April 14, 2010 In Uncategorized
Back in the USA
After another great fieldwork season in Senegal, Gabon and Ghana (7 months this year!) I arrived back in Florida last weekend. Now comes the other part of my job… writing reports, getting genetics samples exported from multiple African countries, analyzing and publishing data, and planning for next season. This summer I also hope to begin analysis of some of the genetics samples in Gainesville, which will definitely be a different kind of adventure for this field biologist who hasn’t worked in a lab in years! There will be stories…
Mammoth
May 17, 2010 at 12:47 pm"I for one certainly appreciate your endeavor…I also am in the field in the Arctic each summer searching for sculpture material for my studio. There are so much broken specimens lacking in diagnostic interest. My main focus is fragmentary Woolly Mammoth ivory pieces that wash up on beaches in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Soon , government regulations will find me an endangered endeavor as vertebrate fossils are restricted to collect for personal use on Federal Lands. I still have permission from private land holders but I am seeing another encompassing law that tightens freedoms that used to be taken for granted…like around the time of "Teddy Roosevelt" The way I would have it is to 'not just make it against the law but to work with the scientific community as free lance field operators, sharing the discoveries and allowing fossils of no scientific interest to be granted possession to the finder. However there is no provision for the private 'artist' or 'collector' to possess vertebrate fossils on federal lands, yet the scientific community desires to know of any significant discovery and, for the record, it is very difficult to work a 'one sided' arrangement when our interests may be / is considered unlawful. The scientific community has nothing to gain with such 'hard lined' regulatory issues regarding the citizens of this country. I know of so many diagnostic discoveries each year that goes to waste and not reported due to these 'one sided' restrictions." If you have a comment I would invite it and if you have a solution, even better…Best regards (Artist) Wm. Sidmore