Brevard Zoo team heads to Wyoming in search of dinosaur bones

Florida Today: Brevard Zoo team heads to Wyoming in search of dinosaur bones
Chris DeLorey grins like a kid anticipating summer vacation.

Though he's 45, the Brevard Zoo education director channels the eager enthusiasm of a 12-year-old boy as he talks about this week's fossil dig in Wyoming.

"There's something about being the first person to dig up bones that are 70 million years old," he said, eyes wide, voice filled with wonder. It still is a thrill for him, even though he's been making the trip out west for about 15 years.

And it's an experience he's excited about sharing with seven zoo supporters.

The group flew to Wyoming over the weekend. This week, they'll be searching for fossils on a ranch in Lusk, Wyo., with J.D. Cavigeli, a dinosaur paleontologist for the Tate Museum in Casper.

"We're getting to go into some brand-new areas," DeLorey said.

The group, made of zoo members, volunteers and donors, will learn fossil-hunting basics at the museum, then head out to the ranch where they will help unearth a partial triceratops skeleton, a partial duckbill dinosaur skeleton and anything else they can find.

Larger discoveries will be encased in plaster, brought back and displayed at the Brevard Zoo. The fossil hunters, most of whom are paying their way on the trip, get to keep smaller finds.

Cavigeli will lead the expedition. A few summers ago, he discovered the largest T. rex skeleton found in North America, DeLorey said. If the Brevard group happens upon anything rare or important, Cavigeli will decide if it should stay in Wyoming.

DeLorey started in the zoo business working at Busch Gardens. He found a fossilized shark's tooth in a pile of shells, and his interest was piqued.

While teaching earth science in middle school, he took a class in paleontology and became a self-described fossil fanatic.

"Plus, I never grew up," he said, flashing that grin again. "I'm still fascinated by dinosaurs."

If the week of digging is successful, DeLorey will return later to drive their finds back to Florida. Larger bones, when encased in protective plaster cocoons, can weigh more than 2,000 pounds.

Then he and a team at the zoo will begin carefully chipping away the plaster and cleaning off the fossilized bones. He's hoping to have a partial display ready in time for the zoo's Reptile Weekend, set for Labor Day. Final unveiling -- again, if everything goes as planned -- will be Feb. 18, when the zoo brings back the popular animatronic dinosaur exhibit.

Billings Productions, a Texas company that creates the lifelike prehistoric creatures, made a donation to offset some of the costs of the Wyoming trip, as did private donors, including zoo supporter Herb Harvis.

DeLorey said he hopes to turn the trip into an annual excursion. He also would like to develop a natural history display at the zoo, one that gets guest thinking about animals of the past, creatures living now and what animal life might be like in the future.

For now, though, he's itching to get digging. His only problem with traveling to Wyoming?

"When I go out there, it's hard for me to come home."

The trip combines western adventure with exciting history.

"It's a beautiful area," he said. "And we're digging dinosaurs."