Lando 
Posted on 08/07/2005 7:11:36 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
CHADRON, Neb. (AP) -- When three suspicious men were stopped on federal land in remote northwestern Nebraska in 2003, the U.S. Forest Service didn't take long to figure out what they were doing.
The men had dug an 18-by-10-foot hole more than 2 feet deep, leaving the fossilized bones of a prehistoric rhinoceros exposed. Plaster used to take casts of the bones and excavating tools also were found.
The men were poaching fossils -- a practice the Forest Service says has become rampant in recent years at Oglala National Grasslands.
Although the men in this case were arrested and eventually convicted in federal court, most fossil poachers are never caught, said Barbara Beasley, a Forest Service paleontologist. Only one federal law-enforcement officer patrols 1.1 million acres of federal grasslands in Nebraska and South Dakota, which makes it easy for those with even the most elementary knowledge of archaeology to take what they want.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
I'll trade you three calcified Triceratops turds for one petrified reporter hag.
Yep the forest service would much rather leave them in the ground. Where they are no use to anybody.
Poaching fossils? Using very hard water?
As a kid we used to go sift (literally) through he dirt on Shark's Toot Mountain. PG&E halted the practice because of Valley Feaver.
Somehow, that makes it acceptable to do ANYTHING in this country.
They (the fossils) and all their brethren have been there for at least 60 million years, I hardly think that some clown with a shovel is going to make any kind of dent in the supply of fossils in the near or distant future.
If Ward Churchill was out there digging them up would they be upset?
You are paying two turds to much for Ms. Thomas! If you are to stay in business you must know the value of what you are purchasing.
LOL!!! That's VERY funny!
I have mastadon bones. When I found them in peat moss, 10-15,000 years old, there was still pliable tissue on the bone and you could make out large blood vessels in the peat.
A mama and baby, baby under mom, on their backs. The pelvic bone was the size of a kitchen table.
A local college got the bulk of the bones, I only kept a femur, a rib, and a vertebrae. A good share were destroyed or buried before we found the reamins.
Oh oh. I see it coming. Rhinoceros and blacks go together. If the Rhinoceros were here that would mean that blacks were here before the Indians. We could forget all them treaties that were made with the Indians and start from scratch with the blacks. Jesse, oh Jesse, where are you?
Oddly enough, in that general area, there are areas open to legally hunting fossils. There is no need to poach, if you just want specimens.
I'm surprised a creationist hasn't appeared here yet saying,"So what? They're only picking up bone-shaped rocks..."
and they will probably move border patrol officers into the state to gaurd the reservations.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Exactly. The dirty little secret is that because virtually all fossil remains are found when erosion brings them to the surface, if they are not collected, they are destroyed. This law goes a long way to insure that the vast majority of fossils are destroyed rather than collected.
It makes no sense, but the collectivists would rather have the fossils destroyed than in private hands, or that anyone would make a profit off of them.
Lando
I thought that they were fecaliths.
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