[NHCOLL-L:1186] CLIPS FROM TODAY'S MUSEUM SECURITY NETWORK

[Boylan P]

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Couple Charged in Dinosaur Theft
By RICH VOSEPKA, Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A husband and wife suspected of buying a dinosaur fossil stolen
from federal land in central Utah were charged Tuesday with theft.  The nearly complete
Allosaurus skeleton - one of only a dozen in the world - was hacked from the earth on
Bureau of Land Management (news - web sites) property in the early 1990s. Scientists and
prosecutors did not learn of the fossil until 1998, after an informant told officials it was
stolen from BLM land about 200 miles south of Salt Lake City. Prosecutors said a Utah
man sold the fossil to Barry James, a Pennsylvania dinosaur buff who then sold the bones
to a Japanese collector. James and his wife, April Rhodes-James, of Sunbury, Pa., are the
only ones who can be charged because the statute of limitations has expired for the people
who dug up the fossil, U.S. Attorney Paul Warner said. The couple face not only the state
theft charges but a federal lawsuit seeking $2.1 million in damages. ``The money cannot
begin to replace the value this fossil would have,'' Warner said. Because the fossil was
damaged when it was taken out of the ground, priceless information about how the creature
died will never be known, said Laurie Bryant, regional paleontologist for the Bureau of Land
Management. A professional excavation by legitimate paleontologists would have taken six
months. Instead, amateurs using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows dug it up in nine days,
said Don Johnson, head of the FBI (news - web sites) office in Salt Lake City. The
Japanese company that bought the fossil did not know it was stolen and no one at the
company will face prosecution, officials said. The name of the company was not released.
To nonscientists, the Allosaurus remains would have looked like ordinary rocks, Bryant
said. Investigators say the fossil is worth $700,000, but that James bought it for $90,000
and sold it for $400,000. The couple are still subject to prosecution because they have been
living out of state. The statute of limitations for Utah crimes does not run while people are
living outside the state's borders. Allosaurus lived in the late Jurassic Period, 154 million to
144 million years ago. A three- foot skull full of serrated steak knives for teeth made it the
great predator of its time, Bryant said. It measured about 40 feet from nose to tail and stood
about nine feet tall at the hips, she said. The creature either hunted live animals or
scavenged carrion - scientists aren't sure which.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/

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$25,000 for fossil worm?

CALGARY - Scientists are upset that thieves have been pilfering some of Canada's most
valuable geological sites.

A fossil taken Aug. 17 from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia's Yoho National Park
has been valued at more than $25,000. The RCMP are investigating, and a worldwide alert
has been issued. The 20-kilogram rock taken from near the border with British Columbia
contains an impeccable and highly detailed 500-million-year-old impression of a carnivorous
worm called ottoia. The fossil was taken from a quarry that is restricted to scientific
researchers and the Yoho- Burgess Shale Foundation. The foundation's Randle Robertson
says such items would be worth a lot of money – to the right buyer. "There aren't that many
in the world; there are very, very few," he said. The thieves could sell the fossil on the black
market, he said. Or they could have been commissioned to steal such an article by private
collectors. A curator with the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta says the thefts
are shameful. "It's kind of a tragedy I think to think that one of our key sites, a UNESCO
World Heritage Site is open to pilfering of this sort," said Paul Johnston.

Written by CBC News Online staff

http://cbc.ca/

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THE MET AND LOUVRE ARE BEHAVING UNETHICALLY

PARIS. Museums across the world are being called on to take a tougher stand against the
illicit trade in art and antiquities. The International Council of Museums (ICOM), meeting in
Barcelona in July, approved a new, stronger Code of Ethics. This requires that when making
acquisitions, provenance checks should be made to establish “the full history of the item
from discovery or production”. Every effort must be made to ensure that objects have “not
been illegally acquired in, or exported from, its country of origin.”
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=7250

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