Date of Birth: 1903
Place of Birth: New Jersey
Date of Death: November 28, 1962
Place of Burial: Miami, Florida
Born in 1903 in New Jersey, Albert “Al” Pflueger Sr. moved to Miami in 1925, where he started his own taxidermy business. Pflueger Marine Taxidermy Plant in Hallandale Beach, south Florida. It was during the 1920’s that he pioneered a new technique for mounting fish skins. The previous way of draping a skin over a solid wood or plaster form was much too heavy, so he came up with the idea of a hollow form in which the skin was placed in a mold and lined with mache. Upon drying, the hollow fish mount was removed from the mold. The dried fish skin mounts only lasted a decade or to because of oils and discoloration. It was in the 1930’s that he devised a new method of degreasing the skin and using artists to paint colors onto the skin. One of those employee artists was Richard Frederick Deckert (1878-1971). Al and Richard, together, developed color patterns for the commonly caught species. Lighter mounts, degreased, and color restore by painting, lead to huge success for the Al Pflueger Taxidermy studio. Al died in Miami in November, 1962, after falling down a flight of stairs.
