Effort fails to send Brockhouse collection to public vote

An attempt to refer a City Council decision to a public vote on the donation of the Brockhouse taxidermy collection has failed to gain enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.

The Sioux Falls city clerk’s office reported that there were a little over 500 signatures, well shy of the 5 percent of the 152,000 registered voters in Sioux Falls needed, which is more than 7,552 valid signatures.

The City Council unanimously voted in February to gift 117 specimens in the collection to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, 33 pieces to The Oddities Museum Inc. in Georgia and two specimens to the Institute for Natural History Arts in New Jersey.

The taxidermy animals were harvested in the late 1940s through the 1970s by Henry Brockhouse. They were bought by C.J. Delbridge and donated to the city by the Delbridge family, which has expressed support for donating the specimens to the selected nonprofits.