Thursday, July 6, 2017

Mammoth discovery in Channel Islands National Park


I've mentioned that I worked as a Park Naturalist (the type of Ranger most visitors see) at Channel Islands National Park during the summer of 1986 three times on this blog, most recently in Happy 100th birthday, National Park Service!  I've also mentioned that I'm a paleontologist.  The day before yesterday, PBS NewsHour posted a video to its YouTube channel at the intersection of those parts of my life: How this remote national park made a mammoth discovery.

California's Channel Islands National Park is the site of a recent mammoth discovery: a pygmy mammoth skull, to be precise. This report was produced as part of our Student Reporting Labs by students from Etiwanda High School in Southern California.
I took advantage of my paleontological expertise that summer at Channel Island by giving an evening program on Pygmy Mammoths, so this subject is near and dear to my heart.*  Thank you PBS NewsHour for reminding me of those days and updating me and the rest of their viewers on the latest on Pygmy Mammoths.

*I gave two others, one on Gray Whales and the other on wildflowers of the Channel Islands.  Those were fun programs to research and present.  Should I run across videos on those topics worthy of posting, I will.

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