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Feature Story Photo by Andy Atkinson Dennis King moves a stuffed deer in a storage room filled with animal heads he was not able to sell before. Heirs soon free to sell mounted heads By MARK FREEMAN For years, Dennis King has pondered his eventual death and the complexities his heirs will have in handling the more heady portions of his estate. Namely, what could his survivors do with the few hundred deer and elk head mounts that King has accumulated over his three decades as a taxidermist. For a long time, Oregon law has banned their sale as mounts, leaving owners only to sell them as near-worthless individual antlers, or become wildlife criminals. "Short of breaking the law in Oregon, my wife's only option would be moving to Montana for six months, and then they would be sellable there," King says. But come Christmas Week, a short relocation to the mount-selling state of Montana will be moot. Beginning Dec. 21, new rules involving the sale of deer and elk mounts as well as other wildlife will redraw the lines when certain types of animals, or their parts, can be brokered in Oregon. In some cases, such as detailing when certain feathers can be sold to fly-tyers, the new rules clarify transactions now done under fuzzy or vague laws. In other cases, like the sale of tiger hides and other parts of wildlife not native or currently living in Oregon's wildlands, the new rules open a market currently illegal here. But the one the perhaps hits closest to home is the new rule allowing the one-time sale of deer and elk mounts as part of estate sales, provided the owner is dead and the mount is registered with state wildlife officials. "That's the way it should be -- treated as private property," says King, who doesn't expect his heirs to exercise the new law for many years to come. "That's something I got in their face about years ago," King says. "I'm surprised they finally came around to my kind of thinking." The estate-sale law is one of several drafted by a public committee formed this year by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to hash out these issues. The committee's recommendations were passed last month by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission. Registering a mount works just the way ODFW biologists number bighorn sheep horns. Agency officials will drill a small hole in the antlers where not visible, and attach a identification number to it. The agency originally asked the seven-member commission for the right to charge a $65 registration fee. But that was dropped from the final package for at least two years, while ODFW officials monitor the estate-sale use and agency costs for registration, says ODFW biologist Larry Cooper, who headed the agency's wildlife parts committee. Under the rules, cougar and black bear hides, as well as bighorn sheep, still cannot be sold, Cooper says. The new rules address only wildlife species, not existing restrictions on sale of fish. The law's authors consider the estate-sale rule for deer and elk mounts a good compromise between the all-or-nothing camps because it provides some selling opportunities without encouraging poaching. "We felt it did the best to restrict the incentive to poach," Cooper says. "If you harvest an animal, you won't make any money off it," Cooper says. "Your heirs will, but not you." And that's OK with King. King's bulging antler collection includes 70 years of the King family trophies, and they're untouchable when he dies, King says. But he also has a few hundred excess mounts left unclaimed by those who sought King's taxidermy skills but never paid up. "I average four or five deer, and maybe one elk, like that a year," King says. "After 31 years in the business, you could see how I would be standing on a lot of horns." Under current rules, the antlers must be broken away from the skull to be sold or traded. But the vast majority of antler sets mounted as trophies are still attached to the skull. Wildlife rules Here are some of the highlights of new rules governing the sale of wildlife parts in Oregon beginning Dec. 21: MOUNT SALES -- The rule allows the sale of mounted game mammals like deer and elk, but only as part of an estate sale. The mount will be registered, thus helping reduce the potential for illegal sales. When the buyer dies, the mounts can be re-sold as part of the original buyer's estate. HIDES and ANTLERS -- People will now be allowed to buy, for personal use, the antlers and hides of deer, elk and antelope without a license. However, the antlers must be detached from the skull, thereby allowing the sale of antlers but not mounts. BIRDS -- New rules allow the sale and purchase of entire carcasses of propagated birds, and parts of wild birds, while still prohibiting the sale of wild bird meat. FEATHERS -- New rules allow the sale or exchange of feathers of migratory waterfowl (such as ducks, geese, brant and swans) for the making of fishing flies, bed pillows, mattresses or similar commercial products provided the feathers were obtained by lawful hunting or seized by federal or state wildlife authorities. WILD MEAT -- The law allows the sale and purchase of certain types of wildlife meats donated as part of the activities of a non-profit group. This allows popular fund-raising dinners in which outdoor groups auction off a dinner party that includes prepared wild meat. RAPTOR PELLETS -- These pellets contain bones, skulls, and teeth of small mammals, reptiles or amphibians eaten by hawks and subsequently regurgitated. Their sale or exchange will now be legal without licenses. NON-NATIVE WILDLIFE SALES -- Wildlife not native or "naturalized" in Oregon can be bought, sold or traded in Oregon without any restrictions. Previously, all such sales were banned if not specifically allowed by state law. The category includes such things as elephant feet, tiger hides or crocodile skin. Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA