[Nhcoll-l] Delbridge MNH closing over chemical concerns

[James and Judy Bryant]

Unfortunately, this is reminiscent of what happened at the Smithsonian’s natural history museum when they prepared a new hall of mammals. Accounts I’ve read described how they sifted through the old mounts from prior exhibits, kept some, spliced some together to get the “best” mounts, and then trashed the remainder.

James Bryant
Santa Fe NM

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 22, 2023, at 6:22 PM, James and Judy Bryant <jbandjb at live.com> wrote:

 Very unfortunate. It seems they were poorly prepared to accept and exhibit this sort of collection, and that tended to accelerate condition issues.

James Bryant
SOJOURN Science - Nature - Education
Santa Fe, NM
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bryant-0598a940/

On Aug 22, 2023, at 9:44 AM, Opitz, Cindy E <cindy-opitz at uiowa.edu<mailto:cindy-opitz at uiowa.edu>> wrote:

Recently announced: The closure of the Delbridge MNH in South Dakota, “over concerns that chemicals in its taxidermy collection could endanger visitors and staff,” and plans to decommission the collection and dispose of the taxidermy mounts.

Article:
https://apnews.com/article/south-dakota-taxidermy-natural-history-museum-closed-chemicals-8705995a1bf8a45ceb65174e5821308a

Video featuring the taxidermy mounts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx--6nZuLnQ



Cindy Opitz (she/her)
Director of Research Collections
Museum of Natural History and Old Capitol Museum
Instructor, Museum Studies Certificate Program
The University of Iowa
11 Macbride Hall, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Office: 319.335.0481
cindy-opitz at uiowa.edu<mailto:cindy-opitz at uiowa.edu>
mnh.uiowa.edu,<https://mnh.uiowa.edu/> oldcap.uiowa.edu<https://oldcap.uiowa.edu/>
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