Citizens across the province have had their say and Scotty, the Tyrannosaurus rex, will be the next provincial emblem.
Scotty is a 65 million year-old T. rex skeleton — the first found in Saskatchewan. Scotty was discovered on August 16, 1991, when then high school teacher Robert Gebhardt from Eastend joined Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM) palaeontologists on an expedition.
He discovered the base of a tooth and a vertebra from the tail, both suggesting that they belonged to a T. rex. In June 1994, RSM palaeontologists began excavating the T. rex. More than 6,000 people visited the excavation site that year.
“I would like to thank the public who took interest and participated in this campaign, along with the RSM who facilitated the selection of the next provincial emblem,” said Mark Docherty, Minister of Parks, Culture and Sport.
“Scotty the T. rex will make a wonderful provincial emblem. No other province or state has a T. rex as an official emblem; Saskatchewan is the first and only.”
The process of selecting a provincial fossil was led by the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport through the RSM. Since November 2015, the public have been able to cast paper ballots at the Provincial Fossil Campaign 2016 exhibit at the RSM in Regina, and in April 2016 voting opened province-wide online.
There were 14,208 votes cast and Scotty received 4,923 (35 per cent) of the votes.
The Provincial Protocol Office will take the lead on the subsequent legislative change which is required for designating provincial emblems. The Provincial Fossil Campaign also featured a competition aimed at Grade 7 students who submitted videos making a case for their choice for the provincial fossil. Out of 24 videos submitted, the winning classroom was Chad Jeannot’s class from Alameda School.
The classroom promoted Big Bert, the 92 million year-old crocodile, as the best candidate. Big Bert took second place in the public vote with 3,326 votes (23 per cent). Jeannot’s class won a visit from RSM palaeontologist Tim Tokaryk. Jeannot’s classroom was introduced in the House at the Legislative Building and helped Minister Docherty to unveil Scotty the T. rex as the winning fossil at the RSM.
The T.rex Discovery Centre, located at #1 T-rex Drive in Eastend, reopened for the season on May 21. A cast of Scotty’s skeleton is on display at the centre, which is open daily from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
