HAMPSHIRE COUNTY – A revived “dinosaur bill” filed by state Rep. Dan Carey seeks to figure out how to adequately protect and provide public and professional access to archaeological, geological, and fossil resources in the state.

Archaeologists, paleontologists, and geologists across the state are hoping that legislature advances this bill that would help bring clarity to “outdated and vague” laws around recovering, studying, and protecting fossils and artifacts.

According to Carey, who represents Easthampton, South Hadley, Hadley and Granby, his interest in this bill stemmed from conversations he had with people on a separate bill that would name a state dinosaur for Massachusetts.

In February, Massachusetts lawmakers filed a bill to designate a state dinosaur. The initiative began in late 2020 by State Rep. Jack Patrick Lewis to get children interested in the legislative process by filing a bill about dinosaurs.

The decision was eventually made to take a vote and see what could become the state dinosaur. An advisory council/task force of experts was also created to advise the process of selecting the dinosaur. A poll was conducted online for people to choose between the Podokesaurus holyokensis or the Anchisaurus polyzelus.

After garnering 35,000 votes and national attention, the Podokesaurus was eventually chosen early this year. The dinosaur’s fossils were originally found right in the open by Mignon Talbot, a female paleontologist who came across the fossils while walking through the woods in Holyoke in the early 1900s.

An announcement was made via a Zoom press conference hosted by the Boston Museum of Science that the Podokesaurus will be the state dinosaur.

Carey said he became interested in this initiative when he found out that the Podokesaurus was found in his own district. When talking with professors, archaeologists, and paleontologists who worked on this bill, Carey found out that the bill he filed about updating dinosaur laws had been previously filed by state Rep. Peter Kocot multiple times between 2002 and 2018. Kocot ended up passing away, and the bill hit the back burner for a short while.

“When he passed away, no one brought forward this bill last session,” said Carey. “So, when I heard about the bill, it made sense to me, and I knew Peter was a great rep. and smart guy.”

According to Alfred Venne, a museum educator and director at Amherst College Beneski Museum and Bassett Planetarium, the large number of votes clearly showed that there was interest in a dinosaur initiative, but experts and legislators needed to revisit Kocot’s bill.

“If people are interested, it’s a great thing,” said Venne. “It might also prompt people to start going out and looking, and if they do that, we want to make sure they do it with some understanding.”

Venne added that the bill would not necessarily update the dinosaur laws, but commission experts and legislators to see what is currently out there and what could be changed, especially when it comes to environmental protection.

The bill also hopes to uncover some goals that many experts and organizations could have surrounding fossils. A commission will then look at ways to support these goals. Some are protection-type goals while others are education-type goals.

“We definitely want to preserve areas so the next person can walk along and say, ‘look what I found,’” said Venne, regarding the idea of people going out to dig for fossils. He would rather see people be cautious and sensitive when they are searching for fossils rather than ripping apart land.

Mark McMenamin, a paleontologist and professor of geology at Mount Holyoke College, said that it is important to update these dinosaur laws to protect paleontological resources since they provide a critical piece of the Massachusetts backstory, and they are globally significant in terms of their scientific value. He also added that the laws should be clear and designed to facilitate the recovery and documentation of certain fossils in the area.

“Massachusetts dinosaur skeletons, although-for the time being-rare, are scientifically important because of their Early Jurassic age, a slice of geologic time that is critical with regard to the early evolution of dinosaurs,” said McMenamin. “My recent research suggests that there are significant dinosaur bone beds awaiting discovery – we just need to know where to start digging.”

McMenamin also thinks that the laws need to be less vague, specifically around land ownership. The state needs more clarity around documentation of digs, whether it be private or institutional.

“It should be okay for people to keep surface finds if they document the discovery locality using cell phone GPS,” said McMenamin, who added that online databases already exist for registering finds.

According to Carey, there are several current laws related to dinosaur tracks, but there has not been a substantial effort to study how the laws relate to each other. For example, if someone was digging and found a dinosaur fossil, it is unclear where that person would go to bring attention to the find. There are also laws that do not clarify the difference between paleontology, geology, and other professions of that nature.

There is also the problem of poachers, or people who will see dinosaur tracks and try to sell them on eBay. There are currently no laws that clarify the fees or fines for doing something like that.

“Some of these laws are just a little outdated and need a fresh look,” said Carey, who added that the filed bill has recently been referred to the Joint Committee on Environment Natural Resources and Agriculture. It was still there as of press time, but each time Kocot referred this bill to this committee, the committee reported it our favorably, so Carey expects the same result.

According to Venne, the state dinosaur has not gone through all the legislative process yet. It has gone through a hearing on it. It will be up for a vote within the next cycle.

People can learn more about the filed bill and the state dinosaur initiative by visiting https://statedino.org. A working group is currently formed to work on this initiative. McMenamin, Venne and Carey are all a part of the group.