{"id":65246,"date":"2020-01-16T16:01:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T23:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/national-park-rethinks-its-message-about-theft\/"},"modified":"2020-01-16T23:01:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T23:01:08","slug":"national-park-rethinks-its-message-about-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/national-park-rethinks-its-message-about-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"National park rethinks its message about theft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/p>\n
For years \u2013 decades even \u2013 a myth has surrounded Arizona\u2019s Petrified Forest National Park: A curse would strike anyone who illegally stole a piece of fossilized ancient wood within park boundaries.<\/p>\n
And there are letters to prove it.<\/p>\n
Over the years, hundreds of people who have stolen chunks of petrified wood, and eventually regretted their crime, have sent back the fossilized prizes, along with letters of apology. The practice had become so commonplace, park officials named the stack a \u201cconscience pile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people who have stolen chunks of petrified wood have sent back the fossilized prizes, along with letters of apology.<\/span>Courtesy of Petrified Forest National Park<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Some people are driven to return the rocks by a genuine feeling of guilt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are beautiful, but I can\u2019t enjoy them,\u201d one person wrote. \u201cThey weigh like a ton of bricks on my conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others are children who likely didn\u2019t know better and were caught by their parents. And sometimes, the opposite is true: Children go through their parents\u2019 belongings after they have passed away and find the prehistoric relic.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people who have stolen chunks of petrified wood have sent back the fossilized prizes, along with letters of apology.<\/span>Courtesy of Petrified Forest National Park<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\u201cSorry; for my father,\u201d one letter reads.<\/p>\n
And there are those who believe when they brought the piece of petrified wood out of park boundaries, they also brought with them the famed curse.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease put this back so my husband can get well. I tried to keep him from taking it,\u201d one writer wrote, signing her name as \u201cdistrout (sic) wife of Sacramento.\u201d<\/p>\n
All this, oddly enough, is a narrative park officials are trying to shift away from, as new tactics are embraced to stop people from stealing the very resource which qualified the desert landscape for national monument status more than 100 years ago and became a national park in 1962.<\/p>\n
Widespread theft?<\/div>\n
Looking at Petrified Forest National Park\u2019s history, it\u2019s not hard to understand why a conscience pile exists. Scattered throughout its nearly 150,000 acres, the rainbow-hued fossils, which are all that remain of a prehistoric forest, have consistently been portrayed as victims of theft and destruction.<\/p>\n
More than 200 million years ago, logs from an ancient forest washed into a river system and were buried deep enough that oxygen was cut off, slowing the decay process. After centuries, the wood was crystallized. Petrified Forest National Park is in eastern Arizona.<\/span>Courtesy of Ryan Thompson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Throughout the mid-1900s, park managers were in a sort of fervor that people coming to the park were taking out pieces of wood en masse. No real studies were ever conducted at the time, yet officials consistently said a ton of petrified wood a month was being stolen from the park, sowing a sense of suspicion at park visitors.<\/p>\n
These concerns were exacerbated when South Dakota\u2019s Fossil Cycad National Monument, which held the country\u2019s richest deposits of petrified cycadeoid plants, lost its monument status in 1957 after vandals stole or destroyed nearly all the fossils in the park.<\/p>\n
About 600,000 to 800,000 people visit Petrified Forest National Park every year, and it was once thought theft of petrified wood was widespread. Now, park managers say most people obey the rules.<\/span>Courtesy of Petrified Forest National Park<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Officials were afraid Petrified Forest National Park could be decommissioned as well, so they restricted access to certain areas, held inspections at the exit gate and had signs throughout the park that threatened heavy enforcement and consequences. In essence, everyone was a suspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were so focused on trying to prevent wood theft,\u201d said Sarah Herve, spokeswoman for the park, \u201cthat we were not welcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saying sorry<\/div>\n
The conscience piles have captured public fascination, for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people who have stolen chunks of petrified wood have sent back the fossilized prizes, along with letters of apology.<\/span>Courtesy of Petrified Forest National Park<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>