Dear Editor,

Reading the headline, “Monument paleo program remains intact despite cuts,” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or get mad. I’m leaning toward the latter, and I hope other people who care about Dinosaur National Monument will feel the same, and say so.

The article describes the elimination of two positions from Dinosaur’s paleontology program. Since the entire paleontology staff was three positions, it’s hard to grasp how the program can be considered “intact” after a two-thirds reduction. The superintendent assures us, however, that the full-time Ph.D. paleontologist position is “the most essential part of the program” and that the jobs being cut have merely “supported” it “for the past seven years.” That makes it seem these two jobs are just recent, unimportant additions whose loss is no big deal.

Under changing titles, these jobs have been a crucial part of the paleo program for more than 50 years. They were first filled in the 1950s by the two local men, Tobe Wilkins and Jim Adams, who exposed most of the quarry’s amazing display of in-place fossil bones.

These men didn’t have degrees in paleontology, just a willingness to learn dinosaur anatomy, and the patience to chip hard rock away from fragile bones a few grains at a time with tiny hand tools. Both the visiting public and the science of paleontology benefited immeasurably from the expertise and skill they developed in their 25 to 30 years on the job. Their job title was only “museum technician,” but their duties were essential to the paleontology program.

As the quarry exhibit neared completion in the late 1980s, these positions evolved to encompass broader responsibilities. Their incumbents – who do have paleontology degrees just not Ph.D.s, and now more than 20 years’ experience themselves – have been key to expansion of the paleo program outside the quarry (and the program’s ongoing viability even while the quarry is closed).

They have already worked extensively with outside organizations to obtain grants, tools, and

interns to help carry out fossil excavation, preparation, and related studies. They have updated and digitized museum records, not just on fossils but on all the monument’s collections. They have recruited, trained, and supervised a dedicated volunteer corps – whose thousands of hours of free service have arguably made Dinosaur’s paleo program extremely cost-effective.

Yes, they are friends of mine and I hate to see them lose their jobs, but even if I had never met them, I would still contend that these positions are just as essential as the formal “paleontologist” position to the National Park Service mission, which is to conserve and protect park resources for present and future generations.

As a former Dinosaur employee myself, I am well aware that the monument must constantly juggle many diverse responsibilities with budgets and staff levels that are never adequate. However, I have also seen firsthand that for most of the visiting public, the primary “draw” of Dinosaur is dinosaurs.

Once that interest is satisfied, many visitors are eager to learn about the rivers, the modern wildlife, the role of fire, and all those other equally important resources and issues. But trying to enhance other programs by gutting paleontology will, I fear, only further erode public support of the monument.

As the headline did, the statement that paleontology “has lost its appeal with the closure of the [quarry] visitor center” left me incredulous. Park management is not to blame for closing a structurally unsound building, but the unavoidable effect is that many prospective visitors – for whom paleontology has not lost its “appeal” – just one of its best exhibits in the whole world – have abandoned Dinosaur. This is what is most alarming about the timing of the present job cuts. Several years ago, a proposal to eliminate two paleontology positions quietly faded away after public protest. Reviving that idea again now sounds suspiciously like, “Maybe we can get away with it this time, while nobody’s looking.”

Linda West

Vernal