In which Thor concludes his skull-collecting and cleaning misadventures.
Like typical philosopher/scientists of the 19th century, Thor and I have a curio cabinet full of specimens, travel mementos, and stories.
Continuing from last week, take it away, Thor:
PLAN C:
I needed a way to clean skeletons that would be discreet and relatively odorless. I knew that if you left a body in water long enough, it would decay. I got a big rubber trash can, lined it with a large heavy-duty garbage bag, then added water and one dead otter that I had recently acquired. I carefully sealed the whole thing so that no odor would escape. The Rot Bucket. Very clever! Easy, carefree corpse reduction. I let the thing sit for a few weeks and then checked it.
Standing proudly beside my completely odorless and discreet neighborhood Rot Bucket.
Opening the plastic odor barriers.
Surprise! It was not odorless.
The carcass had not decayed. It had saponified.
When a body is submerged in water in an enclosed container, bacteria start initial decomposition, but they use up the oxygen. When the oxygen is depleted and the water goes anoxic, saponification occurs. The body basically turns to soap. Very stinky soap. (By the way, Season 3, Episode 18 of CSI Las Vegas has a nice discussion of this.)
I reversed the process by buying a small aquarium pump and air stone. I briskly aerated the water, and the decay process resumed, but it was slow for such a large animal. I occasionally had to clean out some of the guts and other material. Needless to say, this was not pleasant.
“Decanting” the guts. Cleaning carcasses is not as glamourous as you might think.
The Rot Bucket required a lot of flushing and disposal of guts, but it worked; skeletons came out nice and clean. It wasn’t pleasant, but you do what you have to do. I embarked on a joyful carcass-cleaning spree for the next few years. I acquired a moose head and, in the process, made some genuine Moosehead Beer.
Real Moosehead Beer. “You can really taste the moose!”
Cleaned Moose skull.
One day a former student contacted me about some bear heads. He was working as a Park Ranger in Alaska and had the heads of one grizzly and one black bear that had been euthanized after dangerous interactions with humans. He wanted to know if I wanted them and how he could get them to me. I told him to freeze them, wrap them in plastic, and send them 2nd day UPS. I would pay for shipping. I told our office secretary Vicki to notify me immediately when a box arrived, and be sure not to open it. Knowing me as she did, she acknowledged my request with some apprehension.
Check for skull postage.
Two days later, Vicki rushes into my office and says, “Your package is here… and it’s leaking!” This occurred just before I was to teach my paleontology class, where many of my skulls and skeletons are used in my lectures. Ah, I thought, here is an excellent teaching moment. I took the box into the classroom, plopped it down on a counter, and said, “A former student in Alaska sent me a package. Who wants to open it?” Knowing me as they did, the students looked at me with some apprehension. After a moment, one student raised his hand, and several others rushed to the doorway, where they felt safer (this was before “trigger warnings”).
Students wait eagerly as the box is opened.
The Black Bear head is revealed to a pleased crowd.
The Grizzly Bear head was next. Here is a video of it being unpacked:
The heads went into the Rot Bucket:
Grizzly skull smiling in the bucket.
And came out very well.
Cleaned Grizzly Bear skull.
A final farewell from the gang. Smile, boys!
Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading, and I hope it wasn’t too gruesome.
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). It’s also a love letter to the stunning beauty of her native Pacific Northwest wild places. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
