WASHINGTON (April 14, 2011)—Legislation introduced Thursday by Rep. Bill Flores, R-Bryan, and Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, R-Texas, would make the Waco Mammoth Site a national monument and a unit of the National Park Service.
The site, which was discovered more than 30 years ago, contains the largest known concentration of woolly mammoths that died in a single event.
A painstaking excavation of the site has uncovered the remains of 25 Columbian mammoths that died nearly 68,000 years ago, probably after they were caught in a flash flood.
The U.S. House passed a bill in July 2009 making the site a national monument, but despite the efforts of Cornyn and Hutchison, the legislation died last year in the U.S. Senate, the victim of a maneuver called an anonymous hold.
“This legislation would give Central Texas the opportunity to lay claim to the unique history of an extinct species, while providing education and enjoyment for families and students visiting from all over the country and throughout the world and benefitting future generations for many years to come,” Flores said Thursday.
“As visitors and researchers grow to understand and interpret the behavior and biology of the mammoths, this national recognition would allow us to maximize the value of the Waco Mammoth National Monument as a true national treasure,” he said.
Cornyn said local financial support makes the national recognition possible “without adding to the federal budget and backlog at the National Park Service.
The original recommendation to include the site as part the National Park System came after a six-year feasibility study that Congress ordered in 2002.
