Relic Hunting on the Rise in National Parks

[Dignann]

Part 1 of a two-part series


National parks robbed of heritage

By Judy Keen

USA Today
January 23, 2008

Looting of fossils and archaeological artifacts from national parks — such as Native American pottery and Civil War relics — is increasing as demand for such items rises on the Internet and the world market, U.S. National Park Service officials say.

Over the past decade, an average of 340 "significant" looting incidents have been reported annually at the 391 national parks, monuments, historic sites and battlefields — probably less than 25% of the actual number of thefts, says park service staff ranger Greg Lawler. "The trends are up," he says.

It's "a chronic problem that we simply have not even been able to get a grasp on," says Mark Gorman, chief ranger at South Dakota's Badlands National Park.

Park service investigators search websites and the FBI helps track looted items, some of which are sold to collectors in Europe and Asia. Prices are rising for some items, including Native American pottery and garments, says Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, manager of the FBI art theft program.

The most coveted items can cost "in the tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars," she says. Thieves caught last year at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park sold a Confederate belt buckle for $3,300 and buttons for $200 each.

The park service has 1,500 law enforcement rangers and 400 seasonal law enforcement rangers — one for about every 56,000 acres. "We really don't have enough manpower," Lawler says.

That can make it difficult to catch criminals such as the three men who dug 460 holes at the Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania military park in search of artifacts and the man who pleaded guilty to taking 252 relics last year from Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park.

Under the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act, first-time felony offenders can be fined up to $20,000 and imprisoned for a year.

Todd Swain, a National Park Service special agent, says the problem is far worse than statistics show. In a report he wrote for the 2007 Yearbook of Cultural Property Law he concluded, "The true scope of the looting problem is staggering. … Our shared cultural heritage is disappearing before our eyes."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-23-looting_N.htm

Eric

[Dignann]

Re: Relic Hunting on the Rise in National Parks

Part 2


Relic thefts 'huge crime problem' in U.S. parks

By Judy Keen

USA Today
January 24, 2008

Some visitors to Badlands National Park spot a fossil and take it home as a souvenir. Sometimes college students studying the 244,000-acre park's natural history assume it's OK to take a specimen for further scrutiny.

A bigger problem, though, is the looting of artifacts found in the South Dakota park's rich fossil beds by thieves who plan to sell them online or to galleries or collectors.

"With a million visitors coming every year, it's very hard to stop," says Mark Gorman, Badlands' chief ranger. "Has it increased over the past few years? Absolutely." Six permanent rangers patrol the park. Last year, they investigated 41 looting reports and made nine arrests. He assumes that represents a fraction of the real number of thefts.

Signs warn visitors not to take artifacts and to stay away from possible Indian burial sites, but thieves can be persistent and brazen, Gorman says.

"Collectors will dial 911 to draw park resources away … and give themselves time to get into areas to quickly pick up their work," he says. Human remains, animal fossils, bullets and projectiles all vanish.

Fossils from the Oligocene Epoch 28 million years ago, such as the rhinoceros-like Titanothere and saber-toothed cats, "can easily sell for tens of thousands of dollars," Gorman says. "It's the theft of our collective history. It's horrible because it's not renewable."

Many park service officials agree that looting is increasing and often is undetected. Budgets are stretched thin, says Blake Selzer, legislative director for the non-profit National Parks Conservation Association. "Insufficient budgets translate to unfilled positions and inadequate staffing," he says.

The budget for the National Park Service budget increased to $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2007 from $2.1 billion in 2000. Spending on law enforcement in the park system rose from $129 million to $178 million in that period, but Selzer says spending related to homeland security since 9/11 accounts for about $40 million each year.

The park system's 83 million acres include open country that's accessible to anyone and hard to patrol. Besides, says Angus Quinlan of the Nevada Rock Art Foundation, "because they're on public lands, people seem to think they can take whatever they want."

Stolen artifacts were once sold mostly at swap meets or galleries, but many now end up online, says Todd Swain, a National Park Service special agent. "You could have a thousand people scanning the Internet every day for all the potentially illegal things that are on there," he says, but proving artifacts' origins is difficult.

Martin McAllister, a former Forest Service archaeologist whose Missoula, Mont., company Archaeological Resource Investigations trains and consults with federal law enforcement officials, says the theft of artifacts from national parks and other federal land is "a huge, huge crime problem — a multimillion-dollar-a-year industry."

In the Southwest, McAllister says, officials are finding more looting by methamphetamine addicts. "A Native American pot is money. It's cash in your hand," he says. Arizona and other states, he says, use volunteer "site stewards" to help monitor archaeological sites.

Efforts elsewhere:

•At both entrances to Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, employees "talk to everybody that comes in" about the ban on removing anything, chief ranger Greg Caffey says. Some landowners on the park's periphery have hired security guards to prevent looting on their property, he says.

•At Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia, where three men dug 460 holes last year and extracted Civil War artifacts, there are signs every 20 or 30 feet along boundaries reminding visitors not to remove anything. Rangers stop anyone with a metal detector and visit trade shows to look for looted items, but chief ranger Keith Kelly says, "I don't know if we'll ever be able to stop people."

•At Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, a man who pleaded guilty to removing artifacts last year was required as part of his sentence to write letters to newspapers explaining why what he did was wrong and how it damaged the park, chief ranger Jessie Farias says.

•At Badlands National Park, rangers are doing more undercover work, surveillance and stings to catch thieves and are working with stores to identify looted items, Gorman says.

Tim Alley, a National Park Service special agent based in Virginia, worries that looting on protected federal land is increasing as residential and business development eliminate private land accessible to relic hunters. "We really have a duty to protect our limited resources," he says. "It gets harder and harder to do."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-23-parks_N.htm

Eric

[Gary of CA]

Re: Relic Hunting on the Rise in National Parks

I had a friend who was a Special Agent with the Dept. of Interior. He would do stakeouts and try to catch someone. He's long since retired.

I would love to see our scout-sniper trainees put some time out in our National Parks to look for those folks. This is not a suggestion for them to shoot anyone. Rather, they watch, photograph and call it in. It would be good training for them. Let the LEO Rangers or some other law enforcement pick up the culprits. Imagine what a search warrant will turn up? Computers will be seized for evidence of dealing on EBay. Life will be miserable for the miscreants.