DECEMBER 20, 2023:
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The city of Sioux Falls has decided to spend $55,000 to evaluate a menagerie of taxidermy animals contaminated by arsenic that fill a now-closed natural history museum at the state’s largest zoo.
The contract was approved Monday (Dec. 18, 2023) by a working group that was created after a backlash to the Delbridge Museum’s closure, The Argus Leader reports.
Issues arose in August when nearly 80% of the museum’s specimens tested positive for detectable levels of arsenic.
Community and museum taxidermy experts argued that the arsenic risk was overblown. Older taxidermy specimens are frequently displayed, experts say, with museums taking precautions like using special vacuums to clean them — or encasing them in glass. But Sioux Falls officials have expressed concerns about the cost.
The situation is complicated by a morass of state and federal laws that limit what can be done with the mounts. One issue is that the collection includes 53 endangered species, according to zoo officials, and under federal law and international laws they are protected — even in death.
The contract with A.M. Art Conservation will bring a project team of five people, described by Great Plains Zoo CEO Becky Dewitz as “experts from the natural history museum world,” to Sioux Falls for five days to assess the condition of the museum and its specimens.
They would inspect the mounts and speak with staff before issuing a report that would outline the condition of the mounts, the techniques used to care for them, which ones need more treatment, how much that treatment could cost, and overall recommendations for restoring or replacing them.
But that’s going to take a while, Dewitz said. The earliest the team could visit Sioux Falls is sometime in late January, with a report expected 60 days after their visit.
The group also discussed a $1 million estimate for removing the mounts, storing them for 6-12 months, working on mitigating the arsenic and creating new dioramas for the pieces — which they said would come to a little under $1 million. That’s assuming a considerable chunk of the mounts, at least 25%, are beyond saving.
Costs from putting the specimens behind glass were not included, Dewitz added. Previously, she’s said the price of that, plus improved ventilation in whichever space the mounts are displayed, could be upward of $3 million.
The group also discussed the viability of donating the collection, or parts of it, to a new owner — a plan that faces some hurdles in state law.
Currently, county or municipal museum collections can be given to certain nonprofit organizations — but they must remain within South Dakota and the new caretaker could not themselves dispose of the collection.
Councilor Alex Jensen said he’s had conversations with state legislators about working on a legislative amendment that could allow for the donation of the collection.
As for the mounts themselves, consulting attorney James Moore is working on a legal opinion about whether they are able to put them in storage while these various options get sorted out — something Dewitz seemed eager to do, citing the increased space for indoor recreation she’d have if the animals were not all sitting unused inside the museum.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2023:
UNDATED (AP)- The fate of the mounted lion, tiger, polar bear and gorilla that have long greeted visitors entering South Dakota’s largest zoo is grim after arsenic was found to be widespread in the taxidermy collection, creating a raging debate about whether the more than 150 animals should be destroyed.
Some locals who grew up around the menagerie, which used to fill a hardware store, are fighting the mayor and zoo officials to keep the collection, marshaling activism online and in the Sioux Falls City Council. They are buoyed by experts who say the arsenic risk is overblown, the mounts nothing short of art.
“They’re not stuffed animals. These were sculptures,” said John Janelli, a former president of the National Taxidermists Association, likening destroying them to scraping off the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The arsenic, he adds, is a heavy metal, not something that wafts through the air.
“Just don’t lick the taxidermy,” says Fran Ritchie, the chair of the conservation committee of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. “You’ll be fine.”
Most institutions with older collections take safety protocols, like using special vacuums and wearing personal protective equipment while cleaning the taxidermy, said Gretchen Anderson, a conservator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
But for Sioux Falls, “there is no acceptable level of risk when you are dealing with a known carcinogen,” City Attorney Dave Pfeifle told reporters last week (Aug. 28-Sept. 1, 2023).
The mayor and zoo officials believe reason and safety are on their side. But even if they can convince the town to get rid of the animals, they’ll have to navigate a web of federal and state laws to do so.
The Endangered Species Act protects animals even in death, so the collection can’t be sold. Under federal law, they could be given to another museum. But state law stipulates that exhibits like this must remain within the state.
It wasn’t this messy 80 years ago when a Sioux Falls businessman embarked upon a series of international hunting expeditions chronicled in his eponymous book, “A True Safari Hunter: Henry Brockhouse.”
“For walrus, you have to go out and travel the sea. If you see a head poppin’— one or two miles away — wherever it may be, you start shootin,’” one passage reads.
He proudly displayed some of his prize kills at his West Sioux Hardware store. But by the time he died in 1978, international laws and the Endangered Species Act were cracking down. There was a growing concern that hunters were pushing some exotic animals to the brink of extinction.
When the hardware store closed, Brockhouse’s friend, C.J. Delbridge, snapped up the collection and donated it to the city. The natural history museum that bore Delbridge’s name opened in 1984. An African elephant that was mounted after Brockhouse’s death added to the display. China also donated a mounted giant panda.
In recent years the mounted animals showed their age, including some tears, said Great Plains Zoo CEO Becky Dewitz. As it considered what to do with them, her team had them tested.
In August, the results came back: 79% of specimens tested positive for detectable levels of arsenic, the city said. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, showed that the contaminated mounts included a jungle cat and monitor lizard.
With protective gear, taxidermy can be moved safely despite arsenic, said Jennifer Menken, the public collections manager at the Bell Museum of Natural History. Her institution moved 10 historic taxidermy dioramas to its new space at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus about five years ago.
Other steps can be taken to keep the public safe, she said, including encasing taxidermy in glass. That protects them against temperature, humidity and, of course, visitors licking them.
But in Sioux Falls, cost was a barrier, said Dewitz. So now the animals are hidden behind barricades as the city considers its options.
Some items are earmarked for the National Wildlife Property Repository near Denver, which stores a massive collection of seized wildlife items, including elephant tusks and crocodile skin purses. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates it, won’t take any with arsenic, said spokeswoman Christina Meister.
Dewitz said she’s had a hard time finding other takers, and Mayor Paul TenHaken said he fears the city could still face liability even if it gives them away.
“I know that’s a popular narrative to say that we would just take artifacts like this and treat it like a Papa John’s pizza box,” the mayor said, insisting that is not the case. He was critical of what he described as “misinformation.”
Critics claim that the city and the zoo found the arsenic on purpose, as part of a ploy to replace the space with a butterfly garden and aquarium.
Brockhouse’s granddaughter, Barbara Philips, suspects as much.
“I am sick to my stomach,” she said.
She wants the specimens to be repaired, and kept behind glass as her grandfather did. The 1981 donation agreement, which the AP obtained through a records request, said the mounts “shall be behind a partition of glass or other suitable material.”
The mayor is fed up with the whole thing, and has chastised City Council members who opposed the closure.
“There’s a million things I’d rather be working on right now than this,” the mayor said.
A Facebook group marshaling fans of the exhibit has more than 1,400 followers.
Group creator Jason Haack sells and displays a collection of “unique weird odd items” at his family-run Abby Normal’s Museum of the Strange south of Sioux Falls. He said three business area owners offered $170,000 to fight the closure. His attorney thinks it will be an uphill battle.
“What they’re doing could cause a ripple effect throughout the whole world of natural history museums, and people now questioning the safety of them,” Haack lamented.
The ultimate decision rests with the City Council, which is scheduled to hear a report and then vote at a pair of September meetings.
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