Thanks to this 'rogue' taxidermist, a pet's death doesn't mean goodbye

But it was much more than that.

So Beverly enrolled in Bill Allen’s Pocono Institute of Taxidermy. At first, she did some trophy mounts for hunters, but she always gravitated toward fanciful creations. She made hats with birds and squirrels and all sorts of feathers, and wore them to equestrian events like the Devon Horse Show. That got her notice and commissions.

One of those creations — a friend’s deceased dog in a tiara and cape on a velvet pillow — won an avant-garde taxidermy contest in Brooklyn. That opened doors. She was invited to do an AMC taxidermy reality show, Immortalized. The Netflix series Stranger Things needed some ethically sourced squirrels, so the prop manager came to her. HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones also hired her. She’s given lectures and workshops on taxidermy at the University of the Arts, the Wagner Free Institute of Science, and New York’s Morbid Anatomy. She’s done work locally for the Franklin Institute and the Academy of Natural Sciences and as far away as a hunting exhibit in Transylvania.

Three freezers and a sense of honor

But pet preservation — also called “companion aftercare” — is what commands most of her efforts now. At any given time, she has three freezers full of deceased critters at her Elkins Park home.

Hers is intimate work, and Beverly takes the faith people put in her seriously.

“I love that people trust me,” said Beverly, who would like to be a death doula for humans in the future. “It’s a great honor.”

Kaya Tinsman’s dog Rothko’s death at age 12 was a great loss for the Perkasie artist.

“He was with me through breakups and relationships and when I was living on my own for the first time,” Tinsman, 39, said. “He was my rock. He was my soulmate.”

Like all the animals Beverly preserves, the dog had to be frozen as soon after death as possible. Tinsman still recalls how kind Beverly was, letting her reschedule saying goodbye to Rothko’s body multiple times.

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