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The discovery in southern Utah of a new birdlike dinosaur with an unprecedented combination of meat- and plant-eating characteristics put paleontologists in an awkward position.
Researchers cannot justify the theft of fossils from public land, but they might never have found this new therizinosaur without the help of a thief.
Lawrence Walker found the site in the late 1990s, said James Kirkland, Utah's state paleontologist. Walker spent a few years mining and selling the bones before realizing that he found a new species that should be studied, according to Kirkland.
Through a third-party, Walker passed along rough coordinates, but Kirkland and others could not find the spot. Eventually, Walker had to walk Kirkland to the elusive location.
The act of coming forward revealed Walker to federal investigators, who were trying to find the fossil thief.
Walker pleaded guilty in 2002 to charges of stealing dinosaur bones - government property - from the Cedar Mountain rock formation on a Bureau of Land Management parcel. Walker, who did not want to be interviewed, was sentenced to five months in jail, 36 months of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $15,000.
Kirkland said Walker did not expect to receive jail time for his actions.
"That surprised the heck out of me, too," Kirkland said.
The paleontologist said he believes Walker has paid his debt to society and the southern Utah man will be welcomed as a volunteer at the site this summer.
Scott Sampson, the Utah Museum of Natural History's curator of paleontology, said even though Walker led researchers to this important find, fossil theft can never be condoned. If fossils new to science wind up in private collections, scientists have no way of conducting necessary research.
"This problem has reached epidemic proportions in the United States," Sampson said, describing the fossils as nonrenewable resources that belong to the public.