A few weeks ago, a man brought a zebra hide and a giraffe skin into a family-run tannery in regional Victoria to be made into floor rugs.
Brothers Bruce and Ross Greenhalgh didn’t raise an eyebrow – or post it on social media.
Brothers Ross, left, and Bruce Greenhalgh at Greenhalgh Tannery in Bunkers Hill, near Ballarat.Credit: Jason South
They simply got to work preserving the skins for the client, a taxidermist. Bruce says it was the first giraffe skin to cross the threshold of Greenhalgh Tannery, near Ballarat, but not the first zebra. He was unfazed.
“We get lots of people ringing up,” he said. “It’s nothing strange.”
Clients often bring in pelts of wild bulls they’ve shot in the outback. The brothers once tanned the skin of a lion from a zoo, which was to be displayed in a museum.
Bruce and Ross, aged 70 and 66, are thinking about retirement. Ross’s two adult children don’t wish to take over the tannery, a cluster of sheds and a shop on 30 hectares of paddocks at Bunkers Hill, 10km west of Ballarat, which means the business will probably close.
Jason I’Anson retrieves deer skins from being rinsed in a barrel at Greenhalgh Tannery.Credit: Jason South
But the brothers are not hanging up their aprons just yet.
The tannery was founded 150 years ago by their great-great-grandfather Ralph Greenhalgh, and the brothers are the fifth generation to run it.
There were about 100 tanneries in Australia in the 1970s when they started work as teenagers for their father, Jack.
Today, there are only a handful, due to cheaper labour overseas, local environmental regulations and the local footwear industry’s demise.
Jason I’Anson at work with deer skins inside a barrel at Greenhalgh Tannery.Credit: Jason South
Greenhalgh’s business is “only just sustainable,” says Ross, and it’s expensive to do business in Victoria, with high taxes and compliance costs.
But for now, they continue to load the ancient machines that dye, wash, shear or stretch the skins.
There are giant barrels that spin, and gnarled de-hairing, de-fleshing, thinning and shaving contraptions.
Sometimes the brothers, or their employee Jason I’Anson, stir skins in tannic acid in brick pits, and later hang them up to dry.
Ross Greenhalgh nailing hides to drying racks.Credit: Jason South
During the Gold Rush, the tannery made leather for everything from saddles to tap washers, stage coach suspensions and buckets.
These days, the most popular item is cattle-hide floor rugs, treated with aluminium sulphate.
The tannery’s founder Ralph Greenhalgh at the time of his 1859 wedding to Silvia Pettigrove in Melbourne.Credit: Greenhalgh family
The brothers also tan solid leather for horse gear, crafting or belts, which is treated with bark extract also known as “veg-tan”.
A cow-hide rug can take eight weeks to process and costs around $700. Veg-tanning takes three months and typically costs $600 per hide.
The Greenhalghs have also tanned deer, goats, emu, fox, cat, dog and kangaroo skins.
Ross said the zebra and giraffe skins brought in this week came from Africa. Importers must comply with customs rules, overseas and in Australia. The skins, which were imported in 2008 before customs laws changed, were part-processed in Africa as was the rule at the time.
Bruce says he will feel sad when Greenhalgh tannery closes.
“Where would I go? I probably feel a bit of attachment to it,” Ross says.
The brothers emphasise there’s no closing date yet. They’re certainly still taking orders.
“We’ll wind down slowly,” said Ross.
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