Dinosaur Fossils and Regulation

Just finished reading an article in The Economist titled “Cretaceous Capitalism” in the May 20th print edition. According to the article, America represents most of the fossils sold at auction. There is a huge swath of private collectors (such as Leonardo DiCaprio, etc) who pay tremendous amounts of dollars to own a T. Rex skull and other Dinosaur bones.

Just last month, a T. Rex fossil named “Trinity” fetched $6.1 million at the Koller auction house in Zurich. Wow. Impressive. Fossils are much like art. Major historical relevance. Curiosity amongst humans. Rare and extremely scarce to find. Which begs the question around government intervention. In a capitalistic society, a deep pocketed individual could outbid any museum or public institution (such as a school) to acquire such a important piece of history. In the United States, when a fossil is discovered, it is property of the landowner, who retains the rights. I’m assuming unless their was an agreement worked out between the landowner and an outside party that participated in the excavation of the fossil. In many other countries, any fossils discovered, become property of the government.

On one hand, this gives quite the incentive in America to privatize, invest, and extract Dinosaur bones given the huge upside for heavy proceeds at auction. This action, increases the supply of more existing historical evidence in the context of fossils to mankind. Which is obviously great. However, the risk (just like in art) is these magnificent pieces become locked away by private owners who marvel at them behind closed doors.

Quite a conundrum. Should the government layer regulation around ownership of fossils? Giving more control to the State in order to deploy them in a more resourceful manner of public interest and benefit?

Hard to say. Just interesting. I have no opinion either way.