by Ranger Jim Serpa

Do you ever wonder where all the "stuffed animals" in our Visitor Center come from? Well, wonder no longer. The beautiful "mounts" in the Doheny State Beach Visitor Center are produced by a dynamic little company in Costa Mesa called "Living Designs." The business is owned by two brothers Kirk and Randy Stodel, and has been located in Costa Mesa for 15 years.

Kirk has actually been practicing taxidermy for over 28 years. He told me he was inspired to try it while on a field trip to the LA Museum of Natural History as a grade schooler. At the same time, he saw first-hand the beautiful preservation work done by George Adams and Paul Hill. He even got to meet Mr. Adams (maybe we have inspired some boy or girl, on one of our field trips, to want to be a Ranger someday).

Rand, Kirk's younger brother, has been in the business for 18 years. Neither he nor Kirk has had any formal art training, although you would never know it to view some of the gorgeous specimens they have produced. We started using them as our taxidermist in 1992 when we saw that they were not only fantastic artisans, but the most competitively priced as well.

Throughout the years, Kirk and Randy have made mounts for people in such far away places as Africa, Spain and FInland. They have prepared animals as large as a 1,000-pound white shark and a full-size bison, to animals as small as shrews and hummingbirds. In fact, the California Sheephead they prepared for us, from a casting, is the second largest ever caught in local waters!

The brothers attract such diverse clients as County and State Parks, museums, private citizens, Knotts Berry Farm, Seal Beach Naval Weapons Center, and national restaurant chains. The pair said that most of their business is in trophy displays, but that educational mounts are on the increase. Their meticulous work creates turnaround times of six to eight weeks for birds, and three months for fish.