The Negative Impact of Dinosaur Fossil Trading

Fossils are the remains of an organism that lived in the past and through time, have been preserved. Fossils are very important because they provide information about the past. This information can demonstrate how organisms lived thousands and even millions of years ago. Scientists can collect different fossils from different eras to study how organisms evolved over time. Dinosaur fossils are important and interesting because they reveal information about an animal that has been extinct for over 65 million years is completely different than any other organism alive today. Fossil trading is a business that has been around for many years. However, controversy on this subject is very common due to the some of the negative impacts of the business. This has led governments to debate on whether fossil trading should be allowed. Government’s should make fossil trading illegal because it generates crimes within the community, research on preserved organisms is constantly lost, and there is a lack of care of these fossils within the trading business.

First of all, fossil trading should be illegal because the nature of the business provokes crime. Fossils are constantly stolen from paleontology sites, ruining the research and destroying the stratigraphy of the site. This can not only ruin the fossils themselves but also be dangerous for those working in the site. The rarity of a fossil increases its price, and makes it more tempting for robbers to try acquiring it. This can lead to organized crimes occurring in museums and even collector’s homes. Another form of crime that has arisen due to the popularity of fossil trading is the creation and selling of forgeries. This can lead to people thinking that they are buying legitimate fossils, which then corrupts people such as scientists to thinking that they are getting the real deal.

Second of all, research on preserved organisms is constantly getting lost more and more, everyday. When fossils disappear into private ownership for example, the research that might have been able to be provided will be lost forever. Also, when these researches are lost, we can’t identify what happened in that past with those organisms anymore. “Illegal collecting is much more likely to damage specimens, and the lack of contextual field data makes studying (the fossils) nearly useless”. Illegal collecting can also result of the loss of research because when these fossils are collected, scientists aren’t able to record any more research. Research is very important to us when learning about the past and when its replaced, we aren’t to able it back never again.