I just received an otter that was skinned and frozen, perfect condition (I think). The person I receibed it from was not sure if it was tanned or not but was pretty sure it had been. The lips and eyes are split and there is no meat left on the flesh, plus the flesh looks pretty thin as if it had been cleaned and thinned down. The question is there is a kind of orange maybe rust color to the flesh side. Is this any indicator that the skin is tanned at all, the ones that I have done are usually white. The otter has been in the freezer for a few years, would this have anything to do with it? Can I put Borax on it and mount? Looked in the archives but could not locate an answer. All opinions valued.
Asher
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Tanned skins have some "break" to them, you should be able to drape a tanned otter across the back of a chair and have the head touch one side of the chair, the tail, the other.
You also technically should be able to bend any area of the skin and not have it crack on you unless it's got a lot of fat in it.
They don't crinkle a lot when you try to bend them if they are tanned, unless they are ermines. Those things stay papery so long.
The biggest indication though, is when you rehydrate a bit of the skin (and on all commercial tanned skins), it will pull "bright white" if it is tanned, but "clear" or "meat color" if it is not tanned.
Otter are done fur in for the market, so if this one is fur out, it may be tanned. Home tanned with dixietan counts as tanned, but poorly.
Regardless how this otter is, if it doesn't have a CITES tag on it (and is from the USA), return it, it's not legal. If it's from Canada, you get a CITES paper with it - if these papers/permits weren't with the pelt, get rid of it right back to your vendor and stay legal.