fishers, the public, and sometimes we will even pick up roadkill as well,” Savanna says, adding, “It has taken years to get to where we are now as far as acquisitions go – it’s one of those catch-22 scenarios, you know. You have to have a good reputation and have a good base of work to show for most people to take you seriously; and you have to have a reputable, ethical and legal source in order to build up a reputation.”

The taxidermy process “is a little different for everything,” Savanna

explains. For example, to articulate a skeleton, it may require skinning and defleshing. Dermestid beetles are often used to strip the flesh from the bones, but sometimes bones are left outside or buried and “nature cleaned,” or they use maceration or oxidation to clean the remaining flesh from the bone. After that it’s degreasing in warm, soapy water, which will sometimes take years. “Once all the grease has been leached out, we will then whiten them with a peroxide mixture, dry them and rearticulate it,” she says.

Projects can be completed in as little as a week for a “small, wet specimen,” or over a much longer period for a skeletal mount, which can “vary widely – even if you have two of the same animal, their lifestyle, diet and habitat can affect the amount of grease in the bone, which is the part of the process which generally takes the most time,” Savanna says.

The longest project they’ve worked on is a leatherback turtle skull for St. Francis Xavier University. “When we started it a little over three years ago, it was already just bone, but it was so greasy it was like picking up something covered in old peanut butter,” Savanna says. “We are still degreasing it today.”

They each have favourite projects that they’ve worked on. Steph says his was “a project for a dog rescue a few years back… the skeleton of a specific dog was actually used in the court case to prove that the owner had been abusing the dog throughout its life by showing damage to the bones.” Savanna says, “For me, it is the cow born with Schistosomus reflexus syndrome. It’s a rare and fatal congenital disorder, primarily seen in ruminants. There is a lot going on in these cases – spinal inversion, limb ankyloses, exposed organs and various other malformations in the bone.”

Savanna and Steph are big supporters of education and take requests from educators. “We check them out to make sure it is a legitimate request, and then we do our best to help out – whether it be a grade school, science class, university course, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, museums, department of natural resources, parks, aquariums… really,

One of longest projects Savanna and Stephan have worked on is a skull from a leatherback sea turtle, comissioned by St. Francis Xavier University.

Along with skulls and taxidermy, articulated specimens, such as this porcupine crab, are among Straight from the Schnare specialties.

if someone is trying to educate on any level about nature and conservation, we will do our best to facilitate.” Savanna and Steph have provided me with monkfish skulls, lizard skeletons, various skulls and other items for my education programs and presentations.

When asked about the most rewarding part of their work, Savanna says, “This is going to sound very selfish, but honestly the most rewarding aspect of doing this was and is meeting Steph,” adding that the partnership “allowed me the freedom and courage to quit my job, as a haul truck driver, and spend the last days home with my dog, who was 14 and sadly passed about a month after.” She also appreciates getting to work with Steph and creating pet memorial pieces.

Steph’s answer is very similar in order of importance: “to give me the time I needed with Kilo [their dog], then working together, then educating and finally pet memorials.” Recently, the couple accepted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the Florida Museum of Natural History and Conservation. While they’re looking forward to the Florida heat, they’re most excited about the new experience they’ll gain. “One part of the job is going to be fossil prep, and I have to say I’m pretty excited about that,” Savanna confides. “It’s something that I haven’t done before, and I think I’m going to enjoy that.” She’s also looking forward to working with “a lot of species of fish that we just don’t have here and getting to see them in their natural habitat is going to be amazing.” Savanna explains that seeing how these creatures move and interact in life can only benefit how they are preserved and displayed for posterity.

You can find Savanna and Stephan at Straight from the Schnare on Facebook, and on Instagram @straight_from_the_schnare.