marder

Today I had the chance to observe the skinning of a marten (or marder). A marten is a rodent-type animal similar to a weasel or ferret that is unique to Europe and apparantly gets into people's cars and destroys the engine! Anyway, our high school biology teacher always jumps on the chance to take a piece of roadkill and use it as a teachable moment for his students. So naturally when someone reported the murdered marder Arthur quickly snatched it up and froze it until there was time to really check it out.

That time was today.

I must warn you, this post is not for the faint of heart. Seriously. As a science teacher, I am expected to enjoy all things creepy-crawly-slimy-make-your-skin-crawl-gross. Unfortunately, I have a rather low gross-out tolerance. So mostly in my attempt at getting over my sqeamishness, and partly due to my desire to eventually become a hardcore science teacher, I knew I had no choice but to partake in the skinning of the marder. Being the only female science teacher on the Kandern campus means I've got to pull my weight!

My intentions were to simply observe, take a few pictures and maybe a video. I never planned to "get my hands dirty," but by the end of the ordeal I suddenly found myself gloved and slicing through the sub-cutaneous tissue to separate the skin from the carcass. I also had the privilege of using the saw to cut off both front paws. Wow.

The most amazing part was that I didn't get nearly as grossed out as I had anticipated. Maybe it's because I've been learning so much about God's amazing body system designs for my life science class. To see the whole thing laid out in front of me instead of seeing pictures in my textbook made it that much more awesome. The whole process just fascinated me to no end, and I was ready to start cutting it open to check out all the internal organs! But, baby steps. For now, I am content with the progress I made today and actually quite proud of the fact that I, Rachel Bertschi, helped skin a marder.

For those of you actually interested in this kind of thing, here are a few pictures, along with the video I took of Arthur sawing off one of the rear paws. Seriously, don't scroll down any farther if you are easily grossed out. Don't say I didn't warn you. Click on the photos to enlarge, if you dare.