You are about to listen to an imagined conversation between a bobcat mounted in this display case and one living in upstate New York - enjoy.

Mounted Bobcat: It’s strange. I feel as though I’ve been holding this position for years. My legs stretched just so. My mouth is slightly open. I keep expecting something to move—my breath, a shadow, the wind—but nothing ever changes.

Living Bobcat: That’s because you're not outside anymore. You’re in a museum now. You’ve been prepared, measured, preserved. What you feel isn’t stillness, it's the absence of life.

Mounted Bobcat: Why would they keep me like this? I sometimes hear people coming close and whispering about how sad I look.

Living Bobcat: You're what they call a study skin. You weren’t chosen for a diorama, so you weren’t posed or animated. You were stretched flat for research—turned into reference material.

Mounted Bobcat: Oh. I thought maybe I was unfinished. But now that you say others have to hold poses their whole life, I think maybe this is more honest. Seems unbearable to have to be frozen mid-pounce in a painted scene. I just am.

Living Bobcat: There’s a strange dignity in that. No illusion, no spectacle. Just a body. But dignity and usefulness aren’t the same. And I wonder—who does this serve now?

Mounted Bobcat: Is that what I’ve become? A kind of raw fact? Does being this “authentically dead” make me more scientific? Does anyone still study me?

Living Bobcat: Not just authentically dead, but authentically preserved. You were once a valuable asset in the eyes of science. But this case is sealed now, and I doubt anyone still collects data from you. These days, people just study you with sad eyes.

Mounted Bobcat: What about you? Do people look at you?

Living Bobcat: I stay out of sight but it's harder and harder to do. The forests are thinner and our paths are narrower now. Sometimes when you go in one direction, you can’t get back. People don’t always care as much about helping us as they do big species from faraway lands like lions and tigers.

Mounted Bobcat: That's terrible. Do you think me being up here is helping you out there?

Living Bobcat: Maybe you can—if someone stops, really looks at you, and sees more than a substitute for me. If they recognize you as a body shaped by human decisions, not just biology. Then you become more than a specimen—you become a prompt to reflect on how we frame nature, and what that framing means for those of us still living in it.