Sept. 5, 2023

The Great Plains Zoo showed a look at damage to the Delbridge Museum collection, which city leaders are recommending be declared surplus.

The collection was valued at $430,000 when it was evaluated about a year ago before the detection of arsenic in about 80 percent of the specimens, “which will obviously affect the market value,” director of parks and recreation Don Kearney said in a presentation today to the Sioux Falls City Council.

At that time, about 55 percent of the collection was assessed in excellent condition, while 29 percent was good, 6 percent was fair and 9 percent was poor.

Since 2009, “we have done regular maintenance of the collection,” zoo CEO Becky Dewitz said, adding that a taxidermist visited annually and the staff regularly dusted and cleaned around the collection.

The condition of the mounts didn’t necessarily correlate to whether arsenic was detected, though. Some considered excellent were positive for arsenic, and some that were not in good condition didn’t show arsenic.

Here are some examples of specimens with deterioration:

Most recently, the giraffe was repaired at a cost of about $2,500 that included a patch.

Dewitz also showed a hyena, which did not test positive for arsenic but showed wear because people still touched it in spite of barriers and signs.

“The oil of their skin is also not good for the integrity of the mounts themselves,” she said. “This is decades of touching that have occurred on this animal.”

Of the 170 specimens in the collection, 23 were in excellent condition, arsenic-free and unrestricted by federal law. Of those, 13 are part of the original Brockhouse collection.

The best practice for taxidermy with detectable arsenic is to remove the mount from exhibit and place it in an airtight glass case, Kearney said.

The city’s estimates show that it would cost from $3.4 million to $4.2 million to put the collection in glass and add a ventilation system, not counting the cost to restore mounts and update interpretation or diorama.

Construction of a 16,000-square-foot building was estimated at up to $13.7 million, not including the mount restoration.

The taxidermist who was working with the city is no longer willing to work with the collection after learning about the presensce of arsenic, so a new one would have to be found, Dewitz said.

While no recommendations have been made for the current museum space, the zoo considers it a key building because of its accessibility to parking, especially in inclement weather.

In the short term, the goal would be to fill it with something such as play equipment, Dewitz has said.

Longer term, the zoo’s future master plan is expected to suggest uses for it later this year.

Today’s City Council informational meeting drew a range of opinions, including public input. City Councilor Greg Neitzert expressed the strongest opposition to the plan to declare the collection as surplus, offering to bring in outside taxidermy experts in addition to those the city already has consulted.

“I couldn’t disagree more strongly on this,” he said, calling decommissioning the collection not only unnecessary but also immoral.

“It’s completely bogus,” he said.

Councilor Rich Merkouris asked Dewitz how highly attended the museum is. While the zoo counts people only who come through the door and not necessarily through the museum, “what I can tell you is it is not busy often in the museum,” she said. “On inclement weather days, I do see more people in the museum. … While the museum has important educational value, I’m not seeing it have a strong draw for the attendance in general. I think at one point it probably did but not today.”

Councilor Alex Jensen asked the city to come up with an estimate for how much it would cost to store the collection while the council considered what to do with it.

The next steps include a parks and recreation board meeting Sept. 6 to consider the issue and a Sept. 19 City Council meeting where the council is expected to be asked to vote on allowing a surplus to move ahead. Kearney said the city later would come back with a plan for what to do with each specimen.

City hosts news conference to dispel ‘misinformation’ about Delbridge Museum decision