Mold on bear rug-

Hey everyone

I'm mounting a bear rug and have run into a few snags. First I sent the bear to a good tannery to have it professionally tanned. after receiving it I rehydrated it per the tanning instructions and mounted the rug shell. The next day I stretched and tacked the bear to a 4x8 sheet of plywood as I have done for several bears in the past. After a few days I pulled the bear off and set him aside only to notice a few days later that there had formed some green mold in the back of the bear. not only that I wasnt satisfied with the way it had dried probably because I pulled it off the plywood to soon so I decided to rehydrate it agian and start over. After i cleaned off the back of the hide with diluted bleach water to kill the mold. This time I pulled the hide off several days later after it appeared to be good and dry on the edges only to fine alot of mold on the back of the hide. I treated it with lemon juice as per the archives and because of the mold not allowing the hide to dry it began to wrinke as it dried.
At this point I have a severly wrinkled bear that I dont want to complete the rug process until I solve the mold mystery.
Can anyone please help. The back of the hide still smells alittle like mold but as it dries it gets better. I mounted it in a well ventelated shop with plenty of sun and air circulation so I've been scratching my head where the mold problem started.
The hair appears to be holding tight but I don't want to take any chances and keep rehydrating it as the mold problem grows everytime I rehydrate this thing

Thanks
Jay

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Mold

I would do it one more time and place a fan near it to help dry it out.
Now the problem may be caused from you. Reason being is the way you could be drying it that caused it. If your drying the bear hair side up and not down this can cause all the problems. What's happening is the hide is no air flow is getting underneath the skin and is trapping in moisture and this creates the mold.
The way I do is hair side down. This way the skin gets dried and no mold problems at all.

mold

I drilled 1-1/2" holes in my plywood to make it like peg board for the air circulation.