(upbeat orchestral music)
- I think that there's several
reasons to own fossils.
Science is only one of 'em.
- I've made millions of dollars
in the dinosaur business.
- The thrill of discovery
doesn't get old.
It's almost like an addiction.
- [Narrator] There is a fight going on
in the world of dinosaur fossils.
The market for these prehistoric
treasures is booming,
but increasingly, wealthy individuals
are buying up the best specimens.
And that has paleontologists worried.
- A rare, baby T-Rex
fossil is for sale on eBay.
Some scientists and other critics
are calling the listing a disgrace.
- [Narrator] Last year,
a baby T-Rex fossil
was listed on eBay for $2.95 million.
The sale outraged many paleontologists.
According to a letter from
the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology,
if the fossil was sold to a private buyer,
it would effectively be lost to science
since private buyers
are under no obligation
to share their fossils with researchers.
- The scientific community
is trying to hurt us.
They want to discourage anyone
from making money selling fossils.
I tell you what?
I've been charmed, had a charmed life.
And it's all because I pick fights
and I'm pickin' fights now.
And I'm doin' it in a different way.
I'm goin' after the scientific community.
They need to open up.
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Alan Dietrich is
the commercial fossil hunter
selling the baby T-Rex.
(door opening)
- This is Son of Sampson,
the smallest Tyrannosaurus
Rex dinosaur in the world.
Son of Sampson was found in 2013,
near Jordan, Montana.
- [Narrator] Dietrich's T-Rex
is a scientifically significant find
which is why he had hoped to sell it
to the American Museum of Natural History.
- It's an important specimen.
He has made a big effort
to try to get it
into a public institution.
We were interested in it, for instance.
But it just didn't work out.
It purely comes down to an issue of price.
- [Narrator] Dietrich told
The Wall Street Journal
that he offered to sell the dinosaur
to the American Museum of Natural History
for one million dollars,
which was about two million
less than the asking price.
- Usually, like in the art market,
when it's been on the
market for a long time,
it's either not that good or
they're asking too much money.
So it gets kinda stale.
- [Narrator] But Dietrich
has been in the fossil
business for decades
and he's confident that
he'll find a buyer.
- You know, if you can't wait,
you'll spend too much or
you won't make enough money.
This material's 65 million years old.
I can wait a few months.
I can wait a few years.
(gentle upbeat music)
- How lucrative is hunting for fossils?
That depends upon how lucky you are,
how skilled you are,
how much time you have to dedicate to it,
and how much money you
have to invest in it,
in the first place.
- [Narrator] Although the
commercial market is thriving,
that doesn't mean it's
easy to make a living
as a fossil hunter.
- I wear many different hats.
So I'm Assistant Professor
at Mayville State University.
I teach biology, ecology.
(water swishing)
That's the day job.
If I have enough time to come
out here to the Badlands,
I switch hats and become the Indiana Jones
or the Jurassic Park character.
- [Narrator] This is one
of the best places on Earth
to find fossils.
Every year, thousands of
fossil hunters flock here
to the Badlands,
to try their luck at
finding buried treasure.
Recently, one of the lucky
ones was Michael Kjelland,
who runs a small, non-profit
fossil hunting company.
To survey the land,
Kjelland worked out a deal
with the private land
owner to split the sale.
- One day I was out walking
and I went up into this box canyon.
In the distance, there was some
white colored dinosaur bone.
I realized, "Wow, this is a brow horn."
And that's how we found Skull X.
- [Narrator] Skull X refers
to the fossilized skull
of an adult triceratops,
which Kjelland is working to excavate.
But digging the skull out of the ground
is only the very beginning of the process
of getting the specimen to market.
Once the fossil is secure
in a dried jacket of plaster of Paris,
Kjelland will need to move
the approximately 500 pound
mound of dirt and rock
across this ravine and then,
up and out of this canyon.
For Kjelland, digging up
fossils is a labor of love.
He knows that he will likely
only break-even on Skull X
but that doesn't matter.
His primary interest is science.
- The reason why I decided
to set Fossil Excavators up
as a non-profit?
Because I'm not in it just for the money.
(gentle upbeat music)
- I've made millions of dollars
in the dinosaur business.
You know, I love capitalism
because the people that
get to the top of the hill
get to do what they want
to with their money.
Welcome to my studio
where I clean and prepare fossils.
I've sold thousands of fossils.
Right now, I have a 30-year accumulation
of triceratops dinosaur bones
and T-Rex dinosaur bones
and Edmontosaurus dinosaur bones,
and some new to science bones,
I don't know what they are.
(loud drilling)
Like most commercial fossil hunters,
Dietrich doesn't have a formal
education in paleontology.
But he knows his dinosaurs.
What's more, he's an accomplished artist
who can prepare and
mount his own specimens.
But perhaps most importantly,
Dietrich has a gift for sales.
- Wow!
This is a 20-foot mosasaur from Kansas.
This was 85 million years old,
give or take three million years,
some people say 88 million.
(blowing loudly)
This is what you call the
eye of the tiger here.
This is what gets kids excited.
Buyers, you've gotta
excite their imagination.
And what I like to tell people is,
"You know, at some point
"you're gonna be able
to ride this thing off
"into the sunset.
"Because your name will live on
"that you owned this dinosaur."
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Today, private
ownership of fossils
can be seen as controversial.
But things weren't always this way.
- Commercial fossil hunting has existed
since the dawn of modern paleontology.
One of our most important
specimens in our own collection
that's on display here on the fourth floor
is a mummy of a duck-billed dinosaur.
That specimen was commercially purchased
from a legendary fossil hunter
named Charles Sternberg.
So it's always been part of the game.
- [Narrator] The modern commercial market
took off in 1997,
when Sue, the largest in-tact
T-Rex skeleton ever found
was auctioned off at
Christie's for $8.3 million.
- Everybody was just astounded
that that specimen would
get that much money.
I think before that,
nothing had ever been sold
above like $200,000 or so.
- [Narrator] Since then, the
commercial market has boomed,
driving up prices and making it harder
for public institutions
like museums to compete.
- You know, most of the people in my field
would go for more regulation.
I personally would go for less regulation.
Because there's a lot
more fossils out there
that are just being destroyed
by neglect and erosion
than there are paleontologists
who can actually collect them.
(upbeat orchestral music)
- [Narrator] After days of
careful extraction and plastering
Skull X is finally ready to move.
(clicking and whirring)
- With a budget of a couple hundred bucks,
how do you get it out of there?
You can't go out and rent a helicopter.
What we do have is a crew
that have a lot of creativity.
- We're using these metal pipes
as a bridge.
They're kinda like railroad tracks.
Then we're gonna slide it across here.
(metal clanging and banging)
(upbeat orchestral music)
(squeaking loudly)
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Mark] I think the
commercial market has a place.
- Ugh!
- Okay!
- [Mark] The financial side
of it gives the motivation
for people to go out and look
for them and conserve them.
Some of them are just so remote
they might not even be found.
(metal clanging)
Now the bad side of the market is
people can make up things and
maybe they'll make mistakes
because they weren't properly trained.
(engine running)
- Wahoo, (mumbles)!
- Yeah!
(loud clapping)
- Nice, thanks, man.
- Well,
you gotta be pragmatic.
As long as these things
are collected ethically,
meaning that they're not
stolen off public land
in this country,
or they're not imported from a country
that doesn't allow the
export of any fossils,
just get real with it.
I mean, just get used to it.
I mean, this is something
that's gonna happen.
(bang)
(cheerful orchestral music)
