Commercial Fossil Dealing (was: 2 avoid....)

[Darryl Jones <dinoguy@sympatico.ca>]

At 12:05 PM 8/7/2003, dmschmidt@sprint.ca wrote:
> As both you and I say, you have your opinion, and I have mine.  It's just 
> too bad you let emotion cloud your viewpoint into making you believe that 
> all fossil dealers are unlawful.  Until such a law is passed, making it 
> illegal to deal in fossil materials, your comments are nothing but biased 
> and ignorant.  Your SVP ethics statement is NOT LAW, regardless of how 
> much you would like it to be.
>
> "The barter, sale, or purchase of scientifically significant vertebrate 
> fossils is not condoned unless it brings them into, or keeps them within, 
> a public trust. Any other trade or commerce in scientifically significant 
> vertebrate fossils is inconsistent with the foregoing, in that it deprives 
> both the public and professionals of important specimens, which are part 
> of our natural heritage. "
>
> you still complain that people like me shouldn't be able to sell specimens.

Here I go, I am going to put my foot in it again.....

I think the thing that bothers people the most (myself included) is the 
lack of regulation.  You don't need to be anything to deal in 
fossils.  This means that as long as you have a buyer, you can be as 
unscrupulous as you want.  On the other hand, academics that act in an 
unscrupulous manner have to live with the reputation (not foolproof, but at 
least there is SOME regulation).

Then there is the fact that many fossil dealers have cash to offer land 
owners (since they do make money on their sales) that academics could not 
possible come up with.  There are well known cases of grad students work 
being all but ruined because the bone bed/formation/finds were on private 
property and freely available to them until a dealer came along and offered 
money to get what was left.  Even if those finds go to museums, their grad 
work has just become much more difficult.

On the other side of the coin, it bothers me to know end when I hear (and I 
have often) "we found an excellent 'blah' specimen, but it would take to 
long to dig up so we left it" or "we found a 'blah' but we were really 
looking for a 'blah-blah', so we noted its position and left it".  This is 
especially true in fossil rich areas where one can be choosy.  That means 
the specimen could be classified as scientifically insignificant.  I 
wouldn't consider it so, but if the pro's aren't interested....

If there were a way to regulate, register finds, or somehow even police 
fossil dealers, I think they would have a lot to add to science.  It would 
have to be imposed however and there would be additional costs involved, so 
not only would many dealers not go for it, but the government wouldn't either.


Darryl Jones  <dinoguy@sympatico.ca>

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