A bald eagle, its wings spanning more than six feet, swoops toward an Alaskan riverbank, its talons spread to grasp a salmon. A steel rod, concealed by one of the eagle's long flight feathers, is connected to the exhibit case in the Hall of North American Birds at the American Museum of Natural History, seeming to suspend the specimen in midair.
In the Hall of North American Mammals, a sinuous mink, its fur a lustrous chestnut brown, is poised to pounce on a tree frog among the flora of what is presented as the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
Hundreds of the specimens that enthrall visitors at the museum, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan — coyotes, geese, striped bass and snakes of all kinds — were captured in seemingly everlasting life by David Schwendeman.
Mr. Schwendeman, the last full-time taxidermist at the 143-year-old museum, died on Monday at the home in Milltown, N.J., where he had lived for all of his 87 years. His son, Bruce, confirmed his death.
Preferring the title principal preparer, Mr. Schwendeman considered taxidermy a scientific art form.
"He would say you might stuff your Thanksgiving turkey, but not an accurate rendering of an African elephant for display in a museum," said Steve Quinn, senior manager of exhibitions at the Museum of Natural History.
"He was an extraordinary artist, an expert sculptor," Mr. Quinn said. "He could pose animals accurately and scientifically, and at the same time make them aesthetically beautiful. He saw as his goal to inspire wonder and nurture concern for nature."
Mr. Schwendeman was the museum's chief taxidermist for 29 years, starting in 1959. By then, its vast halls of mammals — exhibiting elephants, antelopes, rhinos, deer, bear and moose, among many other creatures — had been assembled decades earlier. He focused on birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, particularly from North America.
There is, for example, his covey of quail (connected by fine rods) captured in midflight.
The proper term for what taxidermists do is "mount." But that hardly conveys their skills. The process includes making sketches, watercolor paintings and plaster masks to record details that could be lost as the specimen is skinned.
It involves carefully removing, scraping, boiling and bleaching the skeleton, then reassembling it with wires, metal rods or wooden reinforcements. Plaster molds and papier-mâché forms are sculptured to precisely replicate internal tissue, which is then fitted into the tanned and preserved skin in the pose to be depicted in the exhibition. Often, the taxidermist must apply paint or varnish for the finishing touches.
"You have to have respect and intuition for the animals to bring out their best characteristics," Mr. Schwendeman said when interviewed by Melissa Milgrom for her 2010 book, "Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy." "When he had restored 500 birds originally preserved in the 1930s for the Hall of Biology of Birds," Ms. Milgrom wrote, "he said, 'Capturing the iridescence with the paint is the most difficult part of the work.' "
He learned his craft at Schwendeman's Taxidermy Studio, which his father opened in 1938 on South Main Street in Milltown, not far from the family home. His son now runs the studio.
David James Schwendeman was born to Arthur and Lillian Falk Schwendeman on Dec. 5, 1924. Besides his son, he is survived by his wife, the former Irene Piros; three daughters, Linda Schwendeman, Anna Lee Schwendeman and Mary Ellen Davis; his brother, Arthur; and four grandchildren.
By the 1950s, Schwendeman's Taxidermy was doing work for the Museum of Natural History, with the younger Mr. Schwendeman traveling into the city, carrying beavers and birds and the like in boxes. After graduating from high school, he served in the Marines in the Pacific during World War II. His mastery of the family trade led to his hiring by the museum in 1959.
"What we're doing," Mr. Schwendeman told The New York Times in 1977, "is preserving something that is already dead and would only deteriorate if it were not mounted. We don't mount endangered species."
A year earlier, the Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians was opened at the museum. In it is a 15-foot-long red, brown and green Indian rock python coiled around a clutch of eggs. It is a reproduction, cast and painted by Mr. Schwendeman after he anesthetized a living snake, then returned it to the Bronx Zoo. The Indian rock python is an endangered species.
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