Industry is warning that without recognition of heritage trades in the ACT qualifications register and urgent training they risk being forgotten.
Heritage trades like blacksmiths, farriers and meat boners were featured in the 2022 ACT worker shortage list.
A range of heritage trades are not featured in the ACT qualifications register and without necessary action to preserve these trades, industry is warning our workforce will suffer.
Victoria Pearce from Endangered Heritage hosts the National Endangered Skills and Trades Show which is an annual event showcasing heritage trades.
Ms Pearce wants the ACT qualifications register to recognise heritage trades so businesses can offer apprentices the necessary training.
"These trades were banned from taking on apprentices - which means if they want to train someone under fair work they have to pay them at the full professional rate," Ms Pearce said.
"I suspect in the next five-to-10 years we're going to find ourselves completely deskilled and unable to reverse the damage."
Tiernan Creagh runs OS Venator Taxidermy which specialises in skeletal taxidermy. A type of taxidermy which cleans, degreases and assembles animal skeletons for preservation.
Mr Creagh learnt the trade from his father who was a zoologist.
"We would collect roadkill and clean up the skulls and that sort of started 33-odd years ago," he said.
Mr Creagh has a large client base with museums as well as pet owners wanting a taxidermy of their late pets.
"I have put together a tiny frog mouse, for the Reptile Zoo. I've put together a cat for someone," he said.
Skeletal taxidermy also preserves DNA for genetic extraction which scientists can later study to revive extinct species.
"We can use it to preserve an endangered species on the brink of collapse, we can preserve it for genetic evidence," Mr Creagh said.
"Bones are a species' living hard copy of health, illness and lifestyle that gives insights over a longer period that typical short term studies just can't," he said.
There are currently no taxidermy courses recognised by the ACT qualifications register so there are very few formal training options for those interested in the trade.
"There aren't really any schools that offer courses in how to do it, you have to find a practicing taxidermist and asked to be apprenticed under them," Mr Creagh said.
He said there was a significant resurgence in the taxidermy specifically among females.
"A good portion are female, we're seeing approximately 75 per cent, I'd say, are female. It used to be a very male dominated industry but that's changing."
Another heritage trade which is under threat is scientific glassblowing. Kent Carruthers is one of a few scientific glassblowers left in Australia.
Without locally manufactured glassware Mr Carruthers warns scientists will have to use inferior lab equipment from overseas.
"A lot of glassware is imported from overseas these days. But it's quite often that the quality is inferior," Mr Carruthers said.
Glassware is an essential tool for laboratories around Australia. When mass-produced foreign glassware breaks, scientists turn to Mr Carruthers to manufacture flasks for their desired dimensions.
"It can't be mass produced because of the complexity. Machines can't do it," he said.
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