Baby-faced creations create a stir for Tauranga taxidermist

Wondering what to give someone who has everything for Christmas? How about a taxidermied rabbit with a human face?

Or perhaps a baby-faced duck? The two creations are currently for sale on Trade Me and are the latest offerings from Tauranga man Andrew Lancaster who has been "trying something a little different".

The taxidermist has incorporated baby doll parts into his creations, including a rabbit's body and ears with a baby's head. Another involves a duck's body, also with a baby's head.

As of 9.30am today, they were already fetching bids of $121 and $97 respectively.

On the Trade Me page, the latter is touted as an "unusual item for the taxidermy collector who has everything else".

"There's quite a few people who don't like it. Some people like it but some people hate it," Lancaster said.

"It's water off a duck's back. I'm too long in the tooth now for that to really worry me."

Lancaster has been selling his work online for the past six years "and probably a bit more these days than I used to, but it's not a full-time job".

It was getting harder to find dead things as well, he said.

Lancaster said a few of his contacts, who owned farms or lived rurally, were drying up. He also acquired specimens himself, often on the side of the road.

"I got a nice big seagull yesterday on the expressway just by Elizabeth St. It must have got hit by a car and bounced off. It was in mint condition. So I worked on that this morning."

Not having to wash blood off was always a bonus, he said.

Lancaster does professional work for conservation groups and others as a taxidermist but he likes to dabble in his own creative efforts, which gain plenty of attention online.

In 2013, Lancaster drew the ire of animal lovers after transforming a dead cat which had been hit by a car on the Napier-Taūpo Rd into a taxidermied rug. His work since of a mish-mash of various species - such as possum with bird wings or turkey and with a possum head - has also gained attention. In recent years, he has experimented with doll parts.

"Sometimes, like that duck, it had it's head chopped off and I couldn't do much with it. I could have put another animal's head on it but I didn't have any spare at the time," he said.

The baby-duck creation also featured a warm hat and scarf "dressed for the cold weather".

Bidding for the rabbit closes, incidentally, at 8.30pm on Halloween. The auction for the baby-faced duck closes on November 5.