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The Story of Dee, the Mammoth

The pelvis of the mammoth was discovered by Mr. Dee Zimmerschied, a bulldozer operator working for Basic Energy Services from Newcastle, Wyoming while making an oil well drilling loction pad on the Allemand Ranch, 25 miles northwest of Glenrock. Lyn George was the geologist who originally located the well site.

The oil well operator was Wildfire Partners of Casper, Wyoming. Companies involved were Discovery Resources, LLC (Joe Scott and Bill Allen); Nerd Gas Company, LLC (Mick McMurry); Mountain West (Jerry Moyle) and Continental Production Company (Scott Chiperfield).

When Dee found the pelvis bone his first call was to Bill Allen, the Drilling Supervisor on the well. Bill made the decision to stop digging and find out what they had found. They contacted the BLM, who had the mineral rights on the land, and the landowners, Allemand Ranch. It was determined that the bones belonged to the private land owner. Bart Byrd, owner of the Allemand Ranch, called in Dr. Kent Sundell from Casper College. The initial identification and preliminary fossil exposure was done by Dr. Sundell, J.P. Cavigelli and Casper College geology/paleontology students during spring break (March, 2006). Twenty-eight bones, including the pelvis, ribs, and vertebrae were uncovered initially. These findings and Dr. Sundell’s evaluation concluded there was possibly a complete mammoth skeleton at the location. The oil companies involved agreed to have the well location moved and resurveyed such that the paleontological work could be accommodated. During the summers of 2006 and 2007, most of the skeleton, including primary legs, vertebrae, ribs, pelvis, lower jaws, one broken tusk and half the foot bones were collected by the Tate Museum staff and volunteers by primarily hand digging methods.

A large track hoe, provided by Basic Energy Services, was used in August of 2009 to search for the undiscovered skull and remaining tusk. The remaining complete tusk was found on August 13, again by Dee Zimmerschied. The tusk was buried by fifteen feet of overburden. The tusk is 11 feet long, 9 inches in diameter and would have contained over 250 pounds of ivory when the mammoth was alive. The skull was found on August 16, 2009, by Bart Byrd, the ranch owner, within several feet of the tusk.

The skeleton was cleaned, catalogued and studied at the Tate Museum by J.P. Cavigelli and numerous Tate Museum volunteers. Dee the mammoth was mounted by the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota from December 2009 – March 1st 2010. The mammoth Skeleton was permanently installed on March 1st, 2010 in the Tate Museum at Casper College.

The mission of the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College is to provide educational resources to its community and visitors by being a leading Earth Science Education Center in the region through its exhibits, collections, and programs.
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