Saga of Delbridge Museum's mounted taxidermy collection reaches South Dakota Capitol

Mayor TenHaken, Sioux Falls officials ask Legislature for option as workgroup studies future for Brockhouse Collection

PIERRE — South Dakota’s largest city sent the cavalry to the state Capitol Tuesday to talk about stuffed animals.

Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken and a pair of City Councilors spent part of their Tuesday morning lobbying House lawmakers to change state law so the city can consider allowing an out-of-state nonprofit to take possession of a collection of exotic taxidermy mounts that had been on display at the Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum.

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“Of all the things I thought I’d be testifying on in Pierre this session, this is the only one so far that has risen to the level of me feeling like I needed to weigh in on it,” TenHaken said. “It is important to our city and to our community.”

Those remarks to the House Local Government Committee came six months after the city and zoo leaders chose to decommission a 170-specimen exhibit known as the Brockhouse Collection that entails animals like an elephant, hyena, giraffe, and dozens of other species. At the time, the city blamed the closure on arsenic being detected in some of the taxidermy mounts, while announcing plans to dispose of the collection. But that sparked public outcry and calls to preserve the collection, most of which was amassed during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s by Sioux Falls businessman and big game hunter Henry Brockhouse.

Heeding concerns, City Hall reconsidered its plans and instead formed a workgroup to study options to potentially restore the collection, relocate the collection, or both.