July 22, 2012
Vandals Smash Irreplaceable Dinosaur
The skull of Edmontosaurus, a Cretaceous hadrosaur from North America. The vandalized dinosaur wasn’t an Edmontosaurus, but belonged to the same evolutionary group. Photo from Ballista, image from Wikipedia.
When paleontologists uncover a dinosaur, they have plenty of reason to worry. In some parts of the world, such as Mongolia, black market thieves often steal and smuggle dinosaurs that wind up bringing in hefty sums at auction houses. Sometimes, paleontologists have returned to field sites to find skeletons stolen right out from under their noses. But, even closer to home, vandals regularly damage and destroy dinosaurs. Earlier this month, an “irreplaceable” dinosaur skeleton discovered near Grande Prairie, Canada was destroyed by persons unknown.
According t0 the CBC, the destroyed skeleton was a hadrosaur being excavated by paleontologist Phil Bell and a University of Alberta field team. The dinosaur was discovered on June 15th, and was complete enough that Bell intended the dinosaur to eventually go up on exhibit. When Bell returned to the site this month, however, the dinosaur was turned into a cascade of broken bone fragments. Even worse, this isn’t the first time dinosaurs at this site have been vandalized. Since May, the report says, three other fossils have been stolen or damaged.
There’s no clear motive for why the criminals smashed the site. But they vandals left a clue behind. At a campsite near the dinosaur excavation, the CBC reports, investigators found a liquor store receipt that may help track down the people who so callously pulverized the hadrosaur.
I’m completely baffled as to why anyone would want to destroy a dinosaur. The fantastic animal beat the odds against preservation and remained locked in stone for tens of millions of years, and can tell us about a world that we can never see ourselves. What sort of stupid, selfish person would even think of turning a wonderful fossil into a pile of rubble? It is truly sad that paleontologists have to worry about this kind of destruction. Dinosaurs belong to everyone, and it’s heartbreaking to see one stolen from us by ignorant despoilers.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
9 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
This news is pretty old. I thought the vandals were caught. The way you reported the incident gives me the impression that the vandals are still at large.
the persons that did this was obviously a sad little jesus worshiper that couldn’t handle the irrefutable evidence emerging from the earth that flys in the face of their beliefs. so they got drunk and talked themselves up convincing each other what they were about to do was right and that they could pass gods test of their faith by destroying the ideas of critical thinking, the ability to find ones own path in life without the debilitating crutch that is religion, and an understanding of the physical universe that the Hadrosaur represented to these sorry individuals. it is literally a miracle less than one and a million odds that this Hadrosaur could be preserved for millions of years in the rocks and then found and uncovered. it is a travesty that something like this could happen, the precious knowledge of our planets past inhabitants was snatched from the minds of the world because some sad little person who refused to open their eyes and minds to the truth of the universe instead preferring only to listen and believe what others tell them about some book most people don’t really even read much less try to understand. if you want to catch who did this start with the ministers of all the local churches and if one of them didn’t actually destroy the dinosaur then i’d bet they could point you in the right direction for who did the destruction.
I can think of a reason right off the top of my head. There are people who don’t believe in evolution and may think of fossils as something evil set in the rocks by Satan to fool mankind. Yeah. I know. Crazy hypothesis. But they actually build museums about it. It’s a common enough viewpoint that someone who held it and got drunk and thought smashing mailboxes was fun would feel morally justified in smashing up a dinosaur in the ground. Especially if he thought all the ones in museums were fakes.
I clicked on these comments, expecting someone to have a little axe-grinding aside about ‘bible bashers’ or somesuch; but I didn’t expect to see quite this amount of froth-mouthed ranting on the subject.
How about employing a little bit of evidence and reason, eh? Let’s wait ’til we see what the culprits have to say for themselves.
There’s a more recent article here. It says there are still no suspects.
As for the motive…perhaps nothing more than drunken idiocy.
because people are just that stupid. Last summer, we almost went to the track site at Red Fleet State Park. Can’t remember where, but my dad heard a story that some time ago a boy scout troop visited the site. The little s***s decided to tear several of the footprints off and hurl them into the lake. luckily salvage divers were able to retrieve them and they were sent to various museums. It’s bad enough that the ancient sciences (geology, paleontology, archaeology) get the shaft in terms of funding and even respect. But when a bunch of morons decide that destroying our very heritage makes for a good time… i weep for the future of our race…
Creationists? Or just someone with a grudge. I hope they are eventually found out.
I don’t know why people would think “Creationists/Jesus worshippers did this……. after all there are dinosaurs in the new Creation Museum, and I believe these people claim that the ‘dragons’ of the bible and other early legends are dinosaurs, therefore ‘proving’ the accuracy of the bible.
Perhaps a more obvious motive is that of hobbyist fossil hunters, disgusted by the bouble standard in that they are not allowed to collect dinosaur fossils, because they are mere commoners who do not enjoy the elite status of being connected to a university or museum.
Where I live, liquor store receipt, and good x-ian correlate strongly. Just saying…