Is Selling Vertebrate Fossils Bad For Science?

Abstract

Fossil sales are big business. Major auction houses such as Sotheby's and Bonhams & Butterfields proudly feature fossils, including vertebrate fossils, in their catalogues. On online auction sites such as eBay, fossil dealers offer museum-quality specimens for private ownership at prices ranging from around a dollar to several thousands of dollars. For example, searches conducted on eBay during the writing of this manuscript, using the key words “dinosaur fossil,” gave results consistently showing around 200 items; items priced in U.S. dollars fetched a cumulative price tag consistently in excess of $21,000. Clearly, there's money to be made in selling vertebrate fossils for profit. Given this, it might come as a surprise to the general public that many people consider fossils to be resources worth protecting, rather than commodities to be sold. For example, a bill unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate in July 2005, and currently under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives (before the Committees of Resources and Agriculture as of this writing), the “Paleontological Resources Preservation Act” (S.263), considers fossils to be nonrenewable and scientifically important resources requiring protection and conservation. A report published in May of 2000 by then-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt recognized fossils as part of our natural heritage, further emphasizing that vertebrate fossils are rare, and that significant fossils found on public lands should be conserved for scientific and educational purposes. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP), a professional international organization of vertebrate paleontologists, asks its members to adhere to an ethics statement specifically rejecting the idea of significant vertebrate fossils as items that can be bought, sold or bartered, save where such activities bring those fossils into the public trust. Why is there such a difference of opinion? Is it better to sell vertebrate fossils, or to preserve them in perpetuity? …