Aug. 21, 2023

A process that started a year ago with the goal of assessing and then relocating the decades-old collection at the Delbridge Museum of Natural History ultimately led Great Plains Zoo leadership to determine the only option was to close it.

As part of working through its master planning process, the zoo hired a taxidermy expert last summer to assess the 170-specimen collection.

“We’d been looking at the museum for quite some time. There’s visible deterioration on a number of the mounts,” Great Plains Zoo CEO Becky Dewitz said.

The assessment “basically looked at their condition — are they cracking — and he categorized the specimens on a chart from excellent to poor condition. And we have specimens that meet every category. We have some in poor, some in excellent, moderate; it ranges.”

Through that conversation and with future uses for the space in mind, the zoo began looking at potential options for the collection. Some specimens were beyond the point of repair, but others potentially could have found new homes, Dewitz said.

“Every organization we spoke to said, ‘Have you tested them, based on their age?'”

Working with an independent lab, the zoo ordered and performed swab tests for chemicals on the collection and sent them in for analysis.

Two weeks ago, the results came back, and “we determined it was prudent for us to close the museum proactively to ensure public health and safety,” Dewitz said.

While the chemical levels produced an “extremely low to no risk,” the zoo decided no risk was acceptable, she said, adding the greater threat would be if people had direct contact with the specimens or somehow ingested the chemical.

“Some I thought were in great condition and wouldn’t have chemicals did,” Dewitz said. “Even my favorite walrus came back positive.”

The zoo installed barriers in the museum and put up signs not to go beyond the barriers or touch the specimens, but that wasn’t always enough to stop visitors — especially young ones — from going past the barriers to “pet” the animals, Dewitz said.

“I don’t feel anybody’s at risk,” she continued, noting that those in most contact with the collection were zoo staff, though, and “we’re the ones who would have long-term exposure potential.”

The collection originally was procured and displayed over many decades in the mid-1900s by Sioux Falls businessman Henry Brockhouse. The specimens come from six continents. They were hunted by Brockhouse and displayed at West Sioux Hardware until his death in 1978. Many of the species are now critically endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Act, Lacey Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The collection was purchased on public auction from the Brockhouse estate by Sioux Falls attorney C.J. Delbridge in 1981. It was donated to the city of Sioux Falls for the benefit of the community and has been displayed at the zoo as the Delbridge Museum of Natural History since 1984.

The specimens were harvested in the 1940s through the 1970s. Before the 1980s, it was common all over the world to use strong chemicals in the taxidermy process for preservation of the hides. As they age, the potential for chemical exposure grows.

The zoo met with the Brockhouse and Delbridge families after learning the test results and before closing the museum, Dewitz said.

“There’s been a lot of thought and discussion through this,” she said. “The fact is we’ve had 40 years of education and opportunity and experiential learning provided through the Delbridge Museum, which has been a wonderful educational tool, and we’re very thankful to the families for what it’s provided. We understand people’s attachment and sadness, and we respect that we’re trying to honor it by treating this with a great deal of care.”

As a city asset, the mounts will be considered surplus following a vote of the City Council, which is expected in the coming weeks. The city is not planning to offer them for auction as it does with some surplus goods because “we don’t want to transfer that liability to anybody else,” director of parks and recreation Don Kearney said.

“It’s kind of like playground equipment. We don’t surplus that because we don’t want a liability between the city and any future owner.”

Because some of the mounts are protected species, the zoo will work through the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to transition them, Dewitz said.

“There’s a repository with U.S. Fish & Wildlife to deposit specimens for them to manage, and that is critically important as it relate to illegal wildlife trade,” she said. “You can’t just sell heavily permitted specimens. As soon as we start handling and moving them, there’s potential for dust to kick in the air, so there’s going to be a lot of sensitivity how we move through all this guided by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Commission.”

While many visitors have expressed they would have liked to have seen the collection a final time, the zoo determined any potential risk involved prohibited it.

Instead, the zoo made this video to honor the collection. You can view it here.

And, one specimen will remain — a giant panda that was donated to the Sioux Falls Zoological Society by the People’s Republic of China.

“We’re going to plan on keeping panda,” Dewitz said. “Panda could be put in a glass case and really be a wonderful piece of legacy of the Delbridge Museum to tell the story and honor the families.”

For now, the zoo has built false walls around the museum and hung plastic to prohibit access. While the master plan, which includes incorporating the Butterfly House & Aquarium from a recent merger, will bring forward a long-term vision for the space, in the short term “we are looking at other ideas, playground equipment, traveling exhibits; we are getting creative to balance that short and long term,” Dewitz said.

The master plan draft will be brought forward for public input and is scheduled to be presented before the end of the year “to present the new vision for the whole campus,” Kearney said. “There’s a lot of exciting things in store for the zoo and future improvements.”

Zoo closes Delbridge Museum