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Fossil Collecting Ruin: Worsening Collecting Potential for Posterity


Trevor

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Dear Fellow Forum Goers,

 

Have you found that over your lifetime, the fossil collecting grounds you've so frequently enjoyed and have come to love have degraded?

 

Lately, I have been ruminating on the fact that the popularization of fossil collecting in New Jersey (my local collecting ground) has brought many wonderful things (many new collectors, support for paleontology across the board, and - maybe - additional funding to paleontology communities, institutions, and organizations), but has also engendered / worsened a host of deleterious processes, such as the picking-over of common collecting areas, egregious collecting practices, and some level of local environmental degradation due to an unsustainable amount of collecting (in my case, stream ecosystems, predominantly, are being affected).

 

I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way. It is very easy for human activity to eliminate something good (e.g., human hunting and mega-fauna, overfishing, slash-and-burn agriculture); this seems no different for fossil collecting, but this degradation in fossil collecting seems to have become more noticeable in the last few years, especially given the incentives that the Internet and social media place on people to post amazing or numerous fossil finds.

 

There is something nauseating about knowing that what were once treasured places for you to go will now either be cordoned off to collecting or will be squeezed so thin of fossils that you are left wondering whether it was really a good idea to post that trip report or picture on Instagram or video on YouTube.

 

Main Idea -->: I am interested in hearing about your stories and perspectives on this topic, i.e. fossil collecting grounds you've gone to that have become so miserable due to over-collecting, poor collecting practices, environmental degradation, human development, or other restrictions.

 

For me, I've found that Instagram (30%), YouTube (15%), the Fossil Forum (5%), and Facebook (50%) have all contributed in some way to the degradation of the common stream systems (I put % weights next to these corresponding to my estimates of their impact). This degradation takes the form of too many people collecting in the streams. Some of these people dig in areas they shouldn't, such as the stream embankments, and this increases the risk of certain areas having fossil collecting banned. Many of these people litter the gravel bars with their sifted spoils, which prevents other collectors who want to surface scan from reaping the benefits of a good rain, which is the only reliable form of natural erosion for the NJ Cretaceous stream beds.

 

Kind Regards,

Trevor

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: )

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As a non stream collector, your reasoning is why I tend to keep my sites as secret as I can, while still sharing bigger pictures with with folks. 

 

On the other hand, I was in FL this past spring, collecting in the Peace River area with some folks form down there and I have to say that I felt mixed excitement for finding fun stuff and sadness for trashing the ecosystem in the bottom of the river.  So many living clams were disturbed by our diggings.  The locals I was with seemed to put the screened non-fossils on the bank, clams be damned.  I returned the stuff into the water to give the clams a second chance.   Too many fossil hunter  in places like that certainly can't be good for the local invertebrate populations in a state that is already biologically a mess.  

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As jpc said, I keep most of my collecting locations close to the vest. Even locations that are not on private property and could be collected by the masses. I have seen to many places ruined or closed to collecting because of "hounddogs". 

 

Yes, there are more collectors out there than 10 years ago. But there are new locations found frequently. 

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Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt
behind the trailer, my desert
Them red clay piles are heaven on earth
I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt

Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers

 

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2 hours ago, jpc said:

So many living clams were disturbed by our diggings. 

 

https://invasions.si.edu/nemesis/species_summary/81387

 

If it lessens the guilt at all, these clams (the small ones the size of pistachios) are a massively invasive species. The larger clams are occasionally turned up and always returned (as are sadly the exotics). Any pot-holing in the river bottom is usually erased by the next heavy rain that resets the bottom contours like an Etch-a-Sketch. The rainy/hurricane season can move several feet of sand accumulation thousands of feet downriver making it a bit of a novel river to re-prospect every dry season.

 

River sifting is much more ephemeral than digging out fossil-bearing layers in some land sites. Erosional sites like the Badlands often do need to be "harvested" of fossil material as so much of it can degrade so quickly once exposed at the surface that it is lost forever without the effort expended on salvaging it. Other sites with slower erosion of new material are the sites most often quickly hunted out beyond the new exposure rate. Those tend to be the ones most closely guarded and are the saddest when overly popularized and stripped bare.

 

 

The overall topic of degradation of fossil sites appears here with regularity. Soon the topic turns toward regulations and soon after that it often breaks down into arguments that lead to the topic running its course and being locked from further non-productive input. You are welcome to bring fresh ideas or insight to an aspect of fossil hunting that is inherent in the hobby. Just keep in mind that if this topic breaks down into non-productive arguments it will likely end up being moderated to keep it civil and to the point.

 

Adding in my $0.02 about the clams but hoping this topic stays well mannered and constructive. ;)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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  I dont fossil hunt anymore but still keep most of my old fossil hunting sites secret.  I was also one of those that would clean up littered camp sites from idiot campers that had a total disrespect for mother nature.  We would also shoot guns at camp, but only plastic and aluminum and would clean up afterwards.  I left no trash anywhere and left most areas cleaner than when I arrived.    Too many people will destroy just about anything and everything so mums the word on my best fossil sites.

 

RB

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We have the same problem in Germany, good sites go down, become forbidden, will be closed. Often due to "collectors", who destroy the site, take machines, leave garbage. And sometimes have accidents and accuse the company, so they close the pit for all. Do not know if it is a problem of FB and the others, I think its a social problem, respect is often less to other people´s property. This is my personal opinion, what I have observed in the last 40 years of field work

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Agree that 'lack of respect' could be singled out as the single biggest problem with (semi)public hunting spots.

 

That disrespect can be more subtle resulting in the detriment of the fossil materials available at a site. I've occasionally gone out with Tammy (and sometimes with small groups of friends) to fossil hunt the Peace River--possibly the best known of all fossil locations in Florida. I do not have my own watercraft and so I'm obligated to rent canoes and ply the more public stretches of the Peace. This means I often would see other fossil hunters at spots along the river--often in a very openly known very visible gravel deposit just a short paddle down from the day-trip put-in location at the start of the Brownville Park to Arcadia run. This site was so well known that you could not begrudge any number of others from sifting there while you were trying to find a spot in the large stretch that was not redistributed spoil pile gravel but fresh productive gravel. If you weren't even finding smaller shark teeth after a bit of effort you'd prospect around randomly till you started finding things that no fossil hunter would leave behind (nice shark teeth possibly even small megs, horse teeth, gator osteoderms, etc.) and stick to that spot for the time you were there.

 

I then started prospecting new potential sites and marking GPS coordinates along the river giving the spots personal names usually based on finds or a visual characteristic of the spot. Each rainy season huge amounts of sand would transport down the river during the flood stage and sites would be covered up or re-exposed year after year. I found one site that was incredibly out in the public eye near a very busy section of the river. Turned out that only a very tiny slice of that section had very chunky gravel (think up to bowling ball size rocks) and would produce larger fossil material. Fewer tiny shark teeth but then I'd generally switch to a 1/2" screen from a 1/4" screen to go through the chunky matrix more efficiently. I found an incredible number of large pieces of mammoth teeth (all with the FLMNH now) and many other very interesting fossils. Others might see me and stop a bit downstream to try their luck. They'd usually give up after a bit as it was mostly sandy just below where I was hunting. Hurricane Irma moved about 2 feet of sand overburden off this long sandbar and exposed a more substantial gravel bed. The tiny site I was working was merely the leading edge of a much more substantial site now.

 

I would often drop my canoe off at the end of the day and show my better finds for the day. They would inquire where I was hunting and I'd give them an approximate clue as to where I was digging. I figured they are in the business of renting canoes not doing river guiding and so being a bit open with them would not be a problem. They would occasionally let me know of places they had found back in the day and were curious if those spots were still producing. It seemed a safe arrangement and worked well for years. During the pandemic lots more people took up fossil hunting on the Peace River. It was something you could do to get you out of the lockdown of your house and the number of new Florida fossil permits hit a level never seen before. The river was apparently crawling with hunters during that time. I was busy moving to Gainesville and was involved with the FLMNH and didn't make it to the river but once or twice for a couple of season. I donated a number of specimens to the FLMNH for the Peace River Paleo Project and Richard Hulbert mentioned that it would be good to flesh out the new collection sites they made for my donations with additional taxa. One one trip back I could barely even find small shark teeth--it was like the site was vacuumed clean. When I dropped off the canoe at the end of the day and mentioned that I'd gotten skunked one of the employees asked where I was hunting and I told him at my usual site. He mentioned so many new people were interested in fossil hunting that he would occasionally act as a guide and take people out--guess where they went? :shakehead:

 

Versions of this same story can be told by any fossil hunter who has hunted long enough and trusted too much. It is nothing new and I suspect has been going on as long as folks have discovered (and lost) their treasure 'honey hole' by taking someone into their confidence who has later betrayed that trust.

 

On the other end of that spectrum are more publicly known sites--roadcuts or access points publicly reachable which offer some nice fossil material. Some sites can be quickly overcollected if the fossil exposure is limited and it takes time to recharge. Too many people knowing and collecting sites like this will quickly overstrip its capacity to produce fresh material--effectively killing the site (till others possibly lose interest and it goes back to minimal hunting pressure).

 

At the extreme end is when the desire for fossil material overwhelms good manners and people start acting really stupid. Public sites or shared private sites once hunted with permission can quickly be closed down when people start massively problematic excavations (think roadcuts) or start trespassing and leaving the site a real mess with trash and the like. This just demonstrates rudeness and a sense of entitlement and a complete lack of manners. Owners (individuals, companies, or municipalities) can very quickly move to close access for everyone. A prime example of this was a fairly well known site for beautiful blastoids in the midwest. It was a site along a creek/river where blastoids would erode out of the bank and could be easily surface hunted in a short period of time to amass a nice little collection of blastoids satisfying the collecting urge for these geometric beauties. The farmer whose land this was on didn't mind the occasional collector as long as they didn't park along the road in a way that would block his farm equipment from passing. The story I heard is that some idiots (I'll use a clean term here) decided to bring a pressure washer and power wash out the formation from which the blastoids were emerging. In this way they could collect untold thousands which they later planned on selling. They undercut the overburden so much that it slumped and capped in the blastoid layer. Had the site not been made off limits by a very annoyed landowner the site itself was no longer productive.

 

No amount of legislation will ever be able to stop stupidity like this. There will always be people in our society who don't care for others or for natural resources (including fossil sites). I believe the best that we can do as fossil hunters is to treat sites with respect and not despoil the places that give us such pleasure. I am a proponent of 'amateur/avocational' fossil hunters (wish there was a better term) working with professional paleontologists to collect and work on material from sites that would not normally be known by academia. I believe there are great benefits to this cooperation and would be greatly disappointed if the public were excluded from fossil hunting through legislation.

 

I know I said I didn't want this retread of a topic to balloon and get out of hand but my normally loquacious style tends to make me string lots of words together from time to time. :P I hope that this voluminous post can server as a (somewhat) concise example of the types of issues facing fossil sites being abused. Is there a simple solution? Stop advertising all fossil sites--hide all the information--limit access and knowledge to limit fossil hunting as an activity? Nope, not a viable solution as I see it. If you do have a personal 'honey hole' guard it more than you think you need to. If you have access to a more publicly known site, care for it and even leave it in better shape when you leave for the day. Do your part to be a good fossil hunting citizen of our small community and try not to mess it up for the rest of us. ;)

 

[Steps off soapbox and walks away into the crowd.] :ninja:

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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I've been fossil collecting since I was a child, but took a break in college and early 20's until I moved back to TX.  I have scoured google maps and USGS surveys, explored countless spots that ended up being failures, but have ~ 10 or so in my arsenal that produce with some regularity.  These are obscure, too.  Or so I thought.  This past year I started seeing footprints in some of my sites - places where nobody would accidentally wander into, or wade through the waist-deep water and fight thorn bushes and stickers for any reason except fossil hunting.  As crappy as it can feel to see footprints sometimes, I also remind myself that these have been my spots for only what, like 5 years? Some of those footprints are probably left by people who who saw MY footprints in their honey hole 5 years back.  

  

Basically what I'm saying is that as long as some people feel like they've been around, others have been around longer.  Technology has certainly been an unprecedented boon to this hobby, and it's also taken some of the guesswork out of prospecting.  "Our" spots may have been someone else's before, and it's inevitable that they will continue to attract more traffic.  I don't mind that though.  If someone does the legwork and ends up in one of my spots, then good for them.  They deserve it.  

 

If you're talking about places like Big Book NJ, North Sulphur River TX, Post Oak Creek TX, then I think we just need to understand that those are public domain now.  The secret is out.  I hope people aren't pillaging them as if they were strip mining for gold, but I'd encourage casual hunting and enjoy the sense of community that places like that bring.

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Fossilhunting is not the only activity being affected this way. I belong to a fly-fishing forum, and those of us who fish have the same problem. All of the sudden everyone has become a fisherman. Nothing wrong with that per se. But people are going to the same spots day after day, week after week. Many keeping everything they catch regardless of daily limit regulations. They leave their garbage behind, are disrespectful to other fishermen and rude to landowners. Same issues. That is why I will no longer mention my spots by name on either forum. If someone I consider a friend asks then I will tell them in private. But no more bringing attention to these places. And none of my spots are secrets spots. My opinion is that the more one talks about a place, the more it makes others want to go there. 

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I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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16 hours ago, Darktooth said:

But people are going to the same spots day after day, week after week. Many keeping everything they catch regardless of daily limit regulations. They leave their garbage behind, are disrespectful to other fishermen and rude to landowners. Same issues

@DarktoothI am the landowner of a trout stream just as you mention. Without my control, fishing was done (no fish) by the end of May.  Only garbage  remained past May. So 20 years ago, I put my own set of rules in place. Ask permission each time, catch and release, pick up any garbage seen, only one group a day for access. Also bait fishing allowed for children on an artificial only stream (an agreement the local conservation officer and I have to issue no tickets for bait or I shut ALL the fishing down). Now my creek is a wonderful fishery all year long, enjoyed by many! 

Closing fossil sites seems drastic. Can not the landowners and fossil hunters come to a workable agreement  as I did with the fishermen. I would take it upon myself to approach the landowner with suggestions on how everyone can coexist.

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19 hours ago, Darktooth said:

All of the sudden everyone has become a fisherman.

This too I believe is similar to the explosion of new Florida fossil permits--a reaction to the cabin fever of the global shutdown due to the pandemic. A larger percentage of these newbie fishers will drift away from the hobby and fishing will likely establish a new reduced level. If people are brought into fishing by a mentor who can instill the rules and norms of the activity (catch & release, picking up trash, etc.) then a wider audience which can appreciate the activity may be sustained. When any schmuck can pick up a pole at a sporting goods store and overfish an area leaving trash behind that becomes the acute problem. Education can sometimes limit the abuse but as we all know there will always be people who just don't care.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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The social media issue with paleontology is an interesting one. Back when I started out there were books on the subject, but you had search out the books and buy a copy or borrow it from the library. The next step (as it is now) is to understand the landscape and deposits in your area yourself and find your own localities. 
 

Now we can receive videos and photos into our feed on a number of platforms without searching for it. That means the people who put in the effort to find new places (and film it) or film places shared with them, make the information available to a wide spectrum of people.

 

I don’t understand why you would photograph or film your honey holes, but it’s happening here in NZ. i think the drive is fame, money (YouTube earnings, endorsements etc) and hopefully the fossils? I’ve shared knowledge and site info unfortunately with bad outcomes. That old story like @digit said.

 

The worst outcome recently was a spectacular cetacean skull, that the person filming pretended to find for the first time and bragged about getting it out in the future :shakehead: Another sensitive site is on film online with a distance from the nearest road. I get a few people asking me about this site when I’m at this locality and even get followed when I try to visit it. I have to abort collecting it to not make it obvious where it is. 
 

Social media coverage of sites will increase traffic, this may be positive in that the number of significant finds increases. Good for science if they are donated. But with increased traffic means we get more disrespectful ones or people who damage specimens collecting incorrectly. A double edged sword. 
 

Unfortunately the only solution I see is to protect hard earned knowledge. Maybe share the info on how to find sites, then those keen enough will find it themselves. And then respect the effort it took to find it.

 

Thats enough from me! 
 

:tiphat:
 

 

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All it takes is one other person to ruin a site you've been responsibly managing for years, so I tend to only send pics of my finds to a short list of friends and family these days.  And provenance is kept on an even tighter leash.  Mentioning formation and county can equip a lazy potlicker with information that eliminates 99.5% of the entire county, bringing unwanted scrutiny much closer to your hard earned honey hole.

 

In my experience, newbies, locals, and collectors who have not invested the time/fuel/human captial are the biggest risk to your sites.  People who lack experience or investment also lack awareness of site value, and they are much more likely to blab yours publicly, with no regard for your site management strategy, invite list, collaborative research projects, etc.  It is human nature for uninvested collectors to not care about anyone else's efforts or objectives, and focus solely on their own, no matter how they came upon the site, most often by no hard work of their own.

 

Experienced collectors are a much safer bet with their more introspective outlook based on experience.  They know the true cost of finding and managing good sites, and only through that investment have learned to respect the site info that has been shared with them.  They don't sneak back, show up with other people, or lean into the host like a nuisance until the host capitulates and throws another invite.  Instead, they invite the host to their own good sites and let the mutual respect cultivate.

 

All of the above pertains mainly to personal interactions.  Regard and respect for the work of others degrades ten fold when internet anonymity enters the equation.  When in doubt, post nothing and tell no one until the site is built over, covered, posted or in some way exhausted or inaccessible.  Then feel free to share your photos.

 

Part of the problem with posting online is that so many in today's narcissistic society crave attention and mindlessly compromise fossil sites simply to get the dopamine rush of the pat on the head and "you're special" compliments they get when they spill their guts online.  I implore these attention seekers to post Tik Tok dance videos online (which I'll never see) to get their rush, and leave finite resources out of it.

 

In their moment of bragging, they do not comprehend the permanent damage they do.  The reality is that they not only shoot themselves in the foot, but also the foot or feet of the wisely silent collectors they are standing on.  "To the motivated go the spoils" was a good tagline I coined sometime around the inception of this forum.  If I may update that adage with a corollary, it would be something along the lines of "To the silent goes sustainability."

 

Many of my hobbies (fossil and artifact collecting, saltwater fishing, small and big game hunting) can be quite competitive.  This is because they focus on finite or slowly replenishing resources that respond poorly to an uptick in human demand (as from Covid).  The writing is on the wall for these pursuits if demand stays the same or increases with time.  For that reason, I've added a few non consumptive pastimes (flying RC planes, guitar, bass, travel, occasional surfing) to balance things out, and I feel enriched by these new experiences.

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Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

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I think some of these comments are a bit of a cheek. 

How many times do we see here members posting their latest finds at their favourite site which include literally dozens or hundreds of the same species they've collected dozens or hundreds of times previously? 

I have seen some of those same members complain that 'their' site isn't what it used to be. 

There are sites here in Morocco that have been stripped bare by commercial mining, others that prevent your access without paying and some that have gone literally underground. 

But there's always somewhere new to explore, try something different. 

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30 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I think some of these comments are a bit of a cheek. 

How many times do we see here members posting their latest finds at their favourite site which include literally dozens or hundreds of the same species they've collected dozens or hundreds of times previously? 

I have seen some of those same members complain that 'their' site isn't what it used to be. 

There are sites here in Morocco that have been stripped bare by commercial mining, others that prevent your access without paying and some that have gone literally underground. 

But there's always somewhere new to explore, try something different. 

That is indeed a very real factor.  We do take our toll personally on our hard researched sites.  But some degree of residuals can be considered a justifiable and warranted "finder's fee" for a good site.  Sometimes you go back hoping for the rare stuff, but when only superbly preserved common fauna present, they often come home instead, still fulfilling the much sought after thrill of discovery.  Even common stuff at an adequately weathered site is still better than discovering that your site has been savaged by a Biblical plague of locusts leaving pot holes and foot prints. 

 

I think collectors as individuals are by and large great people.  However, how many great people does it take to deplete a site?  Just a case of too dang many people competing for too few slow weathering, finite resources. 

 

I still share sites, but my approach has changed.  I'd rather share over time with a half dozen people max, and reward them well for their tenured respect and friendship than slice the pie too thin and drive sites into the ground fast.  The fastest way to ruin sites is to add humans.

 

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Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

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19 hours ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

That is indeed a very real factor.  We do take our toll personally on our hard researched sites.  But some degree of residuals can be considered a justifiable and warranted "finder's fee" for a good site.  Sometimes you go back hoping for the rare stuff, but when only superbly preserved common fauna present, they often come home instead, still fulfilling the much sought after thrill of discovery.  Even common stuff at an adequately weathered site is still better than discovering that your site has been savaged by a Biblical plague of locusts leaving pot holes and foot prints.

 

"Finder's fee" is fine if you are the only one going there and you are actually the finder. I don't blame anyone for taking home rare and superbly preserved specimens. 

I can't really collect anymore, but for the forty or so years that I did, I never collected more than three specimens of the same species from the same site unless they were bigger, smaller, better preserved, stranger etc, than the ones I already had.  Why pick up 50 of the same tooth including broken bits? Children and many amateurs would be delighted to find even these. 

There is a "Look what I found" culture about some of this where quantity is as important, if not more important, than quality. 

And then some of the same folk complain about depletion. 

And I think locusts are equally entitled to collect fossils. 

This one's looking for shark's teeth, I expect.

Locusts: The next evil - ProAgri

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Forgive me if I repeat a point mentioned by others, I just want to put down my thoughts before they vanish. 

 

For perspective, as I have become a more experienced fossil hunter, I have observed a change in my demeanor, becoming one of the most paranoid, strongly territorial fossil hunters I know, and drop as few clues as possible these days about my location, usually never getting more specific than "Texas". 

 

This is in spite of my avid belief in supporting fossil hunters in law (ex: against legislation banning them, as I believe it damages the science) and celebrating the science of paleontology on my social media platforms.

 

Here's the way I see it.

 

1) I agree that the increase in hordes of hunters in recent years has been exponential and notable. You do not have to feel guilty about your trip reports and Instagram posts showing off your collection though. 

Trip reports and fossil photos are a media that have existed for longer than the recent spike, and though they are a great motivator to many new enthusiasts, I do not think they are the primary reason for the spike of the last few years. Rather, I think the spike was caused by the unusual, once off circumstances of 2020 - namely covid. An enormous increase in participants in many outdoor acclivities manifested due to covid.

In the other outdoor pursuits I'm involved in (herping and rock climbing), the complaints you voiced above exactly mirror what, for example, herpers and rock climbers have been saying. In summary, this spike is not unique to fossil hunting, and circumstances outside of your control are at play. If you have been cautious with your posting, there is no reason to feel guilty. 

 

2.) Don't be afraid to reach out and mentor select new hunters. You can encourage good values in them. 

That's counter intuitive, isn't it? Beginners are a wild card that most experienced hunters (rightfully so) want to avoid. Beginners often don't have a grip as to how easy it is for others to steal honey holes based on a misplaced detail.

 

For this reason, I keep tabs of new emerging hunters in my area (via the forum and their fossil based social media pages), because that's what I'm afraid of happening in my spots. When a local hunter that I've made effort to be friendly with begins getting dangerously close to an area of mine and are bound to discover it soon, I reach out and offer to take them hunting to said area. Usually these hunters (for me at least) have been newbies. This allows me to instill in them, through friendly conversation, how sensitive and worth preserving some of these sites are. This is a form of damage control. Said hunter may have found your honey hole and gone crazy on it, probably spilling a few too many details in excitement to others, but due to your efforts in establishing a first friendly contact, they have a sense to treat it nicely and, most importantly, now understand the correct steps in keeping it secret.  

 

Does that sound tedious? It's not. While there's a tactic there, on the surface it's still just two guys with a mutual appreciation for ancient life creek stomping together, and being proactive in preserving your passion is always fulfilling and enjoyable. I have needed to take this approach three times before, and it has benefited me more than if I had kept quiet to them.

 

3.) How to teach people about fossil hunting, if you are asked:

Keep it skeletal. Do not name drop spots. I have a roughly scripted response, it's this:

 

"Google fossil parks near you that are legal to hunt in" - (This is good enough for 75% of first time hunters, and they won't expand their efforts beyond this.) 

"If you were to want to find your own spots, do thorough research on local laws. Then google the paleontology of your local geologic formations, and put in legwork in the geologic formation with the fauna you're interested in".

Done. That's it. I once made a video saying this, and then expanding further basically with "when you find fossils, stay extremely secret about even your general area, though DO post pictures on a forum, so that more experienced hunters can, in the event you found something significant without knowing it, direct you to the appropriate local researchers if your find warrants that". 

 

As someone who started from scratch with paleo, using this exact advice, I found the learning curve to be steep, difficult and often very agitating. That learning curve filters out the people who don't truly care for fossils. The ones that do break through develop a deep appreciation for the work needed for fossil hunting, and blossom into good influences who are careful with the practice. That's a good thing. 

 

4.) The point of fossils

 

This is a bit more philosophical. Without humans to appreciate and learn from them, fossils serve zero purpose. They don't contribute to their environment - they're dead! To every organism on the planet except for humans, they are just another rock built into other rocks. Couple this with the fact that every fossil not collected is doomed to erode into nothingness, and you're forced to reach the conclusion that humans should be finding as many fossils as they can. 

 

Most people have a want to preserve things in nature. We are appalled by forests and prairies we grew up on being destroyed or changing due to human meddling, and recognize that the most ideal way to preserve things is to leave them completely alone. It is all too easy to extend this sentiment to fossils... but in paleontology, that style of preservation is the most destructive order one can possibly dictate for fossils. Preservation in paleontology requires human meddling, requires human interaction with fossils in order to save them from natural processes of erosion. Though logically obvious, it is counter intuitive to many for the reasons above, and something easy to get emotional about. Thus, in some instances (especially in ephemeral sites like construction zones) extensive collecting should be encouraged, like in the North Sulfur river, where millions of fossils are doomed to be never appreciated by human eyes (and thus never serve their purpose) because of dam construction that will cause massive flooding.

 

In conclusion:

My fourth point might have sounded hypocritical, as I say we should encourage hunters right after I also preached about the importance of being proactive in pushing secrecy and gate keeping. As most things in life, two things can be true at once. I deeply appreciate that fossil hunting is more than just about fossils - it is also about a feeling of connection to nature and ourselves. Thus, a responsible hunter has to leverage the reality of the fact that the target of his affections are both sensitive to too much attention (over-collecting, ruining the experience of fossil hunting) and not enough attention (under-collecting and destruction of non-renewable natural history).

While unfortunate, this duality exists no matter what, and there's nothing one can do about it except being proactive in leveraging them. Those are both threats that exist to fossils, and it's unwise to abandon one completely for the other. You can balance both, by encouraging/mentoring the right people to get into hunting, while staying tremendously secret about your own spots (unless an individual is threateningly close, in which case show them the ropes, keep them close, and encourage good practice. That's all you can do)

Edited by Jared C
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“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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great discussion, folks.  Jared, I would add that in your encouragement to folks to post pictures, also encourage them to make sure there is no GPS data attached to the photos.  The whole concept of pix with GPS data attached and I don't know about it scares me when I post pix.  

 

 

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Good point... we should keep sensitive sites close to the chest, but not discourage the collecting of fossils in general, and fight the closure of access to sites (which involves not only lobbying but also being good stewards). The more sites that remain open to collecting, the less pressure there will be on any given site. But given the increase in people I tend to fall on the side of keeping sites confidential and not advertising their location and what can be found there. It would depend on the site and the area (e.g. urban, rural, wilderness?), but in my region at least, I think the scales of concern are tipping away from fossils being left to erode into dust and toward fossils being collected by other people, making it a waste of time to even go collecting at any of the old sites (unless you don't mind the hike). Even sites that you think are large/productive enough to sustain collecting for a long time can be suddenly depleted or built upon because of the continuous influx of people which is certainly a concern where I live. Not to mention unpredictable factors like Covid.

I have been wondering if my favorite local site has become picked over at least in part due to my showing it off here on the Forum in the past 10 (15?) years. I used to think it didn't matter if I let people know where it was, because I was certainly not the first one to find it and it was rather big and plainly visible on the hillside in a built-up area, and was being gradually developed (the pace picking up in the last few years), and because of the unknown timeline of development and that the remaining rock piles were quickly weathering into crumbs, I figured the need to salvage fossils was more important than keeping it to myself. But I probably did not need to 'advertise' it, and increased visibility of the site online can only exacerbate the collecting pressure, and I guess that's what resulted. The pickings over the last few years have certainly become slim compared with the first few years, even in piles of freshly-exposed rock (meaning others have gotten there before me, I think). The good years were bound to end sometime, it's just that it seems to come sooner than you expect.

I did hear Graham Beard once say that he regretted publishing directions to the handful of good, old-time sites here on the Island in his 1997 book, as they came to be hit pretty hard. And now with the Internet it's a lot easier to expose things to a wide audience. If I could afford to go on expeditions to remote locations to collect, I would, but much of the back country has been closed to the public because of vandalism etc, so the options are rather limited except to those determined enough to put the time/effort/money into it, as Dan says, and my guess is those people are increasing in number too.

One thing to keep in mind regarding helping out newbies is, it might be a good idea to inform them of what is rare and what is common, and how to properly collect/preserve them. When I was starting out, it was kind of pearls before swine, and I let a number of rare/potentially important fossils get damaged/lost because of my ignorance. Even the first few times I went up Development Mountain, by which time I was less of a newbie, it seemed like fossils were everywhere, and I botched the recovery of some interesting/uncommon things because I didn't have the patience or equipment (glue) at the time, and I thought I'd find more later. If I had known I would not find more later, I would have taken more care to stabilize and excavate them.

 

Edited by Wrangellian
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Serious (scientific) fossil sites should be reserved for serious collectors (both amateur and professional).  Recreational fossil sites with ample supply of common fossils should be shared and used to encourage youth to become involved in the interest/enjoyment of science.   My simple thoughts on the matter.

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2 hours ago, grandpa said:

Serious (scientific) fossil sites should be reserved for serious collectors (both amateur and professional).  Recreational fossil sites with ample supply of common fossils should be shared and used to encourage youth to become involved in the interest/enjoyment of science.   My simple thoughts on the matter.

I like simple.  Florida has 66000 square miles, of which 54000 is land and 12000 water.

 

The Peace River at it's widest is about 100 feet. On both sides of the Peace River, are miles of Bone Valley dry land. 20 to 40 feet down is the original ocean bottom which contains billions or trillions of fossils. Future generations with new technologies will likely go after those fossils for profit and scientific exploration.

Recreational fossil sites with ample supply of common fossils are scarce. These are the ones that attract the mass of humanity capable of removing many or most of the fossils in a small locality.

 

My request is that we correctly define the problem we want to solve, so that any solution can match the problem.  Are we just trying to find easy places for recreational fossil hunters to find lots of fossils,

Quote

For a price,  Ugarte.  For a price

or , is it something else.  Let's be specific.

 

 

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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On a random side note, I am really happy this forum has these types of discussions, putting together much of the established core of the growing fossil hunting community to tackle tricky problems that will have grand effects in the future culture of fossil hunting. We take this site for granted, but it really is a big monument in at least the american fossil hunting scene. Even folks not on the forum will be impressioned by folks on here who engage in these types of discussion. 

 

In short, in my opinion we're talking about the right things and in doing so, making a bigger difference than we know for the future community of fossil hunting. Butterfly effect :)

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“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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Northern Kainach Gosau of Styria, Austria:

 

- Three years of prospecting after some initial, but mostly fuzzy hints by a friend yielded about 60 fossil sites in a nearly totally blank area. Nobody has prospected there, because there is nothing to be found...

 

- Most of the sites, excluding some of the sites in the area ("secret" zone) the friend pointed out, are published with detailed maps on my homepage.

 

- Nothing happens, despite being mostly very easily accessible (forest road cuts).

 

- Only I and my fossil friend have recovered the easy accessible fossils in some of the sites. Some sites are now somewhat "exploited" (but still with abundant fossil rocks in the outcrops, very good field trip sites now with plenty of fotogen spots due to our work ;)!) for the moment, a few sites still have good and easy potential. I have enough, four boxes 40x30 cm with fossils, some larger specimens, mostly "fossils rocks". 80% of the material is packed for the museum, a few are waiting to be send overseas ;). Ok, will visit at least two sites during mushroom hunting season again :D.

 

- Two weeks ago, a summary of this prospection and finds was published in a local journal:

Marine Macrofossils of the Northern Kainach Gosau (TFF-topic)

 

- Considering the experience with the publication of the fossils of St. Bartholomä three years ago in the same journal - nothing will happen.

Rudists of St. Bartholomä (TFF-topic)

 

(- Concerning St. Bartholomä, only after an excursion of the local club in 2021, one of the sites (25-North, see also link above) was a little bit worked by someone, but is still far from being exploited. Other good sites did not receive any traffic yet, despite having also published a quite detailed map and characterization of the sites in that work 3 years ago.)

 

- One person would liked to know something about the "secret" zone during the past summer. I told him the rough area and to walk the forest roads. And he indeed walked the forest roads and found the sites. The site is now better exposed than before, more fossils visible, but most are firmly sticking to the rock! Very good excursion site!

 

- Its all about the type of fossils - the fossils I am talking about are just uggly snails and rudists :).

 

- A mineralogy friend told me, people need to be taken at their hands to go to new sites ;).

 

Franz Bernhard

Edited by FranzBernhard
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