From the naturalist Buffon's pet monkey and Josephine's black emu, to the "live" birth of a cow, and an old Flemish lady who would have liked to have stuffed her late mother if only it had been legal, this film unveils the practices and motivations of taxidermists, their clients, and animals in Belgium and France. As one museum taxidermist observes, "This is a pretentious vocation: we copy the Creator; but...we don't have His means, so we improvise..." And in fixing hapless creatures in some immobile semblance of their former selves, what emerges is that touch- the feel of the fur-may play as large a part in keeping the memories alive in their bereaved owners as appearance, the lifelike look in the eye.