The Chinese Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (CSVP) recently sent
an open letter to Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt, Germany,
appealing for the return of a psittacosaurid fossil smuggled out of
China.
The open letter reads that the museum has violated Chinese laws and
international conventions by buying a series of fossils smuggled
from China, including a psittacosaurid fossil bought at US$200,000
last summer and several Confuciusonis, Kongziniao in Chinese, a
famous Mesozoic bird discovered in Northeast China.
"Buying smuggled fossils will only jeopardize research and further
propel more illicit collecting and underground trading of precious
fossils," said Dr. Zhou Zhonghe, researcher with the Institute of
Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Chinese Academy of
Sciences.
The rare psittacosaurid fossil attracted worldwide attention last
summer for the odd integument structure of the tail, which will
provide a new view on the appearance of dinosaurs, said Xu Xing, a
dinosaur expert in the same institute as Zhou.
Xu
added that researchers aware of international conventions refused
to study smuggled fossils and prestigious periodicals including
Nature and Science forbid the publication of any
research on smuggled fossils.
The fossils were most likely smuggled from the western Liaoning
Province in Northeast China, where in recent years there have been
many excavations of rare fossils, as well as a flood of illegal
digging.
Unscientific digging, fueled by the smuggling and collection of
illegal fossils, has caused a loss of information including about
locality and stratigraphy, essential information for scientists
researching this area.
A
local paper, Chaoyang Daily, reported on January 8 that
there are hundreds of people digging for fossils every day in
Dapingfang Town in Chaoyang County and hillsides are covered with
ravines and big holes dug by peasants.
As
one of the most leading natural history museum in Europe,
Naturmuseum Senckenberg has a responsibility to educate the public
to fight illegal fossil trading and Chinese experts hope serious
consideration will be given to the return of the fossils, the open
letter stressed.
(Xinhua News
Agency January 16, 2002)