BANGOR, Northern Ireland—Taxidermist Ingrid Houwers received a call out of the blue in 2010 about fashioning props for a new TV series.

For the next eight years, Ms. Houwers filled orders for coyote skins, antlers and stuffed game birds to feature in “Game of Thrones.”

The work provided as much as half the yearly revenue of Ms. Houwers’ taxidermy business. Her earnings made up but a small piece of the Iron Throne economy, a local bounty springing from the runaway success of the TV show’s fictional monarchy.

On Ms. Houwers’s highlight reel was a pigeon with a detachable head she created for the character Arya Stark to “decapitate.” For another episode, Ms. Houwers fashioned knuckle bones into playing pieces for a game of chance akin to dice.

“We will never see its like again,” Ms. Houwers said of the TV gold rush.