The coloring book, which is no longer available for download from the company's website, explains the drilling process and depicts relatively unchanged landscapes "before drilling" and "after drilling." (Talisman Energy)
R.I.P. Talisman Terry.
The "friendly Fracosaurus" featured in a 24-page coloring book by Talisman Energy that explained the controversial process of extracting gas from rock formations will no longer be distributed by the company, a spokeswoman told FoxNews.com.
Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for Talisman Energy USA Inc., said the coloring book, "Talisman Terry's Energy Adventure," was created in 2009 by staff at Talisman's headquarters in Calgary, Canada, as a giveaway for county fairs and other community events along the Pennsylvania-New York border. It's unclear exactly how many were produced and distributed, she said.
Despite no complaints from the public -- only from "the media," Cox said -- the company decided to stop using the publication within the past month.
"We're going to take our company's focus to where it should be," Cox said. "We're not going to continue to dispute the intent of a children's coloring book. There's two sides to every story, but it's not something that we're going to be disputing … it's an activity book for young children."
The coloring book, which is no longer available for download from the company's website, explains the drilling process and depicts relatively unchanged landscapes "before drilling" and "after drilling."
"During the drilling process, you may see a lot of big equipment, including a drill rig, large trucks, and tanks of water," Terry says in one panel.
On June 19, the friendly dinosaur was discovered by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which characterized its overt message as "drilling is smart, safe and American," according to the newspaper. U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also cited it last week during remarks before an Energy and Mineral Resources and Agriculture Joint Subcommittee oversight hearing.
"The loveable dinosaur playfully promotes the benefits of natural gas and paints a picture of a magical world filled with smiling rocks and grinning animals," Markey said in prepared remarks. "The problem is that unless you are a 'FRACK-A-SAURUS' [sic] named 'Talisman Terry,' this world doesn't exist. For communities around this country the expansion of natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing has meant contamination of water supplies, loss of property value, deteriorating health conditions, dead livestock, and destruction of pristine forest and agricultural lands."
Comedy Channel's Stephen Colbert also gave the coloring book some prime-time exposure during a five-minute segment earlier this week. Colbert said the book was a way for Talisman to "counter [its] image problem," citing its 145 violations in 2010 from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
"This coloring book also tugs at heart strings," Colbert said on Monday. "Because as Terry says, natural gas is created from organic material like the dinosaur pictured right here. Now keep in mind, Terry is a dinosaur and he's encouraging us to use the remains of his own dead relatives to heat our homes."
Of fracking, the highly controversial processes that blasts chemicals, water and sand into rock to extract natural gas, Colbert said: "It's like giving the Earth an Alka-Seltzer if the Alka-Seltzer shattered your internal organs so oil companies could harvest your juices."
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