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Vivian Tham works at a veterinary hospital in Singapore by day, helping doctors run tests that are crucial in determining treatment plans for sick animals.
After her 9-to-5 job, Tham sheds her lab coat to “service the dead” through taxidermy — the art and science of breathing life into dead animals through careful preservation.
Together with her husband Jivan Jothi, they run Black Crow Taxidermy & Art, a studio that offers pet preservation services and conducts workshops on butterfly domes and animal dissection.
We help to beautify the face, cover up the stitches and give owners … better closure.
Vivian Tham
Black Crow Taxidermy & Art
“Serving animals, whether alive or the dead, is very meaningful to me,” Tham, 29, told CNBC Make It. “Through taxidermy, I help [pet owners] with their grieving.”
“There are a lot of cases where animals [go through] premature death, or a sudden accident … We help to beautify the face, cover up the stitches and give owners … better closure.”
From hobby to business
Tham, who has a bachelor’s in zoology and master’s in pathology, started practicing taxidermy “as a hobby” at home for close friends whose pets died.
“At that point, we figured that to take on more [and] bigger stuff, you will need a physical space and if we get a physical space, then we need to treat it like a business and run it like a business,” Jothi said.
“That was the natural progression.”
In Asia, we still have that taboo against death. People even associated us with witchcraft.
Jivan Jothi
Black Crow Taxidermy & Art
In 2021, the couple put in about $14,000 to launch the business. Tham said she’s the “artist and the hands” behind its taxidermy services, while Jothi does everything else from public relations to scheduling of appointments.
While they believed there are “plenty of people” who would like an alternative to cremating pets after death, not everyone took kindly to the idea.
“In Asia, we still have that taboo against death. People even associated us with witchcraft,” Jothi said.
“We also had a situation where people reported to authorities because they thought we were killing the pets to do taxidermy.”
Jothi said fighting misconceptions of taxidermy remains the business’ “biggest struggle,” and the business operates on a strict no-catch and no-kill policy.
“Everything that comes to us has to die naturally or have a vet put it down,” he added.
“This taboo in Asian culture is always going to be there, especially with the older generation, but…
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