"The amount of people who have stopped, especially young kids coming in with their parents, has been amazing," Proctor said.
At first Proctor worried there would be some backlash from animal rights activists but the public's reaction had been almost completely positive.
There had already been interest in some of the animals from local collectors and Mr Proctor hoped most of the pieces would stay in Otago.
It was difficult to put an estimate on how much the collection would sell for but some of the bigger animals, like the lion, could sell for between $5000 and $10,000, he said.
The collection will be auctioned on March 3.