Crackdown on illegal excavation and smuggling amid fears that scientific and historic heritage is being lost
New Zealand’s conservation minister has released plans to tackle the lucrative trade in the bones of the extinct giant flightless moa bird amid fears that millions of years of science is disappearing as entire skeletons are broken up and sold over the internet or smuggled overseas.
Palaeontologists have been lobbying the government for years to crack down on the trade, with fossils illegally excavated and poached from crown land.
Continue reading…Crackdown on illegal excavation and smuggling amid fears that scientific and historic heritage is being lostNew Zealand’s conservation minister has released plans to tackle the lucrative trade in the bones of the extinct giant flightless moa bird amid fears that millions of years of science is disappearing as entire skeletons are broken up and sold over the internet or smuggled overseas.Palaeontologists have been lobbying the government for years to crack down on the trade, with fossils illegally excavated and poached from crown land. Continue reading…