Giant sloth roamed Tualatin

The beasts apparently were 20 feet long and weighed 3 to 4 tons

The Times, Mar 4, 2010, Updated Mar 4, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

An illustration of a giant sloth. Bones found in Tualatin once beleive to be a mastadon have now been identified as a sloth.

Tualatin was once home to some serious lumbering beasties.

There’s been mammoth bones. There’s been mastodon bones. And now? Well, Tualatin can lay claim to one giant Harlan’s Ground Sloth.

According to Yvonne Addington of the Tualatin Historical Society, bones from the 1970s previously identified as a mastodon – a hairy, elephant-like thing – have now been identified by Portland State University scientists and National Park Service experts as a gigantic, 3 to 4 ton, 20-foot-long sloth – a hairy, bear-looking thing with big claws.

Prehistoric animals roamed the Tualatin area 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. In recent years, numerous discoveries of ancient bones have led to a renewed interest in the area’s geological history.

Addington says that the sloth bones, currently on display at the Historical Society, were recently put under new light by PSU master’s student Danny Gilmour, who is preparing a thesis on Tualatin-area prehistoric animals. When Gilmour and PSU professor Virgina Butler suspected that the bones – sacrum and vertebrae – were not from a mastodon, they sent pictures to Dr. Greg McDonald, the senior curator of natural history at the Park Museum Management Program of the National Park Service, who is an expert in ancient ground sloths. He corrected the bones’ identification upon examination.

According to Addington, the bones were found when the Durham Wastewater Treatment Plant was being built in the 1960s and 1970s by construction worker Ernest Rowland, about one-fourth of a mile from where the Ki-a-Kuts Pedestrian Bridge at Tualatin Community Park now stands.

Addington said that Gilmour’s thesis is expected soon, and should reveal more precisely the age of the bones found in Tualatin, as well as additional information about Tualatin’s ancient giants.

Addington also said that some citizens have been discussing the possibility of using Tualatin’s pre-historical features and rich hops-growing country as a unique tourism attraction, with a name such as “Valley of the Giants.”

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