Skinning the Wolf

You going to the pad?I’m going to. . . the. . . where I’m estimating to be the third tarsal there. 28?
– 28. We got the weight. And I think that’s it. Um, I don’t. . . want to weigh the testes. Sweet. So, should we push it over that way and then. . . Or, let’s see how much he lays out if we flip him up. Also, see, these are. . . his leg is so broken. It’s just flopping around all over the place.
– Oh my god. Is this one broken too?I think it is. I think its femur split. Yeah, it’s not like that one. He is just. . . ugh. Poor puppy. Obviously this is not something you wanna do at home on your kitchen table. For one thing, wolves can be protected species,you need a permit to be in possession of them. Wolves can carry roundworm and ringworm,which can be transmittable to humans,so as long as don’t attempt to ingest any feces from this wolf,we should be fine. Okay, we’re gonna make the first incision. I’m looking for the back of his mandible. You know, the back of your jaw where it comes together,so I can cut between it. So right now, I’m trying to get through all this underfurand find out where the skin actually starts. It’s very thick. So the first series of cuts are kind of likeyou’re testing to see how thick the skin is. But I don’t wanna cut so much that I cut through all the wayand reach muscle tissue. Once you cut through muscle tissue, you start to get bleeding. And I don’t need blood this early in the morning. Whoa. Hey. Hey. Where did this guy come from?- I know, it’s been around. Fleas! Are those fleas?Sick!This guy had been in a freezer for two weeks. And he still has live fleas living on him. So there’s the first cut. So now I’m just gonna, like, I made this little hole. I’m just trying to separate the hole and like see how far the epidermal layer goesand at what point I’m going to hit fat and muscle. That’s kinda where I wanna be. See the muscle layer right there?And this is the epidermal layer. This is kind of frozen congealed blood in here. See it movin’ around in the veins. So, because I have that vein attached to the skin. I’m cutting through the layers of fat,so I don’t puncture it. That right here is fat, that is wolf fat right there. So his throat is right here and this is his, you know, breast musclestarting to come forward, where his arm has been broken at the humerus. Someone’s texting me and I don’t think I will be able to get back to them. This is just the base of the subcutaneous tissue. This is the connective tissue that connects the skin to the muscleand it has this like glossiness to it. There’s fat attached to the skin here,so I cut a little close there. And this is ideally what I would be doing all of the time. So you can see the top of scapula here,this is probably where it should normally be. This is the top of the scapula on the other side. So if we draw a straight line across, it’s been. . . You know, that’s about four inches right there,where it’s been dislocated. So this is cool. I cut accidentally between two different muscles right here,so the same kind of like weird transparent connective tissue,this stuff right here, that attaches. . . I think it’s the same tissue, it’s a very similar connective tissuethat attaches the skin to the musclealso attaches the muscles to one another. It’s surprisingly strong and it’s very flexibleand this is what holds your insides together. So this is where I’m starting to see signs of traumaor potential trauma from when he got hit by the car’cause you can see all these burst blood vessels in here,um, whereas like, you know, this part of the skin,it’s pretty pink and consistent all the way through. You start looking in here and you’re seeing these, like, bright red veins. Also this dark coloration kinda looks like a bruise,what a bruise looks like underneath the skin. Which would make sense, I mean, ’cause this is, you know,where he got the brunt of the impact, I’m thinking, from the car. Can you see all of that trauma in there?All that dark, dark, red, it’s almost purple or black colored. So it’s a huge bruise underneath the skin. That’s obviously where he sustained the huge impact. Don’t get hit by a car, you guys. Look at this, do you see this, all this blood?In that vein right there?I don’t wanna pop that, it’s gonna be gross if I do. But you can see, like, another indication of trauma. All of the blood is pooled under there. It’s like a big zit you just wanna pop. This is the, where the semilunar notch is, of the ulna. So this is backwards, where it’s supposed to be pointing that way. It’s twisted, because the humerus is broken under here. I think. That’s what I’m deducing right now. You guys, I’m really sorry, we just identified the wolf. I think it’s Jacob. I think it’s Bella’s Jacob. From Twilight. I’m really sorry. We’ll go back through later and cut along the inside of the limbs. I just kinda wanna fillet him open first. That made me think of McDonald’s. I’m kinda hungry. So this right here, I mean, all this looks like healthy good tissue and everythingand we’re getting down here and all of the sudden it’s green. I’m wondering if when he was hit by a car the bowels rupturedand, so, we’re having some, like, seepage. So I’m gonna be really careful about how I work around here. The last thing that I wanna do is puncture thatand release whatever kind of gases or bacteria have turned this green. It’s not a good sign that it keeps smelling worse the further we go down here. I don’t like the idea that the bowels are all bloated and distended. We just had that conversation about how roundworm and ringworm and all these other kinds of diseasesand parasites can live in the bowels,so I don’t want to puncture them and release any of that. It it not a healthy color. It’s not a happy color. It’s not a good smell coming off of itand it’s not just gases being released out of the anus. ‘Cause you can smell them from over there. So the tissue itself has this odor to it,which makes me think that there’s bacteria,which is active and alive. I’m getting to the penis right now. I can feel the baculum right here. All dogs have a baculum which is literally the penis bone of an animal,humans don’t have it anymore. Some primates do, but it is very small. So I’m gonna cut to one side of the baculum as I go down this way. Sometimes in the collection we’ll also come across broken baculum. They are bones, they can break and fractureand splinter just like any other bone in your body. Think about that one, guys. I never know quite how to move around the baculum. I mean that in all seriousness, you guys. Cuz like, do you remove it, like how you do the, the other limbs?I mean, ’cause it’s got, it’s like that tube shape,so you have the baculum, you have the penis and you have the skin around it;do you flay it on the inside of the baculumand open it like that?Oh god. That reeks. Ugh. Let’s try to describe that smell. What does it smell like?Smells like KFC if you leave it in the back of your carwith a layer of water at the bottom of the bucketin hundred degree weather for eight years. I am continuously amazed by the things that nature produces. You know, the fact that some of these animals can sustain such significant injuries during their lifeand they don’t go inside at night, they don’t have health care,they don’t have a doctor,like, I seriously, I feel like such a wimp,I’ll stub my toe or somethingand I’m like: “I’m done!””Today is over! I’m out!”
– I’m sitting down for the rest of the day. That’s a wrap for the day.
– Yeah. And you’ll see these animals and they’ll have these huge compound fracturesand giant radial like twists and turnsand the bone is regrown together and they lose like half of the limbthe forelimb, and especially like on an ungulate like a deer or an elk,they’re having to walk on those thingscontinuously for years, it takes them years to regrow that and use that limb again. So in that time they’re still hunting, they’re still foraging,they’re probably not in a good place to be reproducingbut they are evading predatorsAnd I just, I mean, that kind of thing is just so. . . impressive to me. It like motivates me to be a better human being. I’m not even kidding, like, if these animals can do it,- I better step up my game. I better just suck it up. This is unhealthy. This buoyancy. That’s not what you want. You want things to like deflate once they die. You don’t want them to inflate,’cause that, yeah, that just implies all kinds of gases. . . Wow. Oh. Look at that. I just punctured the, the vein there.
– Oh yeah. We got a bleeder!This is, um, the femur right here which has been broken,we have the patella, which is the knee-bone. This is the top of the tibia and then behind it is the joint bone, the fibula. You can see all the tendons running along the bottom of the foot and they all connect back here. You kinda see the system there, where he’s relaxedand it pulls tightif you’re pulling it like that. And I can feel his foot, like,here, his toes are relaxed and this pad is down against my palmand when I do this, I can feel these other fingers,like his. . . what essentially are his finger-bones,like flexing into my hand. So it’s like taut and relaxed and taut and relaxed. Pretty cool, guys!High five. I just put my face right in his asshole. Something still smells bad to me. Yes, oh, here we go. There we go. If I was writing a Disney movie. This is whenthe female character would break into a song. I don’t think Disney would make a movie about. . . The young, beautiful taxidermist? When I grow up I just wanna be a taxidermist. It’s like a princess who doesn’t want to be a princess,she wants to be a taxidermist. Whoa!
– Bam!There we go, everybody. That’s what the paw looks like. Sans leg bones. It’s a little bit floppy. This is what goes inside of thereand these still have like,the claws are attached to another third phalange, phalanges,and then they attach with this, this is the paw,this is where the pad is, right there,So you can kinda see it as it would move around. compared to that leg. You can see where the femur is like. . . sticking out here. It’s broken. It’s been broken right there. So it’s just interesting to kinda. . . You know, play with it, and see, like, how the muscles flexin here and how they move and rotate and work together. If you could get macro shots of this,this is like a gorgeous biological landscape. I’m serious!I’m gonna be cutting at you. Here I come!My blade. Don’t get your finger in the way. You’re gonna make a joke about how I’m gonna cut youand it’s not gonna be funny, ’cause I’m gonna freak out.
– Ow!Hey! I hate that!Arrgh, you’re such a jerk!I mean, you flick this and it’s just like taut and this is like squishy. It smells every time you do that. What would you, how would you,I can’t!We have the baculum in here and the baculum is the penis bone. We have the penis, you can see a little bit of, like, blood and urinewhich has come out of the tip of the penis right here. It’s still in the fur. So now we’re gonna remove the penis. First I have to find it. And I can feel the baculum in there,you can kind of see it. Do you wanna touch it?Are you sure? Okay. How should we remove this, curator?- Well that’s new to me. You don’t remove penis bones very often?Sick. I just cut through this right here?Ahh, there we go. So this is like, the sheath. I like how these guys aren’t saying anything, or doing anything. They’re just watching me do this. So if you can imagine an uncircumcised penis,here is how it covers the end,here’s the head of the penis,this is the urethra, and it’s flaccidand there’s a baculum, which is a hard bone in it. This is where it attaches, this is where the testes would be. So this is, this is an entire, I mean, you can even, it looks-I mean it looks like a penis, you guys. Like a human penis. From what I’ve seen in textbooks. Whew, that anus!- You get a front-row seat. I do! Oh! Ugh!For the show.
– Ughhh!Oh my god, that’s bad. Whoo!Oh my god. I have to. . I can’t sit there. Ready?One, two, three. We wanna invert all of this skin over his headlike you’re pulling a turtle neck from over your head. We’re cutting really close to the skull, now. We’re gonna get close to eyes up there. This is all cartilage right here. This is the part of the skull where my finger is right now,I’m putting it into the skull,it’s what you call the external auditory meatusand that is where the cartilage of the ear connects with the skulland that’s where you get the ear canal. And you wanna cut around it,so you can keep all of the ear intact with the hide. These are the masseter muscles, the big cheek muscleson the side of the face. And this right here is the eye. You can. . Or where the eyelid would be,on the inside. Right there. Um, so. . . You have the eyelid and the eyelashesand right here is thezygomatic and squamosal boneswhich make up like the occular orbital. So you wanna cut really close,so you can keep the eyelashes intact,and so then you can when you get a little hole startedyou can kinda poke it throughand I can tell that I have the eyelids right there, that are intact. I’m gonna try and free part of the mouth. So you can start to feel, like, I can feel the molars back there,I can feel the bottom of the mandible. Cutting along the teethon the outside of the lips. Right now I’m kind of cutting into the bone a little bit,’cause I’d rather get a couple marks in the bonethan I would screwing up the side of the mouth. Everything is- there is like no muscle in here. It’s all very thin. And it’s all very closely connected to the bone. And this is all the inside of his lip right here. So his lip is right here and thisdark color is his gums. They’re naturally dark and also because he’s been bleeding on it. Okay, so we flipped him over, he’s bleeding all over the table at this point. We’re really close to the end, you guys. And you can feel the nasal cavity hereand then the, you have cartilaginous snout, the nose in the front,just cut through thatmake sure to keep the lips intact,and then this is a tricky one,you wanna get the bottom lip, too,and then we’re free!We did it!We did it!This is the first time I ever skinned a wolf in my lifeand it might be the last time. And the pelt isn’t gorgeous on the inside,but the outside of it doesn’t look half-bad. And then you gotta revert the headand we got,
– We got the earswe got the earsDid we get the eyes?Eyes look good.
– Eyes look good. Got the eyelids. You get the eyelashes. We got the nose. It still has the, a little bit of cartilage in there, too. and it retains the good shape of the snout. There you have it. Thanks for watching, guys.