Taxidermy: Stuff The World (BBC2)

God's Rottweiler? (C4)

JEANNETTE showed us the contents of her fridge in Taxidermy: Stuff The World. "Okay, we got some testicles. Elk testicles. They are some big boys. These are deer testicles, antelope testicles. People seem to think I'm addicted to nuts, but I just like to make my little plaques," she said.

To prove the point, she held up "my testicle creation" - a bizarre piece of art involving a deer's private parts and buffalo hair.

It gave me the creeps, but as this bizarre documentary continued, the activities of a woman who says: "I want to be known for taxidermy, not for being pretty", came to seem acceptable compared to the outlook of some of her fellow stuffers.

What began as one of those jokey documentaries poking affectionate fun at the subject developed into something much more unpleasant. It wasn't so much the gutting, stuffing and mounting of animals (and fish in the case of sad case Matthias who eventually gave it up for religion), it was more the look of relish on the faces of those who killed animals and posed smiling for pictures with the bloody carcasses.

Texan taxidermist, Roy, shot lions and leopards in South Africa. Jeanette hunted and ate deer as well as stuffing them. "Horses are my next big thing," she said, sending a shiver down my spine. She and boyfriend Jeff, also a taxidermist, went to the world coyote competition, where the object was to kill as many of the creatures as you could in two days. For them, this was the perfect date.

Most frightening of all was nine-year-old Victoria, whose nickname is Killer. "It's fun shooting animals," said this American child, shotgun slung over shoulder. "That is cool," she gurgled, as father Steve removed the internal organs of the deer she'd shot and gave her the heart to hold.

"Have you ever seen a guy and his daughter have so much fun in the grocery store before?," he asked.

Not all taxidermists kill the things they stuff. Brit Jack says enough birds die naturally. Alas, his stuffed curlew failed to win at the 2005 World Taxidermy Championship, where over 1,000 taxidermists from 22 countries competed. Perhaps he and friend Peter should have followed their original idea of kingfishers copulating. Both Victoria and Jeanette's stuffed animals won third place ribbons. Roy's leopard skin wasn't delivered in time from Africa to mount and show at "the biggest event in animal stuffing".

The Catholic church's attitude to taxidermy wasn't revealed in God's Rottweiler?, although the documentary did sound warning noises about the views of new Pope, Benedict XVI. Several people questioned the new pontiff's record on issues such as homosexuality, female ordination, other faiths and paedophile priests. They wondered if his views would precipitate a crisis, perhaps a split, in the Catholic church.

Whatever his pronouncements, they're unlikely to echo taxidermist Jeanette's admission as she showed off her testicle creations. "I could say this is my ex-husband after our divorce - I would have loved to cut them off, put them on a plaque and hang them on the wall," she admitted.