NEWINGTON, Conn. (AP) – The lions and tigers and bears in Julia Budney’s garage need a new home – oh, my.

Budney, 90, and her adult children are looking for a museum, university or other venue near her Newington home where the 100-plus stuffed lions, leopards, seals, rhinos and other animals can be displayed.

Budney’s late husband, Henry S. Budney, amassed the unusual collection during decades of hunting expeditions worldwide before his death in 2004.

His will directed that the animals should go to a charitable foundation for educational purposes and, ideally, stay together in Connecticut as their own unique menagerie. Time is running out, however.

The family has tried placing the animals at Yale University’s Peabody Museum, the University of Connecticut, The American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian. Offers to those spots and others, both in the United States and internationally, were declined.

Unless the family finds another solution during a probate court hearing on Tuesday, the herd will be shipped on Friday to the Illinois State Museum, which would display some of the animals and sell others.

“My son said it was the best he could do,” Budney told The Hartford Courant. “But I don’t want the animals to be split up. I’m sick over it.”

She said she knows it is time to relocate the animals – they are crammed into her two-story garage with little room for much else – but wants to follow her late husband’s wishes about how and where they go.

Whoever accepts the stuffed herd will have a challenge, though: One wall of Budney’s garage was built after the massive front half of a stuffed elephant was already inside. For now, the only way to get it out without ripping down a wall would be through small double doors.

“I guess they’ll have to cut him up and put him back together,” Budney said.