Columbian mammoths up close and personal bring a fresh
perspective to a city with an unfortunate past
Until just a few years ago, when I thought of Waco, Texas, Columbian
mammoths did not come to mind. Instead,
there was that unfortunate law enforcement action in 1993 and I’m told there is
a very popular house renovation show, Fixer Upper, on HGTV that is based in
Waco. Neither of these would have motivated me to visit Waco, but I remembered
my Texas-based NPCA colleague Suzanne Dixon enthusiastically working on
President Obama’s 2015 Antiquities Act Proclamation to add Waco Mammoth National
Monument to the National Park System. She waxed eloquently about this site and I finally
got to check it out on my own.
My girlfriend Craig and I were taking a tour of Texas in our
little Alto trailer and we camped at Speegleville Park,
a really nice and centrally located Army Corps of Engineers campground on Lake Waco. We had reservations for two nights and were glad
we did. The park was full of people like
us escaping the cold climates of more northerly latitudes. Eagerly anticipating learning about mammoths
in Waco, we were up early the next morning and headed for the site.
Camping at Speegleville Park on Lake Waco
The Waco Mammoth story begins when a flash flood, mudslide,
or some other natural catastrophe, possibly even a drought, killed a nursery
herd of 18 adult female and young Columbian mammoths about 65,000 years
ago. Whatever the event, it covered this
nursery herd quickly. We know this
because they were all found together and encased in mudstone, in a ravine about
five miles from downtown Waco along the Bosque River. This small herd laid entombed until 1978 when
Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin found a large fossil sticking out of the ground as
they were searching the area for arrowheads.
They took it to scientists at Baylor University who quickly recognized
it as a Columbian mammoth femur bone. It
was and is the only mammoth nursery herd found in North America.
I really didn’t know much about mammoths other than they
were walking around North America and being hunted 10,000 years ago and that several
almost intact mammoths had been found in the frozen tundra of Siberia. Until my visit, I hadn’t fully realized there
are different species of mammoth. I am
most familiar with the woolly mammoth found in northern climates, like my home
in Alaska. And on a recent trip to St.
Paul Island in the Bering Sea, I learned that woolly mammoths walked on that
island as recently as 5,700 years ago and on Wrangell Island further north near
Russia, the last of the wooly mammoth died only 3,700 years ago.
But woolly mammoths are small compared to the ones in
Waco. Turns out that Waco’s Columbian
mammoths are half again as big as their northern cousins, standing around 14
feet at the shoulder and weighing up to 10 tons. As a size comparison, today’s
largest African elephant stands about 13 feet.
Scientists studying the remains of Columbian mammoths figure that daily they
ate 300 to 700 pounds of food, drank 50 gallons of water and created 400 pounds
of fertilizer!!
Author with artistic speculation on what Columbian mammoths looked like
Baylor University organized the dig along the Bosque River
and they have removed all of the bones found there, storing them for future
study. Baylor spent 12 years excavating
the site. After excavation, there was a
large hole in the ground that needed to be filled in. When the dirt movers started on that project,
moving dirt from an adjacent location, they discovered more bones of mammoths
and other ice age animals.
There were three different events over a 15,000 year period that
caused animals to die at this location and be covered in mud. These included saber-toothed cats, camels,
and several more Columbian mammoths. The
bones found adjacent to the nursery herd were not removed once they were
uncovered. They were left in situ and
these are the bones you can see today. Since
2004, the Waco
Mammoth Foundation has led the effort to preserve these new finds
for public education and enjoyment.
Fortunately, the land owner realized this was a world class
mammoth site and, in 1996, donated the initial five acre site to the city of
Waco. In subsequent years, Baylor
University acquired additional acreage around the site raising the total
protected acres to 108. The Waco Mammoth
Foundation, in cooperation with the city of Waco, raised the necessary funds to
build a shelter over the top of this newer site and its welcome center. Waco
Mammoth was first opened to the public in 2009. Baylor University continues to be involved in
the research and preservation of the bones.
Dig Shelter and bridge over ravine where nursery herd was discovered
Visiting the climate controlled Dig Shelter requires a
guide. We arrived at the welcome center
and checked in to purchase our tickets for the next guided walk. There is a nominal fee that goes to the city
of Waco to pay for the guides, so your NPS passes don’t work here. The guides actually work for the city. It is open seven days a week and the tours
leave regularly throughout the day. This
is a great example of a working partnership between local government, academia,
local NGOs and the Park Service. The
local Congressman started advocating for including Waco Mammoth in the national
park system in 2010 and it passed the House of Representatives twice, only to
die in the Senate. President Obama
created the site as a national monument in 2015.
Ice-Age bones in place for your viewing pleasure
Our guide met us under a covered area next to the welcome
center for the start of the story. We
walked along a paved path over the stream bed where the nursery herd was found
and into the covered Dig Shelter. It is
not huge and the whole visit took us less than two hours. Just inside the Dig Shelter you find yourself
on an elevated walkway where you can peer down on a gigantic male mammoth lying
in the ground just 10 feet or so below you.
This big guy was covered up in the last of the three events that buried
animals here. With only a little bit of
imagination, you can visualize the flesh and hair on the skeleton as the shaggy
beast lying on the ground comes to life.
To help, there is a mural on the wall of what scientists think they
looked like.
View across the Dig Shelter to the entrance
Nearby, there is a skeleton of a camel, which we learned is
regularly found with mammoths.
Scientists speculate that camels were part of the early warning predator
alert system. Assuming mammoths are like
elephants, they can’t see well. But the
camels can. So when the camels became
agitated by approaching predators (including humans), the mammoths were alerted. In return, the camels found safety by hanging
out with the mammoth herd.
Large bull Columbian mammoth left where he fell 50,000 years ago
You can stay as long as you want gazing at bones (there are
several other skeletons uncovered for visitors to see), so long as a guide is
there. Our guide moved on to shepherd his
next group and we stayed longer when the next group arrived in the
shelter.
Our visit was over before noon and the weather was marginal,
so we snuck in a hike at the Lake Waco Wetlands,
a city owned nature preserve that was built in 2007 to mitigate wetland loss
when Lake Waco was raised seven feet.
There is a nature center and boardwalks to take you out into the
wetlands for some good bird and turtle viewing.
Painted buntings were the highlight of our walk before the weather
turned to rain and we scooted back to the car and an afternoon of indoor
activities.
If you have the time, I strongly recommend the Texas Ranger Hall of
Fame and Museum, our afternoon indoor activity. Craig was a little skeptical about this, but
once we got there, the history and stories told were captivating. The Texas Rangers are one of the oldest law
enforcement agencies in America having been formed in 1823 by Stephen F Austin
to protect settlers moving into Indian country. Of course, the Comanche were just trying to
protect their home from Texans pushing west.
This museum tells dozens of Ranger stories, even the ones where the
Rangers are not the men you would point to for their virtue and honesty. So warts and all, you get the whole Texas
Ranger story…including the demise of Bonnie and Clyde and John Wesley Hardin.
Waco Mammoth National Monument got me to Waco where my
perception of the city really changed. I
am sure the city fathers and mothers are much happier to be known for
mammoths. You should visit, Waco is
actually a pretty interesting place.
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