Who gets to dig, and where?

    For the past twenty years, commercial and scientific groups have differed over how to manage fossils on federal land. (2) Some have worked out a compromise, such as Jack Horner and Canada Fossils. Horner gets to see any truly unusual fossils. (11) For the most part though, there's a lot of hard feelings on either side.
    Anyone with permission can take fossil from privately owned land, only academic paleontologists can search fro fossils on public land and everything they find belongs to the U.S. Government. (5)
    Most professional paleontologists express alarm at the thought of commercial collectors allowed on public land. The Professional Paleontologists feel that public land is the only place left for them because they cannot afford to pay private landowners to hunt fossils on their land. Commercial collectors say that there are enough fossils to go around do everyone. Commercial collectors often  do not take the time to properly record the context from which each fossil emerges. Professional paleontologists say this makes the fossils scientifically worthless. There are very conscientious commercial collectors as well, but everyone gets a bad name when an academic paleontologists come back the site to find his prize dinosaur skeleton stolen. (11)
    Changes have been proposed to allow commercial collectors to search for bones on federal land.  Supporters of the bill say the law will benefit science. With more people hunting fossil, fewer will be lost to erosion. (16) "More has been learned and more has been saved by commercial collectors than has been lost," Claims Laurence Maloney  of Maloney's Earth Sciences Specimens. (5)
    The proposed changes would require commercial collectors to turn over any fossils of "scientific importance" (6)
Commercial collectors point out that valuable fossils are lost to erosion each day because there just aren't enough professional paleontologists to keep up with the weathering rates (7)
    Commercial and amateur collectors feel betrayed and see the professional paleontologist's unwillingness to share access to public land as an intrusion in long-standing tradition of rock Hounding in this country, a hobby that has helped create professional paleontologists. (7)
    While it is true that many of this countries great fossil collections were started by wealthy amateurs, academics say that the "intellectual curiosity that once motivated amateurs has been replaced by greed." (5)
    There is great concern that specimens in private collections will never be studied properly (17) and some alarm among the scientific community at the rate of fossil sales over the internet. Professor Mark McMenamin, Department of Earth and Environment at Mount Holyoke College proposes that a worldwide database of fossils be set up to keep track of things. "Each new fossil brought to market should be accompanied by information regarding its locality, geologic age, date of excavation, name of excavator and pedigree of ownership." He says further that even though not everyone would sign up for this database, it would give scientists an idea of the "bigger picture" Also, the database would provide participating fossil dealers with free advertising.
    McMenamin and others are in favor of some sort of compromise in terms of who gets to dig on federal land. He proposes that federal lands should be subject to fossil collecting in a two tiered system. Sites of scientific importance would be managed by a board of directors which would distribute permits, favoring amateur discoverers of the site and professionals. Free access should be given to everyone for small scale collecting at sites of common fossil composition. Commercial ventures would be considered by the board of directors.