Big Kev the Palmerston dinosaur could face extinction    The fate of a fibreglass dinosaur hangs in the balance after the site's new owner, superstore Bunnings, announced it would dismantle the prehistoric Palmerston landmark
     Whether or not the beloved brontosaurus will ever stand again depends on whether someone will want to restore him after construction
 For more than a decade, Big Kev has amused and puzzled those travelling in and out of Darwin on the Stuart Highway — an odd reminder of the idiosyncratic attractions the Top End city offers
 The Jurassic sentinel is being stood down not in a powerful blast, but piece by piece, just as he arrived 12 years ago, on special order from Asia for Finlay's Stone Masonry in Yarrawonga near Palmerston
 Then-owner Tom Finlay made sure the metres-high monster was cyclone-proof and secured firmly into the red soil with the help of a structural engineer
Big Kev too costly to shift Kept company by a mosaic dragon and other larger-than-life stone figures, Big Kev was a curiously welcome site to many, but when Finlay's was sold and moved premises, the giant model proved too costly to move
 Until his dismantling on Thursday, for many months the giant model struck a lonely figure, a stranded Loch Ness monster on a vacant dirt block
 As the news broke of his imminent extinction, dozens of Darwinites began lamenting the impending loss of Big Kev on social media
Hardware giant says Kev won't be destroyed Bunnings points out that its acquisition of the Big Prawn in Ballina, in far northern NSW, led to its restoration
 "We understand that Big Kev holds a special significance to Palmerston residents," Bunnings' director of property Andrew Marks said in a statement
 The company said it spent $400,000 "refurbishing" the prawn and attaching a new giant tail
 But it hasn't decided on whether to make Big Kev's vanishing temporary or for good
  
