Wrasse eating a Blue Ring Octopus
So…well, this happens, evidently.
Taken by my current boss in Southern Leyte.
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up taxidermy world.
As if he trained on the Island of Doctor Moreau, artist Enrique Gomez De Molina has created a myriad of endangered species hybrids.
His pieces, which sell upwards of $80,000, were created in an effort to ‘raise awareness to the danger faced by a range of species, with his surreal pieces representing the dangers of genetic engineering and human intervention’.
But De Molina is suffering for his art. He could be sentenced to jail for up to five years and be fined $250,000.
To create his pieces, he illegally imported the parts, skins and remains, from whole cobras, pangolins, hornbills, and the skulls of babirusa and orangutans from areas all over the world including Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and China, thus adding to the demand for endangered species, that is part of the reason of why they are endangered in the first place.
Well done, Sir.
The artist pleaded guilty to illegally importing parts from endangered species to make the unique pieces of art after his arrest in November, reports Miami New Times.
According to the report, he is charged with possessing the skins of a Java kingfisher, collared kingfisher, bird of paradise, and juvenile hawk-eagle as well as the carcasses of a slow loris and a mouse deer, all from Indonesia.
The artist had not obtained the required permits to import the animal parts, and police claim De Molina knew what he was doing was illegal as he asked the people he bought them from to wrap them in carbon paper.
