The Dinosaur Fossil Wars

Across the American West, legal battles over dinosaur fossils are on the rise as amateur prospectors make major finds

  • By Donovan Webster
  • Photographs by Aaron Huey
  • Smithsonian magazine, April 2009, Subscribe
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Fossil prospector Ron Frithiof
Fossil prospector Ron Frithiof (with a mosasaur from his collections) was sued over a T. rex that he uncovered. "This whole experience," he says, "has been a disaster." (Aaron Huey)

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In June 2006, Judge Richard Battey of the United States District Court voided the agreement between Frithiof and the county and ruled, on the basis of a technicality, that Tinker belonged to Harding County. Frithiof appealed. In September 2007, a United States Court of Appeals panel reversed the decision. The Tinker fossil, they ruled, was Frithiof's property; only the original contract's 10 percent payment was owed to Harding County. The appeals court then sent the case back to Federal District Court for final disposition. Frithiof had no choice but to wait.

In the meantime, the location of Tinker—and the fossil's condition—had become a source of contention. Before the legal wrangling began, Frithiof had delivered sections of the skeleton to private curators Barry and April James, who specialized in preparation of paleontological specimens for display, at their Sunbury, Pennsylvania, firm, Prehistoric Journeys. (The process involves removal of the stone matrix encasing the excavated bones.) Once the litigation proceeded, however, the Jameses, who say they had put $200,000 worth of labor and more than two years into the project, were barred from completing the work or collecting payment from Frithiof. Their company filed for bankruptcy in 2005.

"Now I have the Tinker fossil in my possession," says Larry Frank, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, attorney who is trustee of the James bankruptcy. "I've filed an artisans' lien against the value of the specimen. Until the matter is resolved, the skeleton will sit in large plastic containers in my possession. We believe that's a good, safe place for it."

For scientists, commercial excavation of fossils—legal or not—raises troubling questions. "For me," says Mark Norell, chairman and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, "the big concern with all this private digging is that it may be robbing science of valuable knowledge."

Norell believes that anyone harvesting fossils "needs to be considerate of scientific data surrounding the specimen." Context is important. "A lot of the guys out there digging commercially are just cowboys; they don't care about the site where the fossil sits, how it's oriented in the earth, what can be found around it to give us clues to what the world was like when that fossil animal died." Some commercial excavators "want only to get the specimen out of the ground and get paid—so we lose the context of the site as well as the fossil itself."

The Smithsonian's Carrano says all scientifically significant fossil specimens, whether from public or private lands, should be placed into museums for study in perpetuity. "Any unique fossil has more value scientifically and educationally than we can ever place a cash value on," he adds. "In a perfect world, there'd be a way to vet every fossil collected: the significant ones would be retained and studied; others could go to commercial use. Not every fossil shark's tooth is significant, but some are. Let's retain those significant ones for study."

For the past several years, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, one of the fossil world's preeminent professional organizations, has lobbied in support of Congressional legislation that would protect fossils taken from public lands. Since 2001, a bill introduced by Representative James McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts—the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act—has languished in both the House and Senate. The delay, some proponents believe, stems from some western lawmakers' reluctance to add any regulations regarding public lands. If passed into law, the act would require that only trained, federally certified professionals be allowed to extract fossils from public lands—and would substantially increase penalties for illegal fossil excavation.

The proposed legislation has galvanized critics, from mining company executives to paleontology prospectors, many of whom argue that improved enforcement of existing laws is all that is needed. "This new bill provides no funding for additional federal agents to police these areas, meaning it has no teeth," says Jack Kallmeyer, a paleontological prospector. "As long as there is demand for the commodity, without sufficient enforcement personnel, nothing will stop illegal collecting."


Editor’s note: On August 6, 2009, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling that Ron Frithiof did not engage in fraud and that he and his team can retain ownership rights of Tinker the Tyrannosaurus . For more on this story and other dinosaur-related news, read our Dinosaur Tracking blog.

Buried beneath a barren stretch of South Dakota badland, the deceased appeared small for its species. As Ron Frithiof, an Austin, Texas, real-estate developer turned dinosaur prospector, dug cautiously around it in a rugged expanse of backcountry, he was growing increasingly confident that he and his partners were uncovering a once-in-a-lifetime find.

Ever since he had heard about a private collection going up for sale in the mid-1990s, Frithiof, now 61, had been hunting dinosaurs. "I'd thought fossils were things you could see only in museums," he says. "When I learned you could go out and find stuff like that, to keep or even to sell, it just lit a fire in my imagination. I studied every book I could, learned techniques of extraction. Fossils inspire a powerful curiosity."

Frithiof was keenly aware that the skeleton of a mature Tyrannosaurus rex ( "Sue," named in honor of prospector Sue Hendrickson, who made the find in western South Dakota in 1990) had been auctioned off—at Sotheby's in New York City in 1997—for more than $8 million. The specimen that Frithiof and his fellow excavators began unearthing in 1998, in a painstaking, inch-by-inch dig was about four feet tall, less than half Sue's height. With unfused vertebrae and scrawny shin and ankle bones, the skeleton was almost certainly that of a juvenile. If so, it would likely be the most complete young T. rex ever discovered. A find of this magnitude, Frithiof knew, would create a sensation. Its value would be, as he put it, "anyone's guess." $9 million? $10 million? This was uncharted territory.

For nearly three years, the excavators—including longtime fossil hunter Kim Hollrah, who had first investigated the site—continued their meticulous work. Whenever Frithiof, Hollrah and their companions could coordinate time off from work, they would drive 24 hours straight, from Texas to the dig site, north of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, which Frithiof had leased from a local rancher in 1998. "Most years, we'd spend about a month working," he recalls. "Thirty or 40 days a summer, before the weather would drive us off."

Braving blistering 100-degree temperatures, the crew took every precaution to keep the specimen intact. At the same time, they were attempting to wrest it from the ground before South Dakota's brutal winter set in. "That's one of the paradoxes of fossil collecting," says Frithiof. "Once a specimen is exposed to the elements, it's a race to get it out in as responsible a way as possible, to protect it from wind and rain and weathering. It's like a slow-motion race."

Paleontological excavation is nothing if not grueling. "We worked inch by inch, brushing bits of rock and soil away, taking a pin to strip away just that next little bit of rock and earth [to reveal the rough contours]," Frithiof told me. On a good day, an experienced fossil excavator might uncover only a few inches of skeleton. Frithiof and the others gingerly pried out each section, still enclosed in the crumbly chunk of rock matrix that had originally surrounded it. In preparation for transport, the prospectors then wrapped the sections in layers of tissue paper, aluminum foil and plaster.

As the dig moved forward, Frithiof's colleagues, with a nod to "Sue" (today a centerpiece attraction at Chicago's Field Museum), decided the new T. rex needed a name. The one they came up with honored Frithiof's role as the project's financial backer. "I don't know why my parents started calling me Tinker," says Frithiof. "Somehow, it stuck."

In 2001, as the excavation of Tinker headed toward completion, the team made another remarkable discovery: evidence of two additional T. rex skeletons on the site. By that point, a children's museum in the Midwest had indicated its willingness to pay up to $8.5 million for Tinker. During the prospective purchaser's pre-transaction research, however, a massive legal hiccup was uncovered—one that Frithiof and his lawyers would later insist had been an honest mistake.

Tinker, as it turned out, had been found not from local rancher Gary Gilbert's land but from adjacent property owned by Harding County, South Dakota. In November 2000, Frithiof, he says, with an eye to future excavations, had leased the parcel from the county; the agreement stipulated that the county would get 10 percent of the sale price for any fossils uncovered there. Now, in August 2004, Harding County filed a civil lawsuit in Federal District Court against Frithiof and his partners alleging fraud, trespass and conspiracy.

Frithiof's world caved in. After devoting years to Tinker, the prospector was suddenly in danger of going to jail for his efforts. "This whole experience has been a disaster," he says. "[With] all the lawyers' fees, not to mention the disruption of my life, it's cost me a fortune. And it's been very hard on my family. You gotta remember, I've never been in trouble in my life. Not even a traffic ticket." The disputed dinosaur, according to Frithiof's attorney Joe Ellingson, "wrecked my client's life."

Moreover, the fossil was consigned to limbo. As a result of byzantine twists in the litigation, Tinker's bones would soon be placed under another lawyer's supervision, stored in plastic tubs at an undisclosed location in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—1,400 miles from the excavation site.

Across the American West and Great Plains, an intensifying conflict over the excavation of fossils—everything from a five-inch shark's tooth, which might sell for $50, to Frithiof's spectacular T. rex—has pitted amateur excavators against both the federal government and scientists. Scores, perhaps thousands, of prospectors—some operating as poachers on federally protected land—are conducting digs across hundreds of thousands of square miles from the Dakotas to Texas, Utah, Wyoming and Montana.

"In terms of digging for fossils, there are a lot more people" than there used to be, says Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosauria at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. "Twenty years ago, if you ran into a private or commercial fossil prospector in the field, it was one person or a couple of people. Now, you go to good fossil locations in, say, Wyoming, and you find quarrying operations with maybe 20 people working, and doing a professional job of excavating fossils."

Fueling the frenzy is skyrocketing market demand, as fossils, long relegated to the dusty realm of museum shelves, have entered the glitzy spheres of home décor and art. "There have always been private fossil collectors," says David Herskowitz of Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas. "The difference is, historically, a private fossil collector was wealthy. But today, interest in fossils has grabbed the attention of a broad swath of the population. That means a lot more people are collecting."

Who's buying these days? Just about anyone. With prices to suit virtually any budget, one can own an ancient remnant of life on earth: a botanical fossil, such as a fern, may cost as little as $20; a fossil snail, perhaps, may well go for $400.

The real action, however, is in the big vertebrates: dinosaurs that roamed the earth between 65 million and 220 million years ago. These are the specimens attracting the high rollers—serious collectors. Actors Harrison Ford and Nicolas Cage, for example, are rumored to have impressive collections.

The paleo-passion, however, extends far beyond celebrities. "The group who used to be serious fossil collectors—that's really grown," says money manager Charles Lieberman of Advisors Capital Management in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. At his office, Lieberman displays several impressive specimens, including a three-foot-long Cretaceous herbivore, Psittacosaurus. "Since the book and movie Jurassic Park," he adds, "interest in fossil collecting has gone into overdrive, affecting demand and elevating prices."

The rise in prices is fueling the prospecting boom in the Great Plains and West—not necessarily because of a higher concentration of fossils there, but because the American West is one of the world's easiest places to find them. "If you had flown around the world 150 million years ago, the West wouldn't be more populated by dinosaurs than anywhere else," says the Smithsonian's Carrano. "But in the West, the rock layers laid down during the age of dinosaurs are currently exposed. It also helps that the landscape is dry, so there's not a lot of vegetation covering the rock. And it's erosive, so new rock is constantly being uncovered."

While fossils can now be found in stores from Moab to Manhattan, the most unusual (and valuable) specimens tend to show up at auction houses—or vanish into the shadowy world of private purchasers, some of whom are buying on the black market. At the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, for instance, it is possible to obtain illegally taken fossils. While Carrano does not attend the show, it's well-known, he says, that, "if you spend the week building trust with some of the sellers, you’ll get invited back to a hotel room and be shown exquisite fossil specimens that were probably taken illegally. We’re talking museum-grade specimens that are going to disappear into private collections."

The auction houses, of course, make sure their offerings come with documented provenance. In only a few hours in April 2007, Christie's in Paris gaveled off fossils worth more than $1.5 million—including a dinosaur egg that went for $97,500 and the fossilized skeleton of a Siberian mammoth that fetched $421,200. In December 2007, a 70-million-year- old mosasaur a—30-foot carnivorous underwater reptile excavated in North Africa—brought more than $350,000 at Los Angeles auctioneer Bonhams & Butterfields. In January 2008, Heritage Auction Gal­leries in Dallas sold the largest mastodon skull ever found for $191,000 and a 55-million-year-old lizard from the Dominican Republic, its flesh and skin preserved in amber, for $97,000. "The day's tally was $4.187 million," says auction director Herskowitz. "While I can't disclose who my buyers were, I can say many of them have small to substantive museums on their properties."

Then there's eBay. When I logged on recently, I discovered 838 fossil specimens for sale, including a spectacular ammonite—an ancestor of today's chambered nautilus—expected to go for upward of $3,000. Very little was disclosed about where any of the fossils came from. "Here's what I can tell you about eBay," says Carrano. "If a fossil being sold there comes from Morocco, China, Mongolia, Argentina or a number of other nations, at some point it was part of an illegal process, since those countries don't allow commercial fossil export."

In the United States, the law regulating fossil excavation and export is far from straightforward. Property statutes state that any fossil taken with permission from privately owned land may be owned and sold—which is why legitimate excavators usually harvest fossils from individual landowners. A complex series of regulations apply to fossils removed from federal and state land (including Bureau of Land Management [BLM] tracts, national forests and grasslands, and state and national parks) and what are known as jurisdictional lands—for example, the public land held by Harding County, South Dakota.

To complicate matters, some fossil materials—limited amounts of petrified wood or fossil plants, for example—may be removed from certain public lands without oversight or approval. In most cases, however, permits are required; applications are reviewed according to a time-consuming process. Prospectors who want to cash in quickly on a single find are often reluctant to abide by the law. Given that there are nearly 500 million acres of publicly held land in the United States (two-thirds of which contain some of the best excavation zones in the world), prospectors who dig illegally are not often caught. "Newly harvested fossils are flooding the commercial market," says Larry Shackelford, a special agent with the BLM in Salt Lake City. "Running down each one and checking where it came from? We don't have the manpower."

In fact, law enforcement officials can barely keep up with prosecutions already underway. Although state and federal officials may not discuss cases currently in litigation, they acknowledge that volume is increasing. "In most districts, we easily see one or two new leads a month," says Bart Fitzgerald, a BLM special agent in Arizona. "Mostly these become civil cases. We understand that enthusiasm gets the best of people sometimes. Someone finds an amazing fossil and they take it home. Mostly we just want to recover the fossil—it's government property. But once in a while, we see a case where clearly the intent was criminal: where people were knowingly extracting fossils from public land for private profit. Those we prosecute criminally."

A major criminal case began unfolding in 2006, when a largely intact Allosaurus—a meat-eating older cousin of T. rex—was taken from public land in Utah. The excavator went to great lengths to look legitimate, including creating bogus letters of provenance. The dinosaur bones were first transported from Utah to a U.S. buyer, then to a purchaser in Europe, before finally being sold to a collector in Asia. In February 2007, the Allosaurus poacher—who had been turned in anonymously—was convicted on one count of theft of federal property.

Several years earlier, a high-profile case involved paleo-prospector Larry Walker, who discovered a cache of fossil Therizinosaurs—a rare dinosaur/bird hybrid—in the desert outside his Moab, Utah, hometown. Working at night beneath camouflage netting, Walker excavated 30 to 40 of the creatures' distinctive ripping claws, then sold the specimens at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show for a total take of roughly $15,000.

"He knew what he was doing was illegal," says Loren Good, a special agent for the BLM's Idaho district. "Working with the FBI, we did a joint investigation into the source of the claws and prosecuted Mr. Walker. He received a ten-month incarceration and a $15,000 fine."

"These cases come in all forms," says the BLM's Fitzgerald. "Take the example of some tour operators in Montana. They took a group of tourists out recently on a fossil-hunting trip, strayed onto public land and extracted fossils from a good site there. Was it an honest mistake or a calculated commercial move?" Fitzgerald asks. "After all, the tour operators carried GPS units; they knew precisely where they were." (Charges have not yet been filed.)

In the Tinker case, the prosecution claimed that Frithiof knew he was on county property when he found the Tinker specimen, that he had signed the agreement with Harding County without informing officials of the find and that he had negotiated a perhaps $8.5 million sale without telling the county. "Harding County believes Mr. Frithiof first discovered the specimen's location, then induced the county into a lease, knowing the value of what existed on the property without disclosing it to us," says Ken Barker, a Belle Fourche, South Dakota, attorney retained by the county to prosecute the case. "Because of this, we seek to void the lease agreement, entered into fraudulently, and to recover the county's property."

Frithiof sees things differently. It wasn't until the prospective purchaser's survey in 2001, he says, that all parties learned that the Tinker site was on county land. "We were something like 100 feet across the [county] property boundary," he says. "Even the rancher we were working with believed we were on his land. It was an honest mistake. And I already had a lease on that land with Harding County.

"It wasn't like we were sneaking around," Frithiof adds. "Our find had been in the newspaper. We'd been on the Discovery Channel. We'd had prominent paleontologists, like Bob Bakker from the University of Colorado, out to look at it. What we were doing was all out in the open. Nobody thought we were doing anything illegal...at all."

In June 2006, Judge Richard Battey of the United States District Court voided the agreement between Frithiof and the county and ruled, on the basis of a technicality, that Tinker belonged to Harding County. Frithiof appealed. In September 2007, a United States Court of Appeals panel reversed the decision. The Tinker fossil, they ruled, was Frithiof's property; only the original contract's 10 percent payment was owed to Harding County. The appeals court then sent the case back to Federal District Court for final disposition. Frithiof had no choice but to wait.

In the meantime, the location of Tinker—and the fossil's condition—had become a source of contention. Before the legal wrangling began, Frithiof had delivered sections of the skeleton to private curators Barry and April James, who specialized in preparation of paleontological specimens for display, at their Sunbury, Pennsylvania, firm, Prehistoric Journeys. (The process involves removal of the stone matrix encasing the excavated bones.) Once the litigation proceeded, however, the Jameses, who say they had put $200,000 worth of labor and more than two years into the project, were barred from completing the work or collecting payment from Frithiof. Their company filed for bankruptcy in 2005.

"Now I have the Tinker fossil in my possession," says Larry Frank, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, attorney who is trustee of the James bankruptcy. "I've filed an artisans' lien against the value of the specimen. Until the matter is resolved, the skeleton will sit in large plastic containers in my possession. We believe that's a good, safe place for it."

For scientists, commercial excavation of fossils—legal or not—raises troubling questions. "For me," says Mark Norell, chairman and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, "the big concern with all this private digging is that it may be robbing science of valuable knowledge."

Norell believes that anyone harvesting fossils "needs to be considerate of scientific data surrounding the specimen." Context is important. "A lot of the guys out there digging commercially are just cowboys; they don't care about the site where the fossil sits, how it's oriented in the earth, what can be found around it to give us clues to what the world was like when that fossil animal died." Some commercial excavators "want only to get the specimen out of the ground and get paid—so we lose the context of the site as well as the fossil itself."

The Smithsonian's Carrano says all scientifically significant fossil specimens, whether from public or private lands, should be placed into museums for study in perpetuity. "Any unique fossil has more value scientifically and educationally than we can ever place a cash value on," he adds. "In a perfect world, there'd be a way to vet every fossil collected: the significant ones would be retained and studied; others could go to commercial use. Not every fossil shark's tooth is significant, but some are. Let's retain those significant ones for study."

For the past several years, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, one of the fossil world's preeminent professional organizations, has lobbied in support of Congressional legislation that would protect fossils taken from public lands. Since 2001, a bill introduced by Representative James McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts—the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act—has languished in both the House and Senate. The delay, some proponents believe, stems from some western lawmakers' reluctance to add any regulations regarding public lands. If passed into law, the act would require that only trained, federally certified professionals be allowed to extract fossils from public lands—and would substantially increase penalties for illegal fossil excavation.

The proposed legislation has galvanized critics, from mining company executives to paleontology prospectors, many of whom argue that improved enforcement of existing laws is all that is needed. "This new bill provides no funding for additional federal agents to police these areas, meaning it has no teeth," says Jack Kallmeyer, a paleontological prospector. "As long as there is demand for the commodity, without sufficient enforcement personnel, nothing will stop illegal collecting."

Kallmeyer also notes that proposed and existing fossil-extraction laws do not address a critical threat to the nation's fossil heritage. "There are a number of dinosaur and [other] vertebrate fossils out there [on public lands] that are not rare. Professional paleontologists aren't interested in excavating them, as those specimens are well known and well studied. Why shouldn't amateur or commercial collectors be allowed to extract those?" Fossils left exposed over years, Kallmeyer adds, will eventually erode away.

But paleontologist James Clark of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who serves on the government liaison committee for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, disagrees. "Nobody knows how much fossil material is being taken off public lands and smuggled out," he says. "We don't know the scale of what's being lost." Clark, who sees the proposed federal bill as a step forward, believes that existing legislation is too nonspecific and confusing. "As it stands now, the situation is a free-for-all," he says.

Through the winter of 2007-2008, as Frithiof awaited another ruling from Federal District Court, he and lawyer Joe Ellingson hunkered down. "We don't want to say much," Ellingson told me. "We don't want to antagonize anyone in any way. We just want to wait and get our ruling."

The delay, however, proved excruciating for Frithiof, who continued living near Austin, selling real estate. "There's not one hour," he says, "that it wasn't in the back of my mind. And that takes a toll. Even a physical toll." Frithiof says he developed cardiac problems. "I just want this all to be over," he says, "so I can go back to my site and keep working. We've found evidence of two other T. rex specimens there, but we don't know if they're complete or not. We've covered them up to protect against the elements. Until all this is resolved, we've been barred from working."

At last, on February 5, 2008, Judge Battey ruled that Frithiof's lease with Harding County was legal and enforceable. Frithiof owned Tinker, though he would have to give the county 10 percent of any profits from its sale. Harding County, the decree said, "knowingly entered into this contract, and now must live with the consequences of its actions." For Frithiof, the ruling meant "a huge weight had disappeared off my life."

But within weeks of the ruling, Harding County appealed yet again, sending the case back into court and consigning Frithiof once again to legal limbo. After more than four years of litigation, disposition of the appeal is expected within weeks. "This experience has removed the joy of fossil hunting for me," says Frithiof. "I haven't done one day of digging since the day initial charges were brought."

And yet, Frithiof tells me, an even larger question preoccupies him. "My thoughts always return to the exposed fossils out there on our public land," he adds. "Fossils that are going unexcavated due to lack of interest. The ones paleontologists are never going to extract because they are fossils that are too common, but which some collector might cherish."

Frithiof insists that careful amateur excavators can make a significant contribution to science. "The fossils are out there, wind and rain weathering them, while people argue about who is allowed to collect them and who isn't. After a year or two of exposure, any fossil begins to disintegrate and crumble to dust." And then, he adds, "Well, nobody gets them. They're just gone."

Writer Donovan Webster lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Photographer Aaron Huey is based in Seattle, Washington.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of paleontologist Bob Bakker and incorrectly stated he is with the University of Montana. He is with the University of Colorado. This version has been updated.


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Comments (34)

Some elitist archeologists whom are usually university associated so-called experts believe that no one else should possess fossils, artifacts and dino bones, except for them of course. They seek to make it illegal for anyone but them to collect and possess them, except for them. These selfish self important glory seeking experts lock their finds away in college basements in drawers where only they can see and touch and visit their precious collected artifacts that only they are allowed to have access to. These special chosen ones rob us all of our rights to study and learn. Do not allow these greedy hoarders to cause others of exactly what they are doing. They are like Gollum curled up in the corner with their "PRECIOUS"!!!

Posted by MyPrecious on August 25,2012 | 07:10 AM

In my experience more artifacts are lost due to construction than any other cause. Someone building a building has loader operators working full speed ahead and could care less about what they destroy in the process of excavation. Private bone hunters do a lot more good than they do harm and everyone should realize that. So many of the precious artifacts they have found would have probably been destroyed at some point in time during excavations. With the exception of human remains, all legal digs are fair game. The 'professionals' have no dibs on anything. As a matter of fact, I suspect most of the black market wares were dug by these professionals who were out to make a buck from the beginning. I know of a case in point, personally. I do not, however, believe anyone has the right to dig up, own or disturb any human remains. What if we dug up your grandmother? From Egypt to the Native Americans, no one has the right to disturb these remains. Period. So, professionals who do this for a living are brazen and calloused and should have the heavy hand of the law come down on them for a change.

Posted by Samuel Martin on August 7,2012 | 02:14 PM

as usual more gov. regs. to muck up our lives! God forbid a private citizen might find something lost for millions of years and be allowed to keep it.I myself have found a Mossasaur skull in texas! in the middle of nowhere! I now know the skull is not on the private land i had permission to dig on.It took me two years to dig it up! i now find out i can be jailed for digging it! Well it will stay were i left it. Very doubtful it will ever be found again! Most likely it will be destroyed by Windmill construction. i guess the "gov." knows best. Better we all sit on the couch get fat and watch "reality" tv. to lazy to get out and do anything ourselves! too much gov. think about that when u vote for a Dem.

Posted by yankee on February 5,2012 | 01:44 PM

I have a dinosaur fossil that my uncle had given to me when I was a kid. I am looking for information on what the different options are for me to do with it.

Posted by Jen on February 3,2012 | 03:10 PM

i found a bone a few years ago and really need to no if its a dino bone.i found it near a creek bed.in georgia in the okfanokee swamp.its on about 12 inches long and curved.its looks like rib bone of some type.the bone is really fossilize.so if any body can help me let me no.

Posted by stil_bill on December 27,2011 | 03:23 PM

my husband FOUND AN SKELETON OF DINOSAUR . WE REALLY APPRECIATE IF YOU COULD GUIDE US TO FINE CUSTOMER or give us some advice for selling it. ITS NOT JUST TOOTH OR SKIN ITS A REAL TYREX AROUND 1.5 METER.
thanks

Posted by sogand on August 9,2011 | 03:31 AM

I know a nice solution. Fossil dealers and paleontologists could explore together. If the fossil is not scientifically signifigant, it gets put up for sale. If it is signifigant, it goes to a museum and a cast is made, which is produced and sold.

Posted by Not Telling on March 20,2011 | 06:21 AM

Private Ownership of fossils should not be banned, and if it is, fossils obtained before the ban should not be confiscated.

Posted by Not Telling on March 17,2011 | 03:30 AM

Can anyone help me I wanted to no where I can bring a fossil/tooth to get it check out and maybe sale it in the bay area. I bought a box of quartz from a old time gold miner and found a piece in there that looks like a fossil or mybe a dinosaur tooth thanks

Posted by matt on October 16,2010 | 08:09 AM

I also found some dinosaur skin not far from the previsous bones in a block of sandstone.

check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmUs4z88ruI

There is no way I will show it to a paleontologist. I'd rather have a amateur come dig it up. The dino skin piece that I have has been touched by many children who are in awe. That doesn't happen in museums. If anybody is going to be famous for this find, it isn't going to be a so called professional.

Posted by SpectateSwamp on December 25,2009 | 10:22 AM

I videoed some dino bones in a block of stone a few years back. I returned the next year to video what new fossils were exposed. The old ones were long gone. I should have exposed the under layers. Rock in areas that erode should be removed if at all possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYZBixDl1gc
View the video

Posted by Spectate Swamp on October 10,2009 | 09:52 PM

i need to know how archiologists know how old bones and fossils are.

Posted by anna holcombe on September 3,2009 | 10:52 AM

What's the current status of this case?

Posted by Sue Misner on July 20,2009 | 02:11 PM

I do not have a problem with private citizens finding, claiming, exposing, digging and removing (with land owner's permission, otherwise it's theft) any fossil they find. Even if they sell it, or put it up for auction. Isn't that what a Paleontologist does when he finds a fossil? OK, call it grant money, call it donating it to a museum (who buy and sell fossils routinely) but the Paleontologist (not to mention Archeologists and Primatologists) are not above paying their mortgage on sold artifacts.

Posted by Christopher Wood on June 2,2009 | 12:34 AM

I was looking forward to your feature on the Dinosaur Wars, as I believe that the present conflict between academic and commercial paleontology is an important subject worthy of thoughtful debate. Unfortunately, I was, for the most part, disappointed with the piece. To start with, there were some rather glaring factual errors. I should begin with the designation of myself as a “paleontologist” in the photo caption on page 51. Although I have well over a decade of field experience in the Hell Creek Formation and I teach paleontology at a community college; I do not have a higher degree in paleontology and as a result many folks would have a problem ascribing me that title. Secondly, the assertion that Tinker was “about four feet tall,” is not even close. Tinker’s dentary (the tooth-bearing part of the lower jaw) measures well over 15 inches, which is significantly longer than the dentary of the Burpee Museum’s tyrannosaur, Jane. Jane is 21 feet long and 7.5 feet tall at the hip. It is not unreasonable to predict that Tinker would have been closer to 25 feet long and over 8 feet tall at the hip. Finally, it is implied in the article that Kim Hollrah discovered the Tinker site. This is not true. Mark Eatman discovered the site. Kim Hollrah ran the excavation for Ron Frithiof.

Beyond the factual errors, this article had more than a few misleading implications. In his seemingly brief EBay investigation, the author says that “Very little was disclosed about where any of the fossils came from.” The clear implication being that these fossils must therefore have been collected or exported illegally. A more thorough investigation would have discovered that this is far from the truth. In that same paragraph, the author quotes Carrano saying that “If a fossil being sold there comes from Morocco, China, Mongolia, Argentina of a number of other nations, at some point it was part of an illegal process, since those countries don’t allow commercial fossil export.” This is not entirely accurate as it is perfectly legal to export invertebrates from Morocco as long as a Moroccan has worked on the fossil (thus the high frequency of polished ammonites and other fossil mollusks from Morocco.)

What bothered me more than the inadequate fact checking was the general tenor of this article. Rather than dealing with the complex reality of this subject, the author chose to present some of the more extreme views of the two sides. This has a rather polarizing affect, which I suspect will satisfy neither academics nor commercial/amateur collectors. More importantly, this kind of hyperbolic debate is not good for the science of paleontology. There is no doubt that there are some real problems with fossil poaching. I have personally had to deal with trespassing commercial poachers at our sites. It is also true that the introduction of big money (Sue) has permanently changed the rubric of vertebrate paleontology. But these are complicated issues. For instance, would that Therizinosaur ever have been discovered, had Larry Walker not poached it? [By the way, the Larry Walker story is much more complicated than portrayed in this article and is, in my opinion, a case study in what is dysfunctional about the relationship between the academics and commercial/amateur collectors.] As for the big money, I’m sure there are many bankrupt former commercial fossil operators that will attest to the fact that the “big money” is more perception than reality. But instead of working through these murky waters, the author chose to quote incendiary descriptions of commercial diggers as “cowboys” that destructively “harvest” sites. This kind of language perpetuates stereotypes and further divides the greater paleontology community.

Posted by Rob Sula on May 8,2009 | 04:05 PM

I noticed there seems to be little discussion on what coordinate system that is being used to define the boundary between the land owner and the government. I think that initially the USGS (United States Geological Survey) did the boundaries using triangulation. There should be notes on their work filed with the USGS. If the government is now using GPS there will most likely be a difference. It could be 1200 to 1400 ft. different. They should check the lots of the buildings/houses and streets of the nearest town. If they are off more than 100 ft then why should they be using GPS. The town is not going to be moved because of the more accurate readings. I would check their triangulation notes too. They could be off by more than 100 ft. Henry H. Bretthauer

Posted by Henry H. Bretthauer on May 6,2009 | 02:33 PM

Hey Paula, Luis Chiappe comes to mind. You can find his email address here: http://dinosaurs.nhm.org/staff/ . He studies the origins and early evolution of birds. You should have your friend send him an email or letter detailing the specimen with a couple pictures. That's really the best i can think of. Best of luck though!

Posted by Doug on May 1,2009 | 06:51 PM

Actually this is a question I'm having trouble getting answers to. I know someone who found a rock looking object over 30 years ago and he just now realized it could be a dinosaur fossil. He had it cat scanned a few days ago. It showed to have a developed dinasaur bird in it. He has many questions but not sure where to find the answers. If anyone can let me know it would help. It was found in Alaska 30 years ago!

Posted by Paula Hebel on April 29,2009 | 01:00 AM

Triebold is exactly right. 90% of all fossils are destroyed because they are not collected. Almost all of the fossils I have restored would never have been seen, privately or publicly, had someone not paid to acquire them from gravle pit operators or Esqimaux. All the stupid hate-mail I get because I have made a living by rescueing another fossil from becoming part of a road will not make me quit rescuing them. The world's largest 4-tusked mastodon skull is one of them. Thanks to me and the inital investors, it is now in a museum for all to see. It was very well restored, recorded and studied. The information is available to all. Elitists like Padian ought to make a few such contributions. Joe Taylor

Posted by Joe Taylor on April 22,2009 | 11:14 PM

Your article failed to mention that there is a lack of FUNDING AND MANPOWER on the part of museums and universities to go out there and excavate the fossils that are presently being exposed and eroded everyday. And...AND you neglect to mention that museums have basement warehouses full of stuff they don't even know they have. Then there are casts of fossils they have had for YEARS but they lack time and manpower to prep them out. Even if they had the time and manpower they DO NOT have the space to publicly display those fossils. So your comments about scientific information being lost forever is flawed, unless you want to talk about the tons of fossils that are devoured everyday by quarries and mines. Incidently I have friends who have lent their specimens to a museum for study and those specimens become "misplaced" never to be returned. How convenient. By the way the word "public in Blacks legal dictionary means government so are you saying the fossil belongs to American citizens or the government? I think that the real problem is the covetousness of the museums and universities and government. You would rather see specimens destroyed than to let it benefit someone else. Shame on you.

Posted by Bea Dunkel on April 19,2009 | 09:29 PM

Contrary to common sense? Actually it makes sense perfectly for fossilization and permineralization processes. Do keep in mind that not all things fossilized for many of the reasons that you noted - someone isn't rapidly, or at least quickly buried, scavenged, broken down, etc.

But...of those fossils we do have, they're found in layers that have been chemically and radiometrically (with a margin of error of around .06% by the way) dated to the age that they are.

As for carbon dating - it doesn't much work on fossils older than 40-50,000 years because of the lack of carbon in said older fossils.

Half-life numbers from the USGS (United States Geological Survey):
Parent Isotope Stable Daughter Product Currently Accepted Half-Life Values
Uranium-238 Lead-206 4.5 billion years
Uranium-235 Lead-207 704 million years
Thorium-232 Lead-208 14.0 billion years
Rubidium-87 Strontium-87 48.8 billion years
Potassium-40 Argon-40 1.25 billion years
Samarium-147 Neodymium-143 106 billion years

IN any case - it does make sense that like exists past 300,000 years. There were even human-like forms before 300,000 years ago. :)

-Erin

Posted by Erin on April 14,2009 | 07:13 PM

I must say I am quite disappointed in most paleontologists today. The idea that dinosaurs lived "65 million years ago" is contradictory to common sense. If the way they describe fossilization is true... The creature dies then is slowly buried in sediment and then the organic material is slowly, over the course of "millions of years", replaced with minerals. Then how is it that we find creatures with half digested meals, skin, even flesh still in their teeth, let alone nearly complete skeletons! If a creature dies and is laying out in the open, it is a food source. It will not be ignored. In modern instances whales die and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Down there the carcass is then eaten and dissolved over the course of a few years, even months!! Why would the the carcasses of ancient creatures be any different? In fact, if I remember correctly there were more animals on early earth than there are today. Whether you believe 90% of them were killed in a cataclysmic cosmic collision "65 million years ago" or not the fact that it doesn't explain this serious flaw. If you choose to refute my opinion with the "carbon-dating" idea, you only strengthen my point. Carbon-dating and the carbon equilibrium of earth's atmosphere proves that the earth cannot be older than 300,000 years old.

Posted by Guy Black on April 13,2009 | 08:31 PM

Let me tell you the story of Bob Ernst, the ideal amateur. He became interested in paleontology because fossils sparked a great interest in him. So he purchased property in Kern County that covered the Sharktooth Hill bonebed and spent his retirement prospecting and excavating middle Miocene marines fossils. But he didn’t keep them relegated to his home. He was dismayed that Kern County had this rich fossil history but that all the fossil were leaving the county, collected by far away institutions. So he took his collection and brought it to the public by founding the Buena Vista Museum of Natural History in downtown Bakersfield. This is the ideal amateur: collecting out of interest and bringing the fossils to the public trust. While not to the extent of Ernst, there are thousands of such amateurs out there (I’m trying to get into it myself), and paleontologist value every one of them.

Ok, there are lots of other comments that could use a response, but after that long winded post, I’ll leave them for others.

Posted by Doug on April 13,2009 | 02:06 PM

Then, 80 years later, Phil Curry of the Royal Tyrrell Museum learned of the site and its potential importance. But because the original collecting party took no data of the few bones he did remove, he didn’t know where to go to see if it was what they said it was. He managed to find the site using old photographs, but if the original collectors had recorded their data, it would have greatly reduced the effort to locate it. Most commercial collectors don’t keep such records, and that is where the true loss of scientific information lies. As Eric noted: “Paleontology is a science; science requires data; and those data have to be able to be replicated.” Having fossil available to researchers and having that data is tantamount to the replication and verification that science requires. And so when a fossil enters a private collection, it’s not only out of reach of scientists not just because it’s now private property, but because most of those specimens don’t have the data. The commercial collector is interested only in how much money he will get, so he doesn’t bother collecting the collateral data. Why worry about that stuff when the main goal is to just get it out of the ground and to the market? I’ll close out this section with one of my favorite paleo quotes, from the Nebraska paleontologist, Morris Skinner: "Without the collateral data, well, all you've got is a pretty rock!"

Posted by Doug on April 13,2009 | 02:05 PM

A lot of people here are accusing paleontologist of “whining” about amateurs and how they are arrogant and don’t want anyone who’s not a PhD scientist to collect fossils. You people are either completely missing or ignoring what they say. Eric Scott said in the very first comment on this article: “True amateurs -- those who excavate and study fossils without being paid -- are literally the backbone of professional vertebrate paleontology today, and every professional museum and university I know of actively encourages amateurs and volunteers to collect and participate in the process of fossil discovery”. Jack Horner spends a page in his book “Dinosaurs under the Big Sky” discussing how important and useful amateurs are to collection and research. And yet you people keep flogging the dead horse of “amateurs make lot of important discoveries” and “scientists hate amateurs because they have to compete with them”, when that is exactly what the scientists are saying, in order to make them look bad. They love amateur collectors, they encourage it, because these amateurs realize the importance of their finds and keep good records. The axe that paleontologists have to grind is with commercial collectors. As noted above here and in other comments, the collateral data of a fossil is absolutely important. A fossil is of much less use to science without context and field data. And that goes not just for fossil collected commercially, but for the tons of fossil collected in the early days of paleontology. For example, the American museum had found a theropod bonebed in Alberta Canada. But they were unable to do any serious excavation, and just collected a few bones and the site was soon forgotten.

Posted by Doug on April 13,2009 | 02:05 PM

As for comments attacking Padian: try to understand where he is coming from. He has spent his life studying fossils and trying to promote science and science education (he is the president of the National Center for Science Education). He has much more of a stake than many of you do. Fossil are his livelihood, his passion. How do you think he would react to stories of people who carelessly dig out and collect fossils simply to sell them off for profit? That could be stirring strong feelings in him (it does me). I have never met him, but I don’t think any of you (unless the guy who stated so) have either, so please keep in mind that you’re ripping on him for just a paragraph or two that he wrote on a magazine article.

Posted by Doug on April 13,2009 | 02:03 PM

Triebold: Sticking words in your opponent’s mouth, are we? They don’t believe that fossils should be owned by the state. Bringing that specimen to a museum brings it to the public trust. Yes, fossil found on private property and the owners may do with them what they want, which is sad, but legal. Luckily, many, many land owners brought their finds to the attention of professionals. As to your comment that scientists like Scott (whom I have met) and Padian need to learn to compete for resources: so you think paleontology should just be a free-for-all? Just let every one have at it? No where am I seeing paleontologists say that they should have exclusive access. And what’s up with your accusation that they “don’t want you to know” about certain aspects of private and “professional” collectors? Now you’re just trying to smear good natured, hard working scientists to serve your argument. As Eric Essen noted above, just because you and a few other companies are very professional in their endeavors doesn’t mean everyone is. What about the guy mentioned in an article who looted therizinosaur claws for sale? Was he as through in collecting data and bringing fossils to public like you or BHI? And then there’s this story I read last year about a Tarbosaurus skeleton that the Cincinnati Museum was going to collect, cast, and return to Mongolia. But when they got there, the fossil was gone, the site bearing the marks of a crude excavation. Do you think those poachers were thorough in their collecting of that specimen? This leads me to the most important matter here: you and other commenters seem to be missing the arguments of paleontologists entirely and are instead engaging in ad homonym attacks and smearing your opponents.

Posted by Doug on April 13,2009 | 02:02 PM

Let me apologize in advance for the multiple comments, but my initial response was too large to fit into one comment, so I had to break it up.

While I found this article a bit depressing, I find the comments even more so. First off, in regards to the article: it seemed well written enough. Certainly brings attention to the issue. However, I find it hard to sympathize with Frithiof (mind you, I have never met him, so I basing this off what’s in the article). For example, he got interested in paleontology because he learned how much money they could fetch. Further more, he was going to sell Tinker to a museum, which was willing to pay millions for it. If he truly loved paleontology (and this is just how I feel) he would have gotten into it because they piqued his curiosity, and he would be donating Tinker to that museum, instead of selling it. And the many comments by Frithiof and others that paleontologists are only interested in common fossils, as Scott pointed out, are absolutely ridiculous. Every fossil has a story to tell, whether it’s the fossil itself or its data, every one is unique. Having large samples of fossils allows us to test a wide array of hypotheses. Triceratips is a common fossil. But paleontologists kept (and keep on) digging them up. And by doing so, they were actually able to test the idea that Triceratops used its horns to fight one another. And this study was also enabled by the collection of Centrosaurus. Some paleontologists are more interested in finding fossils of animals already known than new species. Finding a new or rare specimen may be exciting, but finding fossils that allow you to actually reconstruct the living animal, is even more exciting.

Posted by Doug on April 13,2009 | 02:01 PM

The solution is so simple I can't believe no one has mentioned it. We need a national policy that buys, at going rate prices, any fossil that is discovered by an amateur hunter and considered a significant find to be preserved at the national level. "Poor" England has just such a policy to purchase and preserve valuable historical artifacts discovered on public or private land. The cost of paying fair market value for "Sue" and this latest discover would be less than the millions it is costing to litigate who owns them. Paleontologists want the field all to themselves, but there aren't enough of them to cover America. Amateurs have made many of the most significant fossil dscoveries all over the world. Fossils exposed to the elements do not last long before they are lost again, forever. Fossil hunting and rock collecting are hobbies for thousands of our citizens. An intelligent national policy could achieve retention of important fossil discoveries while allowing our people to enjoy "their" public lands. The paleontology community believes public lands are their private domain exclusive to all others. That's a lot of hogwash. Let's talk about how we sell mineral rights (on public lands) to foreign countries, for a song.

Posted by Richard Dennis on April 6,2009 | 01:22 AM

The article was interesting but didn't have much paleontology in it. One serious problem not emphasized is the loss of context when a fossil is mined for sale. The exact stratigraphic information, age of the sample and locality (critical facts in paleontology) are often not documented, and that reduces its scientific value even if eventually donated to a museum. Some of the comments are unbalanced and register resentment or anger seemingly on other issues than represented in the story. Many paleontology PhDs at Michigan get academic jobs. Yes, there is a challenge for academic employment, as in many sciences, and museums often have financial problems. It would be great if the amateur collectors mentioned in the article (Harrison Ford, Nicolas Cage) support them (perhaps they do).

Triebold's comments are rather self-serving. Just because he does a good job (or so he says) does not mean that major destruction is not caused by others. The untrammelled sale of fossils has led to major cases of fabrication in India and China.

Hoffman blames academic paleontologists for stigmatizing the role of the amateur. But they rely a lot on the help of volunteers: school children, college students and the public. Stein criticizes academics but not collectors. Foster wants everyone to collect fossils, even where it is illegal? He doesn't consider the potential for information loss.

Tatum blames academic control freaks, academic arrogance and professional whining. Since he has a PhD one wonders if sour grapes are tainting his opinions. The academic paleontologists I know do field work whether or not they have grants, support grad students as best they can, and they work much harder than many other scientists.

The writer "injustice prevails" states that Harding County has no case since it signed an agreement with Frithioff. If the fossils are indeed on public land and not on leased land, Frithioff's case is surely in question. I think a compromise is in order for this case.

Posted by Eric Essene, Professor of Geology, Univ. Michigan on April 6,2009 | 10:35 AM

UPDATE -- Mr.Frithiof it appears you had a good day in the court, the county has no case

United States Court of Appeals for The Eighth Circuit

County of Harding v Ron Frithiof

No. 06-2793

483 F.3d 541; 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 7802

April 5, 2007,

"In sum,

In order to show a public hearing should have been held pursuant to § 7-18-32, it was incumbent upon the County to present evidence of the fair market value of the lease at the time it was entered, without relying upon events which occurred subsequently. Neither could the County rely upon an evaluation which included information it alleges Frithiof fraudulently concealed from it, before the County has proven he committed any fraud. The County failed to present evidence of the fair market value of the lease at the time it was entered, and thus the district court erred in granting the County's motion for partial summary judgment.

Having concluded summary judgment was improperly granted, we need not address Frithiof's alternative argument regarding the County's failure to hold a public hearing merely being an irregular exercise of power which did not require the lease to be voided. Furthermore, because the final judgment in favor of the County must be vacated, we need not address his contention the judgment should not have been entered without the merits of the counterclaim being addressed.

We vacate the final judgment entered in the County's favor, and remand this case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

Posted by injustice prevails on April 4,2009 | 03:14 AM

Quote from Page two

"Property owned by Harding County, South Dakota. In November 2000, Frithiof, he says, with an eye to future excavations, had leased the parcel from the county; the agreement stipulated that the county would get 10 percent of the sale price for any fossils uncovered there."

Harding County hasno case, if the agreement stipulation is true as stated on its face, "The agreement stipulated that the county would get 10 percent of the sale price for any fossils uncovered there." if in fact this is true and correct and set fourth in the land lease contract between Ron Frithiof and Harding County, and the work was performed in accordance with these terms,

Mr. Frithiof take your claim to the U.S. Court of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit

Harding County -- How does an individual "trespass" on land or property the he has lawfully leased?

Posted by injustice prevails on April 3,2009 | 04:28 AM

Can anyone send me a a news about Fossil of dinosaur?? thanks

Posted by Mira Natasha on April 1,2009 | 01:16 AM

A few years ago when I was working in San Francisco, I crossed swords with Dr. Padian on several occasions. We even appeared together a few times on Morning news shows debating the right to collect fossils. Though I disagree with Dr. Padian’s position, I have great respect for his sincerity and passion. Right now I head the Natural History Dept. at Heritage Auction Galleries (www.HA.com) in Dallas, Texas, where we have sponsored a few events giving away fossils and meteorites to help inspire young minds. My passions for science and education runs deep, and I’m one of those fortunate people in life who can earn a living doing what I love to do. I would invite anyone interested in learning more about the commercial aspects of Natural History to visit, and perhaps join, our web site at www.HA.com/NaturalHistory.

Posted by David Herskowitz on March 31,2009 | 11:22 PM

Excellent article on oft-overlooked or little understood dimensions of exploration, especially that of private or for-profit enterprises.

I would offer a slightly different assessment than a previous post on the nature of fossils (hopefully not a pedantic one). Are they resources, or actually treasures?

Resources, by nature of the word (re- source) are something generally renewable. While one could argue that fossilization and oil production continue even now, that production or renewal is on such a slow scale that for all intents and purposes it is exhaustible.

I would thus classify fossils as national and international treasures, belonging to us all. The mindset of ownership without stewardship may work in the short term under limited circumstances, but it often lacks the multi-generational forethought that aims to preserve rather than remove from the public knowledge.

This is not to say that private enterprise does not provide a valuable public service, only that the freedom to exploit should not be considered an irrevocable freedom without limits or obligations. Perhaps that's why the word "exploit" has gathered a pejorative negativity, because of all too many cases where the desires of the individual have trodden on the good of the many.

Thank you for the wonderful article and commentary. It is just this kind of dialogue that leads to rational discussion and new ideas, rather than the spiral of ad-hominem attacks that suppresses the sharing of all of this wonderful knowledge and insight.

Posted by Karl Rainhold on March 31,2009 | 04:46 PM

Addendum to my earlier comment:
Dr. Eric Hoffman makes some valid points. Not too many years ago a rare fossil was discovered in west central FL. by an amateur collector. He brought this to the attention of the Tampa Bay Fossil Club which then purchased the fossil and donated it to the museum at the University of FL. A professional paleontologist representing the museum traveled to Tampa and accepted the fossil at a brief acceptance ceremony, at which time he lamented the "commercialism" of amateur fossil hunters. Unfortunately, he neglected to mention that if not for the commercial collector, the museum would not today have that fossil, and likely it would not exist since the area is now under a development.

The academic arrogance demonstrated by Padian and those like him is one of the main problems. In both paleontology and archaeology, it has been demonstrated that commercially based digs by competent people can be successfully executed, with both scientific knowledge gained and money earned, examples being the Odyssey group in Tampa, the Black Hills Institute,and Dr. R.M. Gramly of the American Society for Amateur Archaeology.

These people get into the field and do things and make it pay, (and knowledge is gained, and made accessible to the professionals) while the arrogant academic sits in his/her air conditioned office, wringing her/his hands and whining: "Oh, I can't go out and discover things, I don't have a grant!" They lament commercialism but they are in it for the money as well. If not, why are they not out in the field on weekends on their own? They work for money. I can't help but wonder if a large part of this "professional" whining is not based on personal jealously because these commercial (but competent) people are accomplishing much more than the whiners.

Posted by Jim C. Tatum, Ph.D. on March 31,2009 | 10:37 AM

There are probably billions of fossils as yet undiscovered throughout the world. Private citizens motivated by their dreams and/or the desire to make a profit from their work does not seem so unholy to me. I am weary of governments, politicians and academics thinking they are the only ones graced with the blessing of entitlement. 10 times or 100 times as many people looking means faster advancement, not slower. Find a way to require some education leading to license individuals, have them register sites like mining claims and turn 'em loose.

Posted by Drew Foster on March 30,2009 | 10:21 PM

Thanks to the author of this paper for coming up with a relatively fair and balanced news article.Kudo's to them.

For Dr. Padian a little lesson in logic...
"People like Frithiof... They are not the people who should decide whether a fossil is scientifically valuable enough that it should remain in the public trust rather than on some rich guy's mantel." (Ad homonym attack/call to authority)- As I recall, and the article rightly points out, this specimen was NOT going to wind up on "some rich guys mantle", it was going to a museum.

"Fossil sellers like auctioneer David Herskovits have no interest in science, education, or the nation's patrimony" (ad homonym attack)- Another baseless, personal attack, simply made to try and discredit anyone who has the gall to sell fossils.

"...but they don't have the right to wrap themselves in the flag about it." (Call to Authority)- Oh, but because you have a degree, you do have the right to wrap yourself in a flag about it? I get it now.

"Private enterprise is great, but..., does that give you the right to throw darts at the Mona Lisa simply because you can afford to buy it?" (False analogy)- It is nice to see that you have come out in support for capitalism... a step in the right direction. However, your analogy doesn't make much sense in this context. Frithiof was not "throwing darts" at this specimen, he was collecting it, preserving it and getting it into a museum. The only darts being thrown are yours.

I have no idea what Frithiofs motivations are (never met him). I have no idea what his collecting skills are or his attention to contextual data. I don't know what the auctioneers personal motivations are. ...and neither does Padian (to all of that). Hopefully the specimen does wind up in a public museum where it can be studied (most specimens of scientific import do)... but wherever it goes, will be better than rotting away to dust in the middle of nowhere like thousands of specimens right now.

Posted by Walter Stein on March 30,2009 | 12:06 PM

With the current short sighted system of fossil collecting in place on US government lands, everyone loses. The professionals do not have the time nor the money (grants) to hunt for major fossil finds, let alone collect and curate the fossils exposed by weathering every year. They allow these fossils to be destroyed by the weather, and they fail to curate them. The commercial collector loses because he is not allowed by law to collect and risks arrest if he does. If we had an antiquities system such as in the UK, everyone would win. Since the amateur (read commercial) collector is in the field breaking his back, he will discover a great many fossils, and the professional will have the opportunity/option of seeing and/or possessing these. The commercial collector will not have to go undercover and both types benefit from the finds. I believe the problem lies with the control freaks who would rather let a fossil be destroyed than lose control over it. Sad.

Posted by Jim Tatum on March 28,2009 | 04:47 PM

An addendum to my previous comment:

If states and counties want to claim, preserve, and cash in on their paleontological treasures, why don't they establish a fund to pay appropriate individuals to identify significant sites and then pay for teams to appropriately excavate the finds? Duplicate finds could be sold and used to pay for new exploration. If someone pays thousands or millions, they are likely going to take care of the fossils. This would be a much better solution than developing new, unenforcable, laws to keep the treasures undiscovered and deteriorating.

Now this would be a good use of some stimulus money!
Eric A. Hoffman, Ph.D.
Professor of Radiology, Biomedical Engineering and Medicine
University of Iowa

Posted by Eric A. Hoffman, Ph.D. on March 28,2009 | 02:36 PM

I read with interest the recent article in the Smithsonian on the question of ownership of Tinker, the juvenile T Rex discovered by Kim Hollrah. Our advanced CT research laboratory at the University of Iowa scanned many of the early jackets unearthed at the Tinker site. In so doing, I grew to know Kim as a person with a strong knowledge of dinosaur-based paleontology, which quite possibly could rival that of many anointed paleontologists. Kim was not an amateur treasure hunter looking for old bones with money as his primary goal. He sacrificed his whole life for the quest of contributing to the science and excitement of dinosaur hunting. He had a profound love of children and involved school children in every step of the discovery process. I believe Kim lost his home to the bank and later suffered a terrible tragedy whereby two of his beloved daughters were lost in a tragic fire as they visited their dying grandfather. I believe that it would be very useful for the Smithsonian to do a second article on the real life stories of “dinosaur hunters,” including Kim, to place into perspective the pontification which comes along with academicians arguing that dinosaur bones, unearthed and studied by those without university degrees and without university appointments or affiliations are lost to the science of paleontology. I strongly believe, that because the university paleontology crowd puts such a stigma on the non-academician who attempts to enter the arena of paleontology and because of the notion that one should not be able to make a living outside of the academic environment doing paleontology, people like Kim end up having to tie themselves to funding sources which often (not making judgments in this particular case) exploit the original exploration team. Nobody seems to fault Disney and McDonalds Corporation for having purchased Sue and made millions on the commercial residuals prior to handing Sue over to the Chicago Museum of Natural History!

Posted by Eric A. Hoffman, Ph.D., Professor of Radiology, Biomedical Engineering and Medicine, Univ of Iowa on March 28,2009 | 01:24 PM

this is crasy!!!!

Posted by jdfiojfjif ejio d on March 27,2009 | 08:47 PM

Mr. Frithiof is not a commercial fossil collector. He is a real estate developer who dabbles in fossils.
The public trust argument is bogus. Fossils found on private land in America are the property of the landowner. Selling a fossil to a museum is bringing that fossil into the public trust, and is condoned by the SVP. Scott/Padian believe that all fossils should be the property of the state, representing a taking of private property and violating the Constitution.They should learn how to compete for resources rather than declare they should own them and expect unchallenged acquiescence.
Fossils outside of the public trust are some of the best curated, and many are donated to public institutions. Scott/Padian would not want you to know that. They would tell you privately-held fossils are “lost forever to science”. They also believe professional collectors are not qualified to properly analyze their fossils.What they don’t know, is that we consult with and employ PhD paleontologists. They would not want you to know that several professional collecting companies provide funding for research, publish their findings, and have built and operate successful privately-funded museums, all while being a positive economic force for their communities.
It is probable that 99% of all fossils are destroyed by erosion before being discovered by anyone. 99% of public lands remain unexplored by any paleontologists. Governments already allow the destruction of fossils on public lands by leasing them for gravel or coal mining. More fossils are destroyed each day during coal mining in the Powder River, Williston and San Juan basins than have been collected by all the paleontologists in the last 100 years.
Donovan Webster should visit our facility to see how inaccurate the statements of Scott/Padian really are.
Michael Triebold
President,Triebold Paleontology, Inc.
Founder,Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center
Past president,Association of Applied Paleontological Science

Posted by Michael Triebold on March 27,2009 | 06:38 PM

I’m always dismayed by articles, like “The Dino Wars” which seem inspired by the latest example of greed surrounding a recent dinosaur find. With dinosaur fossils, everyone from casual rock hounds, commercial dealers, land owners, local government officials and academic paleontologists stake a claim for control and ownership.

Dinosaurs are big business. In museums, dinosaurs draw huge paying crowds. Dinosaur merchandise dominates the gift shops and corporate sponsors want to get in on the marketing action too.

For academics, new dinosaurs attract public attention, press coverage and the possibility of financial rewards via book sales. A “Ph.D. dinosaur hunter” might obtain a lucrative TV commercial. Everybody wants in on the profitable dinosaur action. The result has been a hotly contested mess for well over a century.

However, the vast majority of fossils are not dinosaurs, or even vertebrate animals. As a collector of fossil arthropods, I’m aware how little interest there is in my specialty. There are almost no fossil invertebrates or plants on public display in our natural history museums, while most collections are relegated to back room cabinets, others have been tossed out during deaccessioning.

Let's avoid overzealous regulations on amateurs, because there aren’t enough academic paleontologist to scratch the surface of existing fossil deposits. Searching vast exposures with fellow amateurs on both private leases and BLM lands, we' don't see competitive collectors... we're alone. If something unusual is found we have working relationships with appropriate academics.

Webster’s article inflates this controversy by including all types of fossils while downplaying existing laws addressing the “dino wars” which need better enforcement.

There may not be enough T-Rex fossils to bring an end to “The Dino Wars”, but every year millions of uncollected fossils weather to dust.

Posted by Stephen Marley on March 26,2009 | 05:27 PM

Your article is a generally good report, but it makes a serious mistake. People like Frithiof are not amateurs if they intend to sell the pieces they collect; they are commercial collectors. They are not the people who should decide whether a fossil is scientifically valuable enough that it should remain in the public trust rather than on some rich guy's mantel. Since the beginning of paleontology, amateurs and true (academic, professional) paleontologists have worked together. Yes, some people have collected for their livelihood and have been paid, but they have collected for museums, so their collections remain in the public trust even now. Fossil sellers like auctioneer David Herskovits have no interest in science, education, or the nation's patrimony. They're entitled to this view, but they don't have the right to wrap themselves in the flag about it. Private enterprise is great, but as Joseph Sax wrote, does that give you the right to throw darts at the Mona Lisa simply because you can afford to buy it?

Posted by Kevin Padian on March 21,2009 | 10:20 PM

Before you rush out the front door, pitchfork-in-hand to lynch poachers and private collectors or shovel-in-hand with the intention of making your first million, understand this:

1. Fossils are natural resources.
2. Natural resources can be exploited, preserved, or both.
3. Fossil are only exploitable through preservation, either collection and preparation, or in rare instances _in situ_ preservation (i.e. Dinosaur National Monument's former Visitor's Center and various “trail tours” of preserved fossil track ways and other unexcavated specimens).
4. Unpreserved fossils and associated data are destroyed daily through erosion and corrosion from natural weathering on a scale far exceeding our present capacity for preserving them.

With these premises in mind, society’s present course of focusing so many governmental resources on hindering and punishing fossil collection makes no sense. We should instead focus on legislation and budgeting that puts professionals in the field and specimens in museums and repositories.

If our priority is to save scientifically significant fossils and associated data from destruction, why is it that there are virtually no jobs available for paleontologists? Why do museums always seem to be operating on shoe-string budgets with millions of dollars of deferred maintenance perpetually going unaddressed? Admittedly, paleontological research won’t produce life-saving cures or discover how to make bigger and cheaper LCD televisions. It has however produced some of the most ground-breaking scientific epiphanies humanity has experienced in the last two centuries; those concepts being extinction, evolution, plate tectonics, and long-term drastic climate change.

Maybe if it got out that paleontologists were willing to argue we're headed for another period of glaciation, energy companies would take interest. There is money to be made in successfully curtailing the current paradigmatic fret over global warming…

Posted by Matt on March 21,2009 | 03:37 PM

This article promotes a few all-too-common fallacies. The first is that professional paleontologists are "pitted against" amateur collectors, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. True amateurs -- those who excavate and study fossils without being paid -- are literally the backbone of professional vertebrate paleontology today, and every professional museum and university I know of actively encourages amateurs and volunteers to collect and participate in the process of fossil discovery. Although the article refers to "amateurs", it is actually discussing for-profit commercial collectors; and it is these individuals with whom many professional scientists have challenges, especially when those commercial collectors sell significant fossils out of the public trust. This practice actively hurts the ongoing science of vertebrate paleontology. Paleontology is a science; science requires data; and those data have to be able to be replicated. Selling fossils out of the public trust makes such replication and fact-checking virtually impossible.

The 2nd fallacy is that of giving scientific weight to only unique or rare fossils. This is, frankly, nonsense. The comment by Jack Kallmeyer that "professional paleontologists aren't interested in excavating [common fossils], as those specimens are well known and well studied" misses the past century of paleontological studies, where many of our biggest scientific advances were made by studying *large samples* of "common" fossils. Unique and rare fossils are great for opening new avenues of investigation, but studies of trends in *populations* of multiple organisms through time is where we see evolution in action. Understanding extinct animals requires that we know how they varied in populations, as they aged, between males and females, through time, in different geographic regions, and so forth. ALL of these studies require samples of "common" fossils, at least where vertebrates are concerned.

Posted by Eric Scott on March 21,2009 | 02:01 PM



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