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Re: Specimen not in collection - usable?

Current law says that fossils on private land belongs to the land owners. To repeat a phrase I have heard locally, "ain't no government agent gunna tell me what to do with my fossil critters". On my personal 3000 deeded acres of Hell Creek and the additional 20000 acres I have contracted access/ 1/2 ownership(of the fossils) to, I'll decide which museum will end up with them. (That's about 40 square miles of Hell Creek Exposure). If the gov't starts stepping in, the supply of fossils from private lands would dry up. Locally, land owners are always hesitant to tell about fossil finds because of the incorrect assumption that the gov't will step in and tell them they can't run cattle on that land now. I have run several local newspaper articles indicating the facts and have gotten access to several sites I wouldn't have it the gov't was involved. What you suggest is bad planning as almost anything the gov't gets involved in gets screwed up. Your intentions are good but in practice, it would, for instance, totally close down my collecting as I wouldn't want any gov't agent from some place far away to tell me what to do with my property. It is a different story if you live on the land you are being dictated to than if you are sitting on a chair surrounded by population thinking about the "public good". So if I find a dinosaur tooth on my land, as a result I can't have cattle tromping on the site (since my whole property is a dinosaur site) and thus go out of the cattle business.....hum, I'll bet you'll never hear about the find as it is reburied quickly in a deeper hole. The rural, very independent folks living 65 miles from the nearest town (where they live ontop of the dinosaurs) will never go along with that. They make their living from the land and anything that interferes with that lifestyle will not be allowed to happen. Believe me, I live that lifestyle and even with my paleontology background, would shut down collecting in an instant.

It is your job to convince the land owner that it is to the public good for that fossils to be placed in a repository for a nice tax write off and not to sell it on the open market to the highest bidder. That is my job too. I know where there is a really nice, articulated dinosaur (I think it is a Thescelosaur) with an upright inflated rib cage exposed on a vertical surface sitting on private land (Lance). The owner isn't interested in letting anyone on to dig it currently. Not even me as a neighbor and I have treaded very lightly as he actually let me see it and photograph it. If anyone tried to take it, better come in with body armor and riot shields. It is his land. I am very slowly going to facilitate the removal of this animal but it will take kid gloves and a lot of cooperation from all parties involved. If someone with cash came forward to dig it, he would probably go along but if it isn't going to a museum, I'm not talking. (I have photo's if anyone is interested). He just doesn't need a tax write off as you have to be making money to write off donations. I would ask for a contracted promise to deliver it to a paleontological repository after excavation before I would disclose the owner so don't ask if your not willing to do that.

Don't shut me and others down for "the public good". If these extraordinarily private, hard working people who live off their land even sniff of gov't involvement, goodbye to access to anybody doing paleontological work on private land.

Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming
www.wyomingdinosaurs.com


On May 16, 2008, at 9:46 AM, hammeris1@bellsouth.net wrote:

So, if I am out in the wild somewhere and come across
a large specimen of Holtzasaurus marylandai, and it is
on private land, at what point can "the govt" step in
for the benefit of science - does that happen?
Do they retain a percentage of any seizure to pay the
land owners like they would in an imminent domain situation?

Would the uniqueness of the specimen be the deciding factor?