The McAbee site, located near Kamloops, B.C., is a 51-million-year-old lake bed that holds preserved fossils from the early Eocene epoch. The fossils record flora and fauna from a time when the northern hemisphere had a warm temperate climate and some tropical trees and plants grew as far north as Alaska and Greenland.
The Eocene is considered important because it was during this period that the first mammals and a number of evolutionary ancestors of modern animals and plants appeared.
Paleontologists believe the McAbee site, which contains insect, plant, bird and fish species, holds crucial clues to how plants and animals adapt to climate change. It has so far provided at least 23 new species of insects and four new species of plants.
The B.C. government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Royal B.C. Museum and other organizations to ensure that the rare site is protected, with an option to amend the MOU as new information emerges.
But this may not be enough.
Bruce Archibald, a paleontologist and post-doctoral fellow with Simon Fraser University, said in a news release that while it’s heartening that the government is finally beginning to address the issue, the MOU “is clearly insufficient in protecting this paleontological treasure, and does not represent real progress.”
Archibald, who has extensively studied McAbee insects and ecology, is one of a number of paleontologists who have for years been urging the government to take steps to protect the site, which is on private land.
New Democrat MLA Charlie Wyse has been advocating for the McAbee site to be developed as a “paleontological interpretive centre” such as the T-Rex Discovery Centre in Eastend, Saskatchewan.
“This type of an item ensures the protection and proper monitoring and evaluation of fossil finds, providing the opportunity for people to go on digs with the paleontologist if they so wish. It also provides an opportunity for small businesses — they’re very popular tourist attractions — and also deals with the commercial interest,” Wyse said.
Safeguarding rare fossil beds from poachers poses a dilemma in many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and China. Fossil collecting has become popular, and what was once the domain of amateur collectors has now grown into a multi-million dollar business, much of which is conducted on the black market.
While many are careful to get permission to collect fossils, unscrupulous hunters damage important sites by using power tools and even dynamite to plunder scientifically valuable fossils worth thousands of dollars.
The problem of illegal collecting is worse in remote areas, which is the case in Scotland where many sites have been seriously damaged, the thieves disappearing easily without detection.
Scotland is home to many of the world’s rarest sites, some of which are as old as 800 million years and contain plants, fish species, mammal and dinosaur remains.
In an effort to safeguard Scotland’s fossil legacy, Scottish National Heritage drafted the Scottish Fossil Code in 2007, the world’s first code of conduct on fossil collecting.
The code aims to establish a nationally agreed” framework of advice” on best practice in the collection, identification, conservation and storage of specimens.
According to the British newspaper, The Independent, the global black market trade for “natural history objects,” which includes everything from small fossilized fish to large dinosaur skeletons, is estimated to be worth £50 million (about $100 million) a year.
