Dominik Farkas – 2nd-year student of PNOT
eurasian otter specimen – best of category novice division, best novice mammal award novice division, special prize for beginning taxidermists Maurice Bouten – a prestigious taxidermist family studio gives this award from the Netherlands with more than a century of tradition, basic assessment – red ribbon.
ring-tailed lemur specimen – basic assessment - yellow ribbon – the specimen was processed using all the modern possibilities of our university. The body was posed on the habitat, frozen, CT scanned, and then the anatomical model was printed on a 3D printer. After modification, preserved leather was stretched over this model. The preparation method aroused great interest from other preparers and the jury. Unfortunately, we did not have an ideal specimen for dissection, so this specimen did not reach the top spots.
Bc. Anna Kouřimová – a graduate of PNOT, 1st year of NLI
head preparation with a bust of a fallow deer – third of category large game heads novice division – basic assessment – red ribbon. I value this preparation very much. The student participated for the second time, and this time, she chose a challenging position, which made the situation very difficult for the judges. Still, in the end, with an excellent result, she took third place in the category.
Matyáš Rjabi – 3rd year BPRM
head preparation with a bust of a roe deer – second of category roe deer heads novice division - basic assessment – red ribbon. This student participated for the first time and with great success in the new category of taxidermy heads with busts of deer. The category was established on the model of the American competition, where the category of taxidermy of the heads of the White-tailed deer is the leading and most popular game in North America. It is similar in Europe with roe deer.
Ing. Pavel Brabec – doctoral studies 2nd-year D-XPESLE
head preparation with a portion of a wigger's roe deer - best of category game head medium novice division - basic assessment – red ribbon. The preparation was again created thanks to the possibilities of our university. The copy of the wig was made just like the model for the ring-tailed lemur. The faux fur was created using the Scenes-n-Nature method. The student took part in this competition for the second time, and his results in the previous year were also excellent.
Ing. Kristýna Herinková – FLD graduate, FŽP student, 1st-year N-OPR
head preparation with a portion of mouflon – third of novice division, second of category novice division, Maurice Bouten Award - basic assessment – red ribbon. The second most successful specimen from the novices of our expedition. Together with Dominik Farkas, they won first and third place in the entire division! Kristýna Herinková already participated in the last championship in Budapest, where her preparation of a bust of a common fox scored over 90 points and finished in 4th place in the category. It was the second-best preparation after Tereza Majerová's winning preparation.
preparation of the european badger - basic assessment - yellow ribbon - even though this preparation did not fight for the top spot, I appreciate that it made it into the rated category. The model of this subadult individual was modeled entirely by the student herself; she did not use any commercial model.
I would also like to mention that a graduate of PNOT Bc. Veronika Křížová also participated in the competition but unfortunately did not make it to the graded category with her eurasian magpie preparation and ended up with 65 points without a ribbon.
Overall, students gained:
one main award in the division
one third award in the division
two main awards in the category of stuffed animals
two-second awards in the category of stuffed animals
one third award in the category of stuffed animals
two Maurice Bouten awards
Basic point rating:
up to 69 points – without ribbon
70–79 points – yellow ribbon
80–89 points – red ribbon
90–100 points – blue ribbon
There are also a few photos from the Award banquet at the presentation of prizes to Dominik Farkas and Kristýna Herinková, who placed first and third in the novice division.
A few words about the evaluation and organization of the competition: the competition has been held since 1992 in various European countries, usually every three years. It is organized by ETC European Taxidermy Championships, based in the Netherlands. On average, 150 taxidermists from Europe and other countries participate in the competition. The competition is divided into NOVICE, PROFESSIONAL, MASTERS, and EXCELLENT divisions. Furthermore, these divisions are divided into individual categories of stuffed animals. Only taxidermists who have not been involved in the activity for more than 5 years can be in the novice division. They then advance to the Professional category. If they are ranked first in the Professional category, they move to the Masters. The Excellent category is now only for a few excellent artists who advance from the Masters category. This year's ETC was a breakthrough in evaluation. The judges did not know which category they were judging. The Novice, Professional, and Masters categories were combined for the evaluation. The assessment was, therefore, very tough. That is why many of our novices have a red or yellow ribbon. Most of our preparations would be blue if the evaluation was according to the original rules. Getting the basic blue ribbon was already very difficult this year. This makes me appreciate the student works even more.
by Ing. Ondřej Salaba, Ph.D.
