TEDxSalem speaker Carla Brauer on discovering the thrill of the hunt

Death does not intim­i­date Car­la Brauer.

The 34 year old owns Der­mesti­dar­i­um, a ser­vice for hunters and pet own­ers that uses flesh-eat­ing bee­tles of the same name to clean skulls and bones. She worked in the funer­al ser­vice busi­ness before that.

“My whole liv­ing has been made around death for years now,” she said.

Peo­ple some­times assume that she’s depressed, or mor­bid or goth, but she’s not, she said. With her ser­vice, she gives pet own­ers memen­tos of their deceased pets.

“I actu­al­ly find it real­ly ful­fill­ing,” she said.

Her busi­ness isn’t the only place where Brauer con­fronts death. She also hunts large game. It’s a wide depar­ture from her veg­an roots, but you’ll hear more about that switch at her TEDxSalem talk Jan. 5.

For Brauer, the act of stalk­ing prey like deer gives her a deep­er appre­ci­a­tion for life, some­thing she says she didn’t quite have as a veg­an.

“You get this appre­ci­a­tion and respect and con­nec­tion for deer as a whole, ver­sus deer as an indi­vid­ual,” she said.

Hunt­ing for food has giv­en her a clos­er con­nec­tion with it, a desire to know and appre­ci­ate her food, Brauer said. It’s part of a larg­er push for her to eat health­i­er food that’s local­ly sourced.

Part of eat­ing more local­ly is find­ing out where your food came from, she said, how it was har­vest­ed, how it trav­eled from the farm or field to your fork.

“You have the oppor­tu­ni­ty when you’re buy­ing at the farm­ers’ mar­ket to real­ly learn those sto­ries,” she said, “and start ask­ing peo­ple about how they grew this, where did this come from, what is it, how do I cook it?”

Hunt­ing for food has also giv­en her a deep­er appre­ci­a­tion for the land that she hunts on and the impor­tance of pre­serv­ing pub­lic lands for wildlife, lands under threat of pri­va­ti­za­tion today.

A large por­tion of state efforts to man­age pub­lic lands is fund­ed by mon­ey from hunt­ing licens­es and equip­ment, Brauer said. A short­age of hunters means a short­fall in man­age­ment bud­gets, she said.

“We all share that space. But I feel like when you’re a hunter, you depend on it so much. You’re so invest­ed, and it’s so per­son­al to you that you’re real­ly going to get involved when some­thing comes around that threat­ens it,” she said.

 

Name: Car­la Brauer

Age: 34

Posi­tion: Own­er of Der­mesti­dar­i­um, a skull and bone-clean­ing ser­vice for hunters and pet own­ers

Home­town: San Fran­cis­co

Fam­i­ly: Wife, 2 res­cue dogs (Aus­tralian Kelpie and Labrador mix), and 4 res­cue cats

Hob­bies: Gar­den­ing, light farm­ing on prop­er­ty, cook­ing

Favorite movie: Hor­ror movies. “Hard to find a hor­ror movie I actu­al­ly find scary.”

Favorite music: Country/folk music.

Musi­cal instru­ments she can play: Fid­dle, musi­cal saw

Cur­rent­ly read­ing: The Pow­er, by Nao­mi Alder­man, A Sand Coun­ty Almanac, by Aldo Leopold

Cur­rent­ly watch­ing on Net­flix: MeatEater

 

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.