5,000 Listings Define the Growing Vulture Culture Market

An online search for “vulture culture” on the marketplace Etsy yields more than 5,000 listings for handmade goods made from animal remains. The subculture includes artists, collectors, and enthusiasts who buy and sell items ranging from preserved insects to bone jewelry. In Hanna, Draya Cruz participates in this market by crafting accessories from bones scavenged in the local area.

Cruz sources her materials from the outskirts of Hanna, including hills, rivers, and lakes. She notes that the Hanna side of a local lake is currently drying up, which makes bones easier to find. The region supports big game such as elk, mule deer, and pronghorn. Cruz says she can also find scorpions under rocks, though she has not yet worked up the nerve to use them in her work. She prefers to source specimens humanely, though she occasionally preserves spiders in her freezer for later projects.

After collecting carcasses, Cruz cleans them at home. She uses sand or salt to shake remaining tissue off smaller bones. She then washes the bones with hydrogen peroxide and lets them bleach in the sun. Her sister-in-law, Alice Million, wears earrings made by Cruz from snake vertebrae. Million says the reaction to the jewelry is usually surprise rather than shock. She describes the accessories as neat and pretty, noting that they soften the concept of wearing snake parts.

Cruz is part of a local group of women who gather for “Sunday Funday” to create art from their findings. The group includes Amy Kinder, a local bartender who makes tinctures from natural herbs. Together, they create miniature worlds in terrarium-like glass jars. These pieces feature tiny skulls and mummified bugs, designed to sit on mantels as small ecosystems of decaying matter.

Cruz sells her work at local craft fairs, including the Hanna Recreation Center farmers market in summer and fall. For a holiday market scheduled for Saturday, she is displaying jewelry that pairs tiny ivory-colored bones with quartz and silver Christmas charms. Other pieces feature bone details paired with brightly colored beads. A specific necklace listed on Etsy combines carved deer antler, a rat jawbone, animal teeth, and claws encrusted with crystals for a price of $1,200. Other pieces on the site sell for less than $20.

Cruz says she likes the odd part of her work. She transforms the hollow eye sockets of elk skulls into alcoves for flowers and uses tiny kneecaps as anchors for colored beads. Million describes Cruz as her own person who beats to her own drum. The group enjoys the natural side of their creative pursuits, finding fun in the process of turning found objects into wearable art.