Smilodon Farewell: The Tar Pits Get a Big Make‑over

The back rooms of the La Brea Tar Pits have turned into a labyrinth of packing crates, each marked with handwritten notes like “bison skulls” or “camel hip.” Even the smallest dire wolf rib is wrapped in foam and boxed, preserving fragile fossils that total 3.5 million items.

Upcoming Closure and Renovation

The museum will close on July 6 for a major renovation, reopening in the summer of 2028 as the center of the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research. The new design will stay close to the old building’s footprint while enhancing exhibit space and storytelling about how ancient ecosystems inform our future.

Packing the Past

• 3.5 million fossils to be carefully packed.
• Each specimen is fragile and irreplaceable, likened to moving a house out of a nightmare.
• Collections will be stored at other NHM sites during the renovation.

Why La Brea Matters

• 60,000 years of life captured by a natural petroleum seep.
• Provides the most complete record of late Pleistocene Los Angeles.
• Offers insights into climate change, extinction, fires, and human–nature interactions.

Current Limitations

• The 1977 building’s layout hinders storytelling.
• Misleading exhibits (e.g., a half‑submerged mammoth sculpture) and outdated displays.
• Limited visitor engagement with the fossil record.

Community Input & Future Design

• Grassy hills for children and the tar pull interactive exhibit will remain.
• Outdoor mammoth sculptures will stay, with landscape adjustments for scientific accuracy.
• The courtyard will feature late Pleistocene plants like cypress and toyon.

New Exhibits

• All current mounted skeletons will return.
• Four new skeletons: a baby bison, a baby dire wolf, a real‑fossil giant ground sloth, and Zed, the most complete Columbian mammoth ever found.

Ongoing Activities

• Excavations and conservation continue during closure under different conditions.
• Mobile programs will serve 34,000 schoolchildren annually.
• Volunteers and staff work nonstop to pack collections, often without observers, a task that feels “strange” according to volunteers.