For Montana artist Bob McEachern, his works of art feature small woodland creatures flinging porcupine quill arrows, riding bridled rabbits, and jousting atop grouse. And when he posts his creations online, they sell out in seconds.
Bob isn’t into typical taxidermy. He doesn’t work with big game like elk and deer. Instead, he transforms Montana’s pine squirrels into breechcloth-wearing warriors, complete with tiny weapons like a hand-knapped obsidian knife and a pebble-adorned war club. He makes everything by hand, using traditional skills, with materials (including squirrels) sourced mostly from his backyard. It’s the folk art you never knew you needed.
There’s a fly-fishing squirrel wearing deer skin waders, casting into a tiny imaginary eddy. There’s the ever-popular Rabbit Rider, with a squirrel warrior shooting a bow while riding a snowshoe hare. And there is Bob’s favorite, whom he calls the Seeker. It’s a short, fat squirrel cloaked in coyote fur, packing a tiny crossbow and a quiver of quills. It’s holding a torch, which is a working LED light. It’s looking at something off into the distance. “I like him because I can get a little philosophical,” Bob says. “He’s asking the big questions.”
Bob will be the first to admit he’s a little quirky. Born and raised in Montana, he went to college at Dickinson State in North Dakota to play football. He majored in art and minored in psychology, both of which inspire his creations. “You’ve got people spending what I think is a lot of money on a stuffed squirrel, and I think it has a lot to do with a personified animal hero,” he explains. “Many creation myths are wrapped around animals, and there’s something in people that’s drawn to that. Look at the Chronicles of Narnia, the Redwall series, and the Secret of Nihm. There’s something there that resonates.” These stories tap into a desire for adventure, heroism, and a connection with the natural world. His company, Squirrel Warriors, offers a tangible embodiment of these archetypes.
He also touches on a more recent phenomenon.“There’s a primitive skills renaissance, too. People don’t really want to go out and live off the land. It’s tough, and it’s cold. But they can live vicariously through my art.”
Bob is a fan of primitive skills, and it’s not just something he does on weekends in the woods. His tiny creations wear tanned hide coats, which came from a deer he shot using traditional archery equipment that he made. Tiny bowstrings are made of muscle sinew from that deer. He used to create tiny warrior knives from epoxy. Then he learned flint knapping from primitive skills guru Jack Reynolds. Now, he makes the fingernail-sized blades by hand out of obsidian.
From Pole Barns to Pine Squirrels
Before his art paid the bills, Bob worked a 9-to-5 building pole barns. Tiny taxidermy was a side hustle, an artistic outlet, and he learned the craft through instructional DVDs. One particular video detailing the art of mounting a squirrel captivated him. On his property, Bob has a plentiful supply of pine squirrels. And with his background in sculpture and figure drawing, his imagination took the shape of a woodland warrior.
His first creation was a samurai squirrel, cobbled together from natural materials he found around his property. The concept continued to evolve as he bounced ideas off his coworkers, who suggested a polar bear with a wolf over its shoulders and carrying a spear. That one hasn’t materialized.
After pole barns, Bob painted water pumps, sanding off epoxy paint all day and coming home covered in orange dust. Eventually, his wife encouraged him to pursue his art for both his sanity and his health. “I think my wife had given up on any financial stability from her husband,” he jokes. As a bookkeeper and home school teacher to their two boys, she provided invaluable support, allowing Bob to turn a side hustle into a full-blown business.
The Stuffed Squirrel Economy
While the first warrior was created in 2020, it only took him two years to start working on them full-time. The transition was gradual, fueled by passion and a growing demand for his work. At first, he set up a booth at craft shows. He would bring 15 or so pieces to for a hodgepodge of buyers. “More times than not, it was the urban housewife who was buying these,” he says. Role-playing gamers and urban dwellers still make up a significant portion of his clientele.
Making a living as an artist is challenging, and he’s experienced periods of financial uncertainty, even contemplating giving up on Squirrel Warriors altogether. “It’s been like most artwork,” he says. “It’s a rollercoaster.”
However, a stroke of luck changed everything. A video of his Rabbit Rider went viral on Instagram in 2023, garnering over a million views and a flood of orders. “I’m not kidding. The next day, my phone was going wild.” In a matter of days, he had more than a year’s worth of orders. Today, his pieces sell quickly, often within a minute of being posted online. The lower-priced items—$750 for a single warrior—disappear almost instantly, while the more elaborate creations, like the Rabbit Rider, priced just under $2,000, may linger for up to five minutes.
Bob doesn’t take success for granted. “You’re very lucky to make a living in the art world,” he admits. “My job is to make something unique at a very high level.” He focuses on creating high-quality, one-of-a-kind pieces that stand out in a crowded art market. While he acknowledges the existence of other artists who sell stuffed small game—think mice dancing around stripper poles and raccoons paddling canoes—Bob’s work stands out for its attention to detail, narrative depth, and undeniable charm.
He determines his prices based on online auctions and feedback from art shows. Some pieces have even sold for double his asking price at auction, demonstrating the demand for his unique creations.
He admits to having a preference for certain types of squirrels. “I don’t like fox squirrels,” he says. “They’re tougher to make look good. They kind of looked a little creepy.” He favors the smaller, more delicate features of pine squirrels. But that doesn’t make them easy to kill. “They’re the cape buffalo of the trees,” he says. With a St. Bernard/collie mix by his side, Bob takes careful aim with a .22 to shoot them through the high front shoulder.
Legacy Art
McEachern’s creative process is a blend of observation, imagination, and craftsmanship. Rather than pose his figures statically, like a shoulder-mounted whitetail staring off into space, he gives them life through movement. “You have to catch them at a moment of tension,” he says. “When you pose them moving, that’s when the magic happens.”
That magic was noticed by Josh Henry at the Yellowstone Harvest Festival in Livingston, Montana. Josh works at hunt clothing manufacturer Sitka Gear in Bozeman, just 30 minutes and one mountain pass away from where the festival took place. “You see a lot of taxidermy in my field,” Josh says. “Bob’s stuff is so unique and such high quality. The little details blew my mind. I loved his stuff, and my kids did, too.”
Josh loved his work so much that he commissioned a piece for the Sitka offices. Even though there was a two-year wait for commissioned pieces, Josh says he ordered a Rooster Rider, but there was a catch. Instead of a traditional deer-tanned robe, Josh wanted the Sitka squirrel to wear the trademark camo that Sitka Gear is known for. With a custom Subalpine camo top, the Rooster Rider was an instant hit in the office, and it was soon named Nutmeg. Every month, an employee is recognized for outstanding performance, and Nutmeg lives proudly at their desk.
“Bob uses rattlesnake skin for the bow riser,” Josh says. “And bison and deer hide. It’s all 100 percent natural. If I get the chance to buy more, I will.” Josh has since commissioned another single female squirrel warrior to travel around to Sitka Gear’s top-performing stories. Her name is Hazel.
For young artists looking to get into this tiny trade, squirrels can be a good but frustrating entry into taxidermy. The good news is that squirrels are everywhere. If you screw up, it’s not a big deal, he says. The trick is to perfect the area around the eyes, mouth, and ears. “That’s where all the character is,” he says.
He admits to having a preference for certain types of squirrels. “I don’t like fox squirrels,” he says. “They’re tougher to make look good. They kind of looked a little creepy.” He favors the smaller, more delicate features of pine squirrels. But that doesn’t make them easy to kill. “They’re the cape buffalo of the trees,” he says. With a St. Bernard/collie mix by his side, Bob takes careful aim with a .22 rifle to shoot them through the high front shoulder.
The art of taxidermy is a skill that takes time to master, and Bob admits he’s not there yet. He’s quick to emphasize the importance of storytelling. “I like stories,” he says. “I’m not a good taxidermist, but I think I’m a good storyteller.” His focus isn’t just on accurately mounting an animal; it’s about creating a character with a history, a purpose, and a unique personality—one that transcends trends and time. “My dream is that 100 years from now, one of these shows up on Antiques Roadshow.”
“I don’t know how long the squirrel taxidermy market can last before it’s saturated. For now, it’s paying the bills, and I need to have enough self-discipline to get them out the door. You get that artist itch to make something new. But then after you do it so many times, it can get really hard to skin squirrel number 330. But then, you have to return to the hard truth that you’re really lucky to be doing this and not building a pole barn, and it’s 10 degrees outside.”
Contact Bob McEachern
Artist, Creator, Mountain Man
Helena, MT
406-417-8421
squirrelwarriorstaxidermy@gmail.com
