>   San Diego Natural History Museum <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>  This is an interesting question. Most natural history museums that I know
>  of do not "solicit" donations; they prefer to acquire materials through
>  the collecting efforts of their own staff because of the complexities of
>  the permits required. Most donations of the type you describe are
>  unsolicited, i.e., they are brought to our attention because someone
>  wishes to donate them. Exceptions arise when a private collector wishes to
>  donate a personal collection and uses a third party to approach several
>  institutions. Most natural history museums are wary of private collections
>  because private collectors may or may not keep their specimens and records
>  up to museum standards, and would carefully check the associated
>  information and supporting documentation very carefully. (In addition,
>  most natural history museums have very limited space, just like everyone
>  else, and are often unable to accept poorly documented or no-data
>  collections, no matter how attractive they are, because they have no
>  scientific value.)




Thank you for your informative response.  My son and I
are involved in a case which, judging from your reply, is very
exceptional.  This involve micro-vertebrates fossils that were
solicited for donation after being displayed at a WAVP
conference several years ago.  But we have heard of
somewhat similar examples, some involving the difficulty of
getting loaned specimens back.  As a child I recall seeing large
collections of "points" with no locality data at all, and apparently
some vertebrate fossils are deceptively labeled as from "Scenic, SD."
But it seems the difficulties of recording locale can be exaggerated to
protect professional privilege.  It does not take a PhD to know where you
found something.  For an important SINGLE find, surely the willingness and
ability to lead museum staff to the collection site is the primary
responsibility of an amateur collector.  As for storage space, this is
not much of a factor for micro-fossils.



>  From my own experience, I would say that a museum would not solicit the
>  donation of a collection without such a check on information, especially
>  after several widely-publicized prosecutions over the past few years. The
>  question of whether the museum should notify authorities of suspicious
>  material in an unsolicited donation is a hot topic. If I were offered
>  specimens which I knew had been stolen from a museum or other public
>  institution or public land area, I would definitely notify my director,
>  who would have the authority to get in touch with the appropriate agency.
>  If I were offered specimens with poor documentation, I would not be able
>  to accept them, but that in itself would not be sufficient cause to
>  notify authorities; I would simply decline the donation and explain why.
>
>  A natural history museum that is actively trying to acquire a collection
>  usually does so because of the information associated with it, in the
>  form of catalogues, field notes, and other records. So the scenario of a
>  museum trying to get a poorly documented collection and then ringing the
>  authorities because the collection is suspiciously poorly documented
>  shouldn't happen unless a museum person is terribly careless in the first
>  place. (We never promise that we will accept a donation, only that we
>  will look at it, and we do require that all the documentation be
>  available for review as well. We accept no donations without their
>  documentation.)

------------------   some cut ------------------------


It seems highly pertinent to have mentioned the current effort to arrange
an amnesty for natural history donations.  So perhaps you have not
heard of this.  I have misplaced my notes on this: perhaps a reader could
supply the name and phone number of the person working on this.  Your
policy on informing potential donors seems ethical, but shouldn't some of
this be in writing?  The gift agreement itself should state that if the
donation is
eventually deemed by the director to be illegally collected, then the donor may
be
subject to criminal and/or civil penalties and be denied any tax benefit for
the
donation.  To conceal such an intention is surely to place the perceived
interest
in punishing those who willingly or unknowingly violate pertinent federal
regulations too highly above the value of good faith dealings and community
relations.  It is worth noting that, at least in the recent past, museum staff
as
well as agency investigators have not been well informed about federal
regulations, such as deal with fossil collecting.  An example is the citation,
even in print, of the federal antiquities act, even though this was long ago
declared unconstitutional as it applied to fossils. There are examples of
museum officials being far more eager for a criminal approach to amateur
collecting that agency officials.  This harsh and protective attitude may well
have some justification for archaeological remains, wildlife, and perhaps even
larger fossils.  But it becomes absurd for micro-fossils.  Here the great
abundance, and the labor intensiveness of building a collection, make
the notion of  nonrenewability an inappropriate legal fiction that can only
reduce the number of  specimens available to science.

It seems unfortunate that the attitudes and recommendations contained in the
1987 committee report "Paleontological Collecting" have been abandoned.
 The report  points out the incorrect analogy to archaeology, which confuses
the public and even agency officials. It also recommends that public lands
should
be open to scientific collecting without permit, and cites the renewability of
most
fossils and the inability of either professionals or amateurs to collect but a
fraction
of them.

-----------------------  some cut -------------------------------------

> The Federal land
>  management agencies have generally been given very little funding to
>  support collection management and have been greatly aided by museums
>  acting as repositories, and my experience is that there is very limited
>  funding available to assist with the costs that museums incur in caring
>  for these materials. A recent article in the Association of Systematics
>  Collections _Newsletter_ by Lynn Kimsey summarizes several of the issues
>  involved here.
>
>  Sally Shelton
>  Director, Collections Care and Conservation
>  President-Elect, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections
>

Thanks for the reference.  I will see if it is on the UC Melvyl system.  And if
anyone has the phone number for the amnesty program, please
E-mail me it (to save me a couple hours of digging through my files).
   Thanks again for the thorough response.
    Dan VanArsdale (defendant in United States v. Alan VanArsdale et al.)