Should private collectors be allowed to own dinosaur fossils? Sale of 'Apex' renews debate

Growing up, Danny Case became interested in fossils through his father, an amateur paleontologist.

Starting at age 10, he says he began taking trips with his father and his father's friends to hunt and collect fossils, first on the East Coast and then, as he got older, across the United States.

By his early teens, Case was a serious fossil collector, spending a couple of weeks digging in the desert or by rivers and creeks.

Today, in his home in Reno, Nevada, Case has a collection of more than 2,000 fossils -- mostly teeth from a variety of species, about 10% of which he believes are from various dinosaurs. Hunting and collecting fossils, or buying them at auction, is a passion that has never left him.

"You're holding a tooth that's 125 million years old, you feel small, you feel insignificant when we realize how big this world is and was, and how diverse it was," he told ABC News.

But whether Case or others should have these fossils in their private collections in the first place has been the subject of debate for decades.

Recently, the debate sparked public interest after a nearly complete stegosaurus skeleton named "Apex" sold for a record-breaking $44.6 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York on July 17 to hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin.

The practice of private buyers acquiring dinosaur fossils has been fraught with controversy. Some say private buyers obtain fossils legally and there is nothing wrong with displaying them in private collections, while others say fossils are pieces of natural history and should only be displayed in museums and research institutions.

"I'm fundamentally ... opposed to fossil sale. Most of the world's countries protect their cultural and biologically cultural remains as unique and part of the public domain and I wish we would do that," Dr. Paul Sereno, a paleontologist and archaeologist at the University of Chicago, told ABC News. "We should appreciate this as our unique history in the United States, make sure that these specimens remain in museums and in the scientific realm for our next generation."

The turning point

Curators and paleontologists told ABC News they believe a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton named "Sue" was the catalyst behind dinosaurs being sold for exorbitant prices.

Sue was discovered on private land by the dinosaur's namesake -- Susan Hendrickson, a volunteer with the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research (BHIGR) in South Dakota, according Peter Larson, president of the group who helped excavate Sue.

A long court battle ensued not long after with the landowner, the excavators and the U.S. government all claiming to own Sue. Eventually Sue was declared to be real estate and the property of the owner of the private land, Maurice Williams.

Williams decided to sell the skeleton and contacted Sotheby's to put Sue up for auction. She sold in 1997 for $8.4 million to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Larson told ABC News that the sale of Sue is "ironic" because BHIGR, which produces fossil and geology exhibits for museums around the world, had been planning to place the fossil in a museum.

He and others say the sale of Sue forever changed people's minds on how much dinosaur fossils could be sold for.

"The sale of Sue was a turning point, I think, [for] the commercial sale of fossils," Spencer Lucas, a curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, told ABC News. "No fossil had, as far as I know, been purchased for so much money, and was so widely advertised."

"So, one of the things that happened is before Sue was sold, people [came] here all the time to the museum, maybe 100 people a year, to show me or the other curators fossils, and to find out what they are, how important they are," he continued. "After Sue was sold, there was another question asked by these people. It was always, 'What is this fossil worth?' or 'Will the museum buy this fossil?'"

Since then, other fossils have sold for millions, including another mostly complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, nicknamed "Stan," which was sold at auction in October 2020 for a then-record of $31.8 million. Officials in Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism told National Geographic they have the dinosaur and that the skeleton will be displayed in a new natural history museum set to open in 2025.

Experts say that most public institutions, including museums and research facilities, don't have the money often required for the auction of large-scale items like dinosaur skeletons.

To acquire Sue in 1997, the Field Museum received monetary assistance from McDonald's Corp., Ronald McDonald House Charities, Walt Disney World, the California State University system and individual donors.

"These kinds of fossils that are being sold commercially, for the most part, the only way public institutions will get them is if somebody buys the fossil who has the money and then gives it, donates it to the institution," Lucas said. "Frankly, I can't think of a museum that has a budget that would allow it to spend millions and millions of dollars on a dinosaur fossil."

Researchers said the sale of Apex is likely going to drive up the price of dinosaur fossils being sold commercially, making it even harder for museums or other public institutions to acquire them.

"If somebody will pay $44 million for a dinosaur skeleton, what will the next dinosaur skeleton sell for? It will act as an encouragement to the commercial and private fossil collecting business, because obviously, there's much more money to be made selling fossils than was made previously," Lucas said. "Selling fossils is a lot like selling art, and the price is really what will the market pay."

Researchers have suggested not only will Apex's sale lead to an increase in the number of commercial paleontologists trying to find fossils but potentially a rise in the number of illegal traders as well.

"Will it be a dramatic, notable bump? No, but I think it just increases people's idea, and often unfounded, that a bone on their property is worth millions of dollars," Sereno said.

Benefits of private collection

Despite the debate swirling around the idea of private buyers, both collectors and researchers say there might some benefits of private collection.

Case said he sees his collection as research teaching materials used to educate the general public on fossils.

He said he writes two daily posts on Facebook, one concerning the fossil of the day and the other on a daily shark tooth, including a biography of the particular species.

"I like and enjoy being able to educate people that don't know, don't care so much, are new to the hobby," Case said. "Opening people's eyes up to the bigger picture has always been one of my things...For me, it's a learning and teaching tool."

Case said his fossils have all been legally acquired, either through discovery or at auction. Even though he views the fossilized teeth he owns as research tools, he said they only have so much academic worth to museums.

"Fossils in a museum usually are skeletal fossils in museums," he said, indicating his collection is mostly made up of separate teeth. "The academic worth of these teeth, in a museum situation or even from a paleontologist's point of view, are isolated. Everything that I have, for most part is identified down to species level, so there's nothing new. There's nothing discovered in my collection."

Larson said that the biggest value of fossils is when they're able to be showcased, which can educate people on the evolution of Earth or inspire young children to go into science and paleontology. He said this is true regardless of if they're on display in a museum or in a private collection.

"If [young people] see [fossils] in some rich person's home, they can still get that same experience," said Larson. "And if a person is going to spend that kind of money, they're not just going to say, 'Well, I'm tired of this dinosaur that I just paid $44 million' or 'I'm just going to throw it away.' They're not going to do that; they're going to give it to an institution or something like that and it will be that fossil will be there for people to see in the future."

Griffin has indicated that he intends to explore loaning the specimen to a U.S. institution, saying in a statement after the sale that "Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America!"

Sereno said one positive of Griffin buying Apex is that the hedge fund billionaire saved the fossil from exiting the U.S. and ending up in the hands of a foreign bidder.

Other countries rich with fossils, including Canada and Mongolia, say fossils are the property of the government and make it illegal to buy and sell fossils. However, there are no such laws preventing their sale in the U.S. if found on private property.

"We can't protect fossils from disappearing, leaving the scientific realm, if they are found on private land," Sereno said. "And so, this is a discussion that ultimately we may never have in the United States, because we have a long tradition of private property," Sereno said.

However, researchers may still have a way of studying dinosaur bones that are being housed in private collections.

Almost any time a dinosaur fossil is collected, they undergo a CT scan. This allows the bones to have a digital backup and allows researchers to collect data on the dinosaur's body and how it looked and functioned.

Larson said even if the original bones end up in a private collection, as long as they've been scanned, and all the digital data has been stored, that means it can be accessed by researchers, scientists, students and others.

The role of the auction house

While there are questions that surround whether there should be private acquisition of dinosaur fossils, there are varying opinions of the role auction houses play.

In the case of Apex, Sotheby's hired the commercial paleologist Jason Cooper, who discovered the stegosaurus skeleton, to look for fossils.

Some say auction houses do not have a legitimate reason to reject a fossil for auction as long as it's acquired legally.

"That's just a business; the auction houses are a business there," Larson said. "They're in business to sell people's items and to make money from that and these are all legally collected fossils. There's absolutely nothing wrong with putting them up for auction."

Others are more critical and say the auction houses are playing an active role, further perpetuating the practice of putting a fossil up for auction rather than donating it.

"They have an aegis and a drive to make money, and so they are not only going to sell it for the highest price, but they do other unscrupulous things that would be easy for them to check," Sereno said.

Sereno said he has seen fossils up for sale at an auction claiming to be from Niger, except there is a national law in Niger making it illegal to sell fossils -- meaning either the fossil was acquired illegally or it's a fraudulent fossil.

"It doesn't take much to check the legality of what you're selling, but they don't do it, and no one enforces it," he said. "So, I would say it's an active role, and they should take more care to respect the laws of our country, but the laws of other countries as well."