Zimmermann’s: From a world-famous taxidermy factory to a housing estate
Photo/Tim Nicklin (courtesy)
Before it closed shop in 1977 after the ban on hunting, the Zimmermann taxidermy factory was the second-largest in the world.
When I recently met Tim Nicklin at his Runda home, I was rather surprised by the many dogs (and cats) that dot his compound.
To get to his living room, you pass through the small workshop where Tim makes bronze sculptures for a living. But that is a story for another day.
Tim is one of the last taxidermists in Kenya – the talented men and women who made hunting-trophies from dead animals for display.
Taxidermy is dead in Kenya, but Tim is one of the survivors of Zimmermann Ltd, the second largest taxidermy company in the World which until 1977 was located on the plains of Kamiti in Nairobi.
They were all pushed out of business after Kenya banned hunting in 1977.
Today, the only memoir to this company’s name is Zimmermann Estate off Thika Road.
If you have seen life-like stuffed animals in Nairobi hotels, at the National Museums and in some Nairobi homes, you have encountered the products of a defunct Zimmermann Ltd.
You must have also seen the statue of Ahmed – the Marsabit elephant that was protected by a Presidential decree - at the Nairobi National Museum. It was also done at Zimmermann’s and Tim was there when it was brought.
Talking to Tim is like taking a walk into the world of taxidermy.
But the story of Paul Carl Zimmerman, the founder of this company, is dim in our annals of business history.
Zimmermann was a German taxidermist who had followed the trail of big game hunters – and money - to east Africa- the largest big game attraction in the world.
By then, Kenya boasted the largest game safaris in the world, attracting hunters including former US president Theodore Roosevelt.
Originally, according to some records, Zimmermann -or Bwana Simama to his workers - had come to research for a German University, fell in love with Kenya and started Zimmermann’s Ltd (Taxidermy) in 1929.
His offices were situated next to River Ruaraka and he also built a leather tanning factory therein.
“Even by the time I joined the company, apart from our tanning factory the rest was all plain. There were no buildings there”, recalls Tim who joined the company in September 1973.
With big game hunting, Zimmerman Ltd prospered off feeding the homes of Kings, Queens and Presidents, world museums and private galleries with animal trophies. In 1970s the company worked for Ferdinard Marcos museum in Philippines.
Records show that Zimmerman used to make various trophies.
There were full-size mounts of large mammals like lions, kudus, giraffes, displayed from neck up, rugs of Zebras and other animals and elephant tusks.
Zimmermann also made beer bottle-openers from warthog tusks, handbags from elephant ears, stools from elephant’s rear-feet, bracelets from the hair on elephant tails and pendants from lion claws.
They did everything any enthusiast ordered: “We have even turned buffalo scrotums into tobacco pouches with zippers,” one of its general managers, Peter Wain told Los Angeles Times in 1973.
By then the company was doing taxidermy work for more than 400 safaris a year, according to records.
“We were the second largest taxidermy company after the Jonas Brothers of Denver Colorado,” recalls Tim who estimates they had a workforce of about 100.
“We used to mount an average of 30 heads a day and two to three fully mounted animals.”
A lot of these were lions, wildebeests, and buffaloes.
At times, some American taxidermists would ask Zimmermann to do the tanning and ship the skins to the US for mounting while others would have all the work done in Kenya.
Farmers from Nanyuki and other wildlife-infested farms would carry truckloads of animals to Zimmermann for mounting.
Curious observations
The Italians for instance were in love with buffaloes.
“They have a thing about buffalo. I don’t know if it’s because they are effeminate, and they want to show their manhood!” Mr Wain once told Associated Press.
“The only people I talk out of work here is the old duck who wants her pet Alsatian mounted…For heaven’s sake, after enjoying the pet for 22 years, you don’t want it stuffed in a corner of the room. That’s bizarre as far as I am concerned”.
In 1969, Ken Kertell, a director at Zimmerman told Associated Press: Taxidermy is an art you see. You can’t put a dead animal on a conveyor belt and wait for it to come out the other end as a lifelike model. Everything has to be done by hand.”
“We are not in this for fun, we are in it for money. But I don’t want you to get the impression we’re in the slaughter trade. We don’t look at it that way.”
One day, many world species will be extinct and the only specimens left will be the products of the taxidermists’ art”.
In 1977, after 33 years of raving success, Zimmermann’s Ltd was given months to close shop following the ban on hunting.
The government also ordered all licensed hunters to turn in their weapons to the Central Firearms Bureau.
The curio stores in Nairobi that were sustained by the Zimmerman factory selling elephant-hair bracelets, carved-ivory statues, rhino horn carvings and –some restaurants- fresh impala chops were also ordered to stop the trade.
In December 1977, Zimmermann finally closed shop. The ban, according to New York Times of April 1978 brought a last minute rush on the 298 curio shops in Nairobi and elsewhere.
Thousands of tourists swamped Nairobi shops for the final sale.
But the ban was not without warrant. While the curio shops were licensed to get their ivory from the game departments, they got better deals on the black market from poachers, a mix that left conservationists with little choice than to push for a ban on hunting.
Caught in the fray was Zimmermann (1973) Ltd, as the company was known after Paul Zimmermann sold it in 1961.
On April 12, 1971, Karl Fritz Paul Zimmerman succumbed to diabetes in Nairobi.
But his name lingers on among unknowing dwellers of a populous estate.
