Fossil Thefts
You probably will not see any Hollywood blockbusters involving fossil heists--unless author Michael Chrichton decides to combine his successes from Jurassic Park and The Great Train Robbery! You can, however, watch an undercover investigation that tracks fossil thieves, known as "Operation Rockfish," in the documentary "The Thieves of Time". Unfortunately for paleontologists, there is a lucrative market for stolen fossils.
Sometimes the fossils that are stolen are spectacular vertebrate fossils, such as a Tyrannosaurus rex, but sometimes they might be a small but beautiful invertebrate crinoid fossil.
Last week, rancher Fred Owen was interviewed on NPR about the 65 million year old theropod dinosaur footprint that was stolen from his property in Bosque County, Texas. How does one steal a footprint? The thieves chiseled it directly out of the surrounding rock!
This was not the first time that footprints have been stolen; in 1996, stegosaurus footprints were removed from a rock held sacred by Australian aborigines. Eventually the thieves were captured and sentenced to two years in jail, but the prints were never recovered.
Although fossils may be collected legally from Bureau of Land Management land (be sure to read my article, "Fossil Collecting on Public Lands"), it is illegal to collect fossils in the U. S. National Park Service. Unfortunately, many people insist on stealing fossils from the NPS, and park rangers must often pursue fossil thieves.
Fossil theft is not restricted to the United States. In July 2001, the Christian Science Monitor broke the story that the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia has been the site of many fossil thefts. Unfortunately, these thefts seem to be an inside job. (For the complete Christian Science Monitor story, please visit http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/07/30/fp1s3-csm.shtml) Fossil theft is rampant in China as well. All fossils in China belong to the Chinese government, so the removal of any fossils from China is illegal. If caught, Chinese fossil thieves face serious punishment.
Sometimes a fossil might be collected illegally by mistake. A friend of mine found himself making an unexpected trip when it was discovered that paleontologists at his institute had accidentally removed a fossil from another country without proper documentation. Because this was a legitimate fossil dig from a reputable institute, the fossil was promptly returned to its country of origin, where it was properly documented. Unfortunately, however, the illegal collection of fossils is more commonly quite intentional.
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