Fish Story : American Taxidermist Thrives in Mexico

Mexico is full of surprises, but nothing quite prepares visitors for the interior of an unobtrusive, cinder-block building here.

Inside the barracks-like structure, the curving forms of dozens of great fish--marlin, swordfish, tuna and a net-full of other species--hang suspended from the rafters like sides of beef at a giant butcher shop. Employees carry the fish facsimiles about and work on their figures in a manner reminiscent of an auto-body shop.

“After a while it doesn’t seem so unusual,” said one worker, standing amid colleagues using paint and bonding compounds on the figures of a dozen giant fish.

The business, Pflueger Taxidermia de Mexico, is in fact a marine taxidermist--the “world’s largest,” according to a sign and the firm’s brochure, although the U.S. proprietor acknowledges that this is not the case. The firm mounts fish, mostly game fish caught off the Baja peninsula, for fishing enthusiasts worldwide, although U.S. residents make up most of the clientele.

“We’ve got customers in Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand . . . all over the place,” said Robert R. Mehrer, a former police officer and longtime motorcycle enthusiast who is the president of Pflueger.

Mehrer’s firm is certainly one of the more unusual of the many businesses that flourish along the U.S.-Mexico border region, a place where the lure of cheap labor, the tourism business and the proximity of two very distinct cultures and nations have attracted many disparate enterprises. In fact, the cash-short Mexican government has embarked on a program of actively attracting a range of U.S. businesses, streamlining some of the red tape and bureaucratic delays that are legend south of the border--and well known to the Rosarito taxidermist.

“It took us 10 years to set up here,” Mehrer said.

Pflueger came to Rosarito in 1979, attracted by inexpensive labor and the proximity of Mexican and Hawaiian game fish. Formerly associated with the well-known Pflueger Marine Taxidermy in Florida, the Rosarito operation has since separated from the mother firm. The concern was originally founded in 1926 by Al Pflueger Sr., who set up shop in his Florida garage and began mounting fish. Mehrer, a former North Miami Beach police officer, learned the business from the elder Pflueger while moonlighting from the police beat.

“He (Pflueger) was the master,” said Mehrer. “Me, I love fish and I love Mexico.”

Each year, the Rosarito firm mounts between 1,200 and 1,500 fish, according to Bruce Babb, the production manager. The price: $480 for species up to 150 pounds, and $2 for each pound thereafter. There is a minimum $99 charge for smaller fish. Some customers have paid up to $2,000 to have their favorite catch mounted.

Here can be found regal bill fish such as the sailfish, swordfish, and marlin, as well as distinctive species like the rooster fish, so-named for its unique dorsal fin, and the multicolored dorado, and even the occasional shark and barracuda. The firm has mounted fish ranging from a 919-pound monster blue marlin to a three-inch bait fish now hanging in Mehrer’s office.

“No fish too large or too small,” is how company officials like to put it.

Why do people pay so much to stuff a fish? David Plaza, an Orange County resident who was picking up two large mounted marlins for a friend, offered an explanation.

“He (the friend) is crazy about fishing,” said Plaza, who was trying to stuff a large mounted marlin into his hatchback. “One’s for the office, the other’s for his house.”

The taxidermists work out of a rectangular, block-long building alongside the toll road that runs between Tijuana and Ensenada. Inside, dozens of fish skins, molds and mounts hang from the aluminum roof and, on the floor, dried fish skins, tails and heads sit in piles. The odor is a redolent melange of fish, chemicals and paint.

The firm receives its skins from Cabo San Lucas and other Mexican fishing spots, where trophy fish are quickly skinned and the skin is treated with a temporary preserver. Throughout Mexico, Pflueger agents direct fishermen on how to get their prizes mounted.

“You catch it,” says a Pflueger motto, “we mount it.”

The fish skins are subject to an elaborate mounting process accomplished by about 40 workers laboring in an assembly-line-like process. Because of the heavy demand and the amount of tedious work involved, it can take six months to complete mounting a fish before shipping it off to trophy rooms from Los Angeles to Lisbon. The pay scale here--about $11 per day--is one-fifth of what similar workers would receive in the United States, Mehrer said.

All skins are chemically treated to remove excess material and oil that could later damage the mounted fish. Mehrer said he uses a “secret process” that he originally learned from the elder Pflueger but has since refined. Both before and after chemical treatment, workers use scalpels and other tools to meticulously remove excess tissue that could also cause problems later.

Pflueger officials say they are conscientious about remaining faithful to the form and shape of the original fish. They scoff at the so-called fish “replicas” made of pure fiberglass--totally devoid of actual fish skin--that are increasingly popular in the United States.

“The fish you caught,” says another company motto, “is the fish you get.”

After treatment, the larger skins are attached to plaster molds designed to simulate the contours of the original fish. Heads and tails that have been treated separately must be matched to the original skins. Once attached to the molds, the mounted fish are painted, loose pieces are patched and fiberglass fins and crystal eyes are attached until the fish are ready for perhaps the most crucial stage--the painting.

Clearly the star of Pflueger is Luis Martinez, the resident artist. It is his job to paint the fish, restoring them to an approximation of their former glory. Martinez, a former furniture and house painter from Mexicali, applies his spray paints with the pride of Matisse.

“Please Do Not Disturb Artist While Painting,” reads a workroom sign, printed in both English and Spanish.

Most fish, of course, have intricate color patterns. When they die, their skin quickly loses color. Most of the skins that arrive at Pflueger have a dull, charcoal-gray patina. Martinez’s job is to bring them back to their once-regal state.

In his seven years at Pflueger’s, Martinez said, he has learned the appropriate color schemes for the most common fish, such as marlin, sailfish and tuna. If an odd fish arrives, he uses photographs that are on file for guidance--but he said that the pictures never capture the true glory of the fish. Martinez, who was trained for two months by an artist brought in from Florida, has made a point to go to the Baja fishing spots and see the great fish in all their glory.

“In this job, you’ve got to have imagination,” said Martinez, a 33-year-old father of four who lives in a simple house next to the taxidermy shop. “It’s a lot different than painting furniture.”

His creations attest to his skill. The fish, when completed, are replete with bold strokes of iridescent blue and green.

“For me, this is a very gratifying job, very challenging,” said Martinez, who added that his hobbies are fishing and baseball. “To get the coloring right, to satisfy a client, that is something that truly makes one feel good.”