By John Kelso
American-Statesman Staff
Tuesday, June 26, 2001

   Amy Ritchie, 14, is cuter than a bug's ear. Although she may keep the bug's ear in a jar of formaldehyde. Amy, who lives on a 5-acre farm with her parents in Midland, N.C., near Charlotte, is into taxidermy and skinning road kill. "I've always, like, admired the beautiful mounts I see in museums," said Amy, who has been skinning and stuffing critters for about a year. "And I just think it's a waste not to use an animal skin when it no longer needs it, so I think it's a beautiful way to preserve the skin forever".
To share her hobby with the world, Amy has her own Amy's Skinning and Taxidermy page - available at http://amystaxidermy.com.
   The page shows a photo of a smiling Amy, holding "My two favorite ones that I've skinned, rabbit and raccoon".
"So far, these are all the things I have skinned," the page says, listing a king snake, garter snake, squirrel, rabbit, possum, raccoon, and three rats. The page explains that all of these animals were found dead - "hit in the road, in most instances,"- except the rats. Amy killed the three rats. She raises rats for her pet python, Scales.
The outcry after Amy's page was posted Thursday without permission on a web site called Cruel.com has been scary, says Lisa Ritchie, Amy's mom. I'll bet it's the photos of the stuffed rats that set them off.  
In two days she had like 15,000 people signing her (online) guest book with just this wacko, horrible, ugly stuff saying she was sick and twisted, from all these radicals", Ritchie said. Mom deleted the hateful responses so Amy wouldn't have to look at them. "She has gotten some of the most downright offensive mail you will not believe," Ritchie said.  " 'Jesus is going to have revenge on you.' It amazes me, because these people are so worried about these rats' feelings. But they don't care about my children's feelings."
   Can't a kid who lives out in the country collect hides any more without causing a ruckus? Don't kids still dissect frogs in biology class?
   Last week Amy won a gold medal from her Homegrown Kids 4-H club for her presentation in the wildlife category on skinning and taxidermy. "And now I get to go to the state competition next month," she said. "I have a bunch of posters with pictures of how to skin a rat".
   Amy keeps her three stuffed rats on her dresser. "They're actually a family of rats," said Amy, who can also play piano by ear. "There's a father and a mother, and the other one is actually a baby."
The family keeps chickens. So when one of them croaked, Amy stuffed it. She keeps the chicken in her playhouse. "It's outside; my mom doesn't like it in the house," Amy explained.
   Mom isn't real fond of the stuffed rats on the dresser. "It kinda gives people a heart attack when they walk in her room." And she won't let Amy bring all of her skins in the house. "She has an enormous deerskin; it would have made it look like a hunting lodge in here," Ritchie said.
   But she supports her kid's activity. "We don't think her hobby is bizarre", Ritchie said. "It's unique. We don't think it's twisted and perverted".
   Nor do I. Although with the rats, I probably would have just called Orkin.

STATESMAN.com