Along U.S.-Canada Border, A Booming Business For Dinosaur Bones

[tencats]

Listen or read transcript at links.
October 29, 2015
Along U.S.-Canada Border, A Booming Business For Dinosaur Bones
http://www.npr.org/2015/10/29/452909289/along-u-s-canada-border-a-booming-business-for-dinosaur-bones

By editor • Oct 31, 2015
The T-Rex In My Backyard
http://radio.wpsu.org/post/episode-660-t-rex-my-backyard

Copyright 2015 NPR.
Transcript
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

In the West, there's always been stuff in the ground that can you make you rich - gold, silver, oil. And now - dinosaur bones. For-profit companies have started hunting the hills for fossils. Stacey Vanek Smith of our PLANET MONEY podcast reports on the booming business of bones.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Randy Rees lives on a cattle ranch in northeastern Montana. The only way to get to his house is a long drive down a really rough dirt road. One day about two years ago, he saw a couple of guys driving down that road.

RANDY REES: A guy showed up with a fruit basket.

SMITH: They had a fruit basket?

R. REES: Yeah. (Laughter).

SMITH: And what did he say?

R. REES: Asked if they could go out and look around for fossils, I guess.

SMITH: Look around for fossils. Rees is this really modest, quiet guy. They offered him $5,000 to look around, and if they found something, Rees would get a 10 percent cut of the profit.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. For-profit fossil hunters have a nasty way of destroying fossil sites ...

they just want the most impressive fossils, and they'll tear up all the others to get to them, destroying fossil evidence that has survived for hundreds of millions of years just to make more money faster (and usually to get out before they're caught). Of course, any information about the fossil's location, age, and environment is destroyed when the fossil is removed without any accompanying evidence being recorded.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. Cope and Marsh set a bad example n/t