By TRACIE CONE, Associated Press Writer

Friday, June 12, 2009

(06-12) 12:56 PDT Bakersfield, Calif. (AP) —

Last week, scientists said they solved an enduring mystery about the origins of a prehistoric boneyard of gigantic marine creatures in the desolate desert here.

But another mystery has arisen: Will the looming sale of the land mean the end of research into the one of the largest finds of mid-Miocene fossils?

“There is so much we still need to learn about how all of these things fit into the overall evolutionary history,” said Jere H. Lipps, a UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist who has been studying this ancient seabed since he was a UCLA student 50 years ago.

Two years ago, Robert Ernst, the amateur paleontologist who owned the property, died unexpectedly and without a will.

Since then his widow, Mary, 53, has suffered through heartache, probate and a back injury, which is forcing her early retirement next month from the Bakersfield Parks and Recreation Department. She said she is selling the site on Sharktooth Hill to pay her husband’s loans, taxes and legal fees.

“To the right person, it could really be special. Like it was to Bob,” said Ernst, who with her attorney, Stephen Boyle, sent out 35 prospectuses to potential buyers, including some of the nation’s top paleontology museums.

They decline to say how much they are seeking for the 342-acre site, appraised at roughly $132,000 as marginal grazing land. The land — which has yielded priceless intact specimens, such as the ancient sea lion Allodesmus — is slated to go July 17 to the highest bidder.

“How do you assign a value to that?” Doyle asked. “Is there another one out there?”

The parched hills east of Bakersfield, better known for the oil rigs that pump crude from even deeper ancient seabed, were part of a tropical oasis 15 million years ago.

Extinct species of manatees munched on marsh grasses, elephant-like gomphotheres roamed the shore beside pre-evolutionary horses, and 70-foot Megalodon sharks with seven-inch teeth ripped into a teeming seafood buffet that included sea lions and sea turtles the size of minivans.

The place should be a park on the order of Dinosaur National Monument, say paleontologists, who have catalogued 125 one-of-a-kind species during more than 80 years of unfettered access.

But the reality in a cash-strapped state, experts say, is that skeletons worth potentially millions of dollars make the land more valuable to private collectors and well-endowed museums.

Lipps was part of a team that announced June 6 it had solved the mystery that has puzzled scientists since the site was discovered by railroad surveyors 150 years ago. Why did boundless bones mixed with shark teeth accumulate so heavily here? The prevailing thought was that everything died at once in a volcanic eruption or some other cataclysmic event.

But Lipps’ team studied the layers of bones to conclude the opposite: That the animals died over a period of 700,000 years, and rising sea levels kept silt from covering them.

Over the years, people have removed countless fossils. Some went to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Museum of Paleontology at UC Berkeley, but others were taken by thieves who ignored the law against taking fossils from private land.

The most famous skeleton found there — the only fully articulated Allodesmus sea lion in the world — is displayed in a glass case at the Buena Vista Natural History Museum, which occupies the old JC Penney building in downtown Bakersfield. Ernst founded the museum in 1984 to house his fossil collection, which his widow now owns and was recently appraised for about $600,000.

“These are all part of Kern County’s history,” said the museum’s part-time executive director, Koral Hancharick.

Mary Ernst says she does not know whether she will sell any of the museum collection, but she wants to sell Sharktooth Hill.

This week she ventured the site to show off her husband’s last find — a baby baleen whale that his meticulous work had left half revealed. She bounced her Jeep along unpaved roads and through locked gates to the sun-baked spot. She froze as she realized the baby baleen was gone — stolen — a half dozen plastic water bottles left in its place.

“Where is she?” Mary Ernst said, kicking at the dirt, then sighing. “They could have at least taken their litter.”

March 15 2009 at 02:40PM

* Skipper ‘gave false information’

A Taiwanese fishing vessel with nearly two tons of dried shark fins on board was seized at Cape Town harbour on Saturday.

The fins were confiscated by Department of Environmental Affairs inspectors and the skipper and crew of 26 face criminal charges for providing false information about their catch.

Carol Moses, spokesperson for Marine and Coastal Management (MCM), said it was clear the foreign-flagged vessel, the Chien Jui 102, had been finning. This practice involves hacking fins off live sharks and throwing them back into the sea where they either bleed to death or become prey for other sharks.

The organisation World Conservation estimates that finning causes the death of tens of millions of sharks worldwide each year.

The demand for shark fins is mostly to supply the East with shark fin soup, where it is regarded as a delicacy. Blacktip, silky and blue sharks are among those targeted.

Moses said that in terms of international regulations, the number of shark fins landed must correspond with the number of shark trunks on board.

She said that both the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas prescribed that the weight of the fins should not be more than 5% of the shark trunk.

Moses said the Chien Jui 102’s permit had indicated they had 100kg of shark fin, 2,2 tons of shark trunk and 2 945kg of tuna on board.

But what they, in fact, had was nearly two tons of dried shark fins, which meant they should have had about 30 tons of shark trunk.

Moses said the vessel would be blacklisted for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and would remain in the harbour until the case had been finalised.

She said the Marine Living Resources Act made provision for a fine of up to R2 million and up to five years’ imprisonment. She said the charges were still being formulated.

Moses said the vessel had been at sea since December, fishing off-shore on the high seas but had applied for an exclusive economic zone permit to enter South African waters.

“If they want to come into our waters to offload or do repairs they have to apply for a permit and provide details of their catch and the type of fishing gear they have on board.”

The vessel was granted a permit on March 4 and two days later MCM inspectors boarded it at the harbour to do a spot check.

She said that should the skipper and crew be found guilty, MCM would sell the fish and the proceeds would go into the Marine Living Resources fund.
o This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Argus on March 15, 2009