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Show Giant gets new hair for summer The giant woolly mammoth at Dinosaur Gardens looks more like a bald mammoth as museum curators have stripped it of its wolliness and are replacing its hair. Actually Elbert Port, sculptor of the 14 life-size dinosaurs in Dinosaur Gardens, used hemp for the hair of the mammoth, said Alden Hamblin, Dinosaur Museum of Natural History director. "Due to the weather, birds picking in it, and tourists pulling at it, the Woolley Mammoth began to look ragged," Hamblin said. Last week all the remaining hair on the mammoth was scraped off and hemp, which Porter supplied the museum with, is being put back on. Museum employee Curt Sinclear is using silicon to put the new hair on the mammoth. "When we're through putting the hair on, we'll probably have the only albino mammoth in the world," Hamblin said. The hemp is naturally a white color. After it is in place on the mammoth, it will be dyed a dark brown. The mammoth is part of a collection of Dinosaurs in Dinosaur Gardens located next to the Dinosaur Museum of Natural History. The dinosaurs were purchased by special legislative funding in 1977 by the Utah State Department of Parks and Recreation. The other dinosaur replicas in the gardens need very little care, except for an occasional buffing, Hamblin said. |