Residents file petition seeking public vote to retain Brockhouse animal collection

An effort has started to allow Sioux Falls voters to decide whether to declare the Brockhouse taxidermy collection as surplus or keep it.

A petition was filed with the city clerk’s office under the name Concerned Citizens of the City of Sioux Falls, led by Mike Zitterich, a citizen who has testified against donating the collection.

The effort will need to collect signatures from 5 percent of the 152,000 registered voters in Sioux Falls, which is more than 7,500 valid signatures. The deadline to submit them will be 5 p.m. March 6.

In a Facebook post, the group said it’s collecting signatures this weekend at Abby Normal’s Museum of the Strange west of Harrisburg.

The Sioux Falls City Council unanimously voted this week 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 decision followed more than a year of work by a volunteer group to study options for the collection. Preliminary estimates found that it could cost more than $7 million to restore the mounts, create dioramas and construct a building to create a modernized educational experience upholding best practices for a natural history museum. A report by A.M. Art Restoration estimated restoration costs for the taxidermy specimens at more than $850,000, not including ongoing funds needed to operate a building and maintain the specimens.

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.

Brockhouse animal collection gifted to 3 institutions