BY DOUG MACCASH, The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Leslie Dalton Rodger is waiting for an ostrich to die.

The New Orleans taxidermist knows a guy in New Mexico who raises the 300-pound bipedal birds, and as soon as one of them keels over, he's going to ship her the feathery carcass.

It won't be the first time the 29-year-old New Orleans native stuffed a creature taller than herself. This summer, she arduously mounted a Russian grizzly bear that stands 8 feet. She uses the name Leslie Dalton professionally.

Dalton's ominous bear was a star at the Louisiana Taxidermy Association booth at the recent Louisiana Sportsman's Show at the Superdome, where passersby posed for selfies beneath its outstretched claws and bared teeth. She said she mounted the impressive mammal for display in the enormous double parlor of her neoclassical Garden District mansion.

It takes a big beast to hold its own in a room with a 16-foot ceiling. But generally speaking, Dalton prefers preserving smaller creatures. Peacocks are her specialty.

"I'm pretty much the only taxidermist in the state who does peacocks," she said.

Two of her peacocks can be found amid the decor of the Jack Rose restaurant on St. Charles Avenue, she said.

During the Sportsman's Show in the Dome, Dalton demonstrated the process of preserving and posing a palm-sized European starling. As onlookers watched, she meticulously threaded wire into the tiny wings and legs and wrapped the torso around a custom-carved foam plastic form. It seemed improbable that the tiny splayed and flattened bird could be made to look lifelike again. But in the end, it seemed remarkably animated.

Dalton calls Hammond-based taxidermist Derek Plaisance her mentor. He aided Dalton in restoring the Russian bear to its raging, erect posture.

"At one point in time," Plaisance said, "taxidermy was about hunters bringing trophies to be mounted. It's still about that, but today there's a lot more artistic liberty, a lot more attitude than just a head mounted on a wall."

For Dalton, the process does not begin with a triumphant hunter. Most of her taxidermy is produced from the remains of animals that have died in zoos, farms or pet shops, or have been otherwise acquired secondhand. She has a peacock connection in Minnesota and a "swan guy" in Iowa.

"I get shipments of dead birds for myself all the time," she said.

Dalton said she scrupulously abides by the laws governing the trade in animal remains. For instance, she said, despite their abundance, crows can't be legally bought or sold. The big bear, she said, came from the owner of a tannery on the East Coast, who sold it online.

Dalton's clients include interior designers such as Memphis, Tennessee-based Gwen Driscoll, who explained that taxidermy adds a splash or surprise to her room compositions.

"I love unusual organic accessories," Driscoll said. "Taxidermy, for the right client, fills the bill perfectly."

Taxidermy has always been part of the decorating aesthetic of the South, Driscoll said, "but Leslie's not doing mallards and whitetail deer. She's really more of an artist."

Dalton has had a fondness for taxidermy since childhood. Her father owned a cattle ranch near Ferriday. The ranch house was decorated with a stuffed alligator, a deer and an especially bright-eyed wild boar.

Dalton planned on a career as an artist. The Metairie Park Country Day High School graduate studied at the prestigious New School in Manhattan, New York. In the course of her avant-garde art education, Dalton produced surrealistic oil paintings that featured manikins and animal bones, nudes rendered in sticky corn syrup and strange temporary sculptures made from Jell-O.

She said she was particularly interested in the melting and decay of the Jell-O sculptures, as they passed their prime.

It wasn't long after graduation that Dalton got her first experience sculpting animal remains when she took a taxidermy class at the Audubon Zoo. She later took much longer, more demanding taxidermy courses in Montana.

She's met several accomplished female taxidermists, but it's still a man's world.

"I would say it's mostly male in this area (Louisiana)," Dalton said of the profession, "but not entirely male. More often than not, females are better and more patient, especially with birds."

Part of the attraction of the craft, she said, is that there's always more to learn.

"To get good at it, you have to do it for a long time," she said.

Dalton said how onlookers react to taxidermy depends on their expectations. To some, it simply reflects an appreciation for the beauty of wildlife. For others, it brings to mind antique Victorian-era decoration when specimen collecting was in vogue. Lastly, there's a slightly macabre vibe that resonates with the Goth crowd.

At one time, Dalton said, she'd planned to buy an old hearse to make taxidermy deliveries. But her husband warned that keeping the hearse in running order would be a pain.

Her husband is Scott Rodger, an entertainer manager, whose stellar client list includes Shania Twain, opera star Andrea Bocelli and former Beatle Paul McCartney. The couple has homes in Los Angeles and London as well as New Orleans to accommodate his globe-trotting career.

Rodger said Dalton was already into taxidermy when they met during a show at the Maple Leaf bar five years ago. "For me, it just seems normal," he said.

"The only time I get a reminder of it," he said, "is when I go to the freezer for ice cubes or ice cream, and you run into all sorts of specimens, pheasants, crows, starlings, any number of exotic birds as well."

Rodger said his wife's profession may strike some as unexpected, but from his perspective, Dalton's work is just another expression of the music, arts and creative culture of New Orleans.

"I think it's an extension of that," he said.

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Information from: The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate, http://www.nola.com