Senior Curator Antony Maltese doing fieldwork [Photo courtesy of Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center / Triebold Paleontology, Inc.]
A newly discovered western Kansas fish fossil that was days away from being donated to the Sternberg Museum is now being considered for another institution because of uncertainty surrounding its future, Triebold Paleontology senior curator Anthony Maltese said Wednesday. In a Wednesday interview, Museum Director Dr. Reese Barrick discussed the prospective Triebold donation’s loss, while adjunct curator Dr. Kenshu Shimada and Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) President Dr. Stuart Sumida responded to the news by email. Together, Maltese, Barrick, Shimada and SVP outlined tangible consequences of Fort Hays State University (FHSU) President Tisa Mason’s decision: weakened donor confidence and the risk of scientifically important western Kansas fossils going elsewhere.
“I’m sad that the specimen donation didn’t happen, but it’s a good example of how President Mason’s choices are having real and immediate consequences for the Sternberg Museum and for research in general,” Maltese said.
The lost prospective donation makes tangible matters reported by The Hays Daily News on Oct. 30 and Nov. 3: rescinding Sternberg’s scheduled closure did not settle future university funding, permanent collections protections or research access. Sumida, speaking on behalf of SVP, connected the donation’s uncertain future to those unresolved issues; Triebold’s continued support underscores that its concerns are about long-term stability, not abandoning Sternberg.
Donation: Uncertainty changes the intended destination
Maltese said Triebold discovered a new fish species in western Kansas’s Niobrara Chalk and, prior to Mason’s decision becoming public, was “days away” from donating it to Sternberg. He explained that he’d been working toward this end with Sternberg adjunct curator Shimada. Maltese was direct that Triebold is now seeking a more “stable” institution for this specimen, but he identified no alternative destination.
“The entire point of doing a donation like this is so that we can study it in the future,” he said.
Maltese and Triebold’s concerns about Sternberg’s unresolved situation extend beyond possible sales of collections to funding, preservation and research access.
“There’s just so much up in the air about that that if we were going to donate to this, we would want to have some place that we knew was more stable, and that is not guaranteed at all in this situation,” Maltese said.
He distinguished those concerns from his experience with Sternberg’s staff, saying retaining them would increase his confidence in the collections’ future.
Lane County, KS [Photo by Gaille Pike]
Barrick: Sustainability and trust must be rebuilt
In a separate Wednesday interview, Museum Director Barrick described important regional fossils potentially going elsewhere as “really a tragedy” for western Kansas paleontology. He spoke of Sternberg’s longstanding role in preserving regional fossils and making them available to researchers worldwide—and the difficulty of seeing that role erode.
“While it is understandable, it’s very difficult to see and to feel,” Barrick said.
Donors’ concerns are “completely understandable from the perspective of people wanting to know that important specimens will be cared for in perpetuity, and that there will always be access to them,” he said.
“That’s a key part of what museums do. Museums provide access for research and preservation of specimens, whether they’re zoology or paleontology.”
Barrick described the challenge ahead.
“It’s going to be a difficult road back to not only gaining sustainability, but then also working to create the sort of trust that that the museum will be sustainable and will be able to be trusted to care for all of its collections in perpetuity, and gain that trust, so that we will have the ability to continue to get these very valuable specimens, these sort of one-of-a-kind specimens, back into our collections.”
Gove County Kansas Monument Rocks, also known as “The Pyramids” [Photo by Gaille Pike]
Shimada and SVP: Unresolved assurances have consequences
In written comments Wednesday, Shimada reiterated the importance of preserving discoveries locally.
“One of the main functions of practically every public-trust natural history museum is to preserve the local natural heritage as a ‘repository’ in perpetuity for the public,” he wrote.
“For example, scientifically significant fossils collected from western Kansas should ideally be donated to the Sternberg Museum.”
He said “the lack of any formal announcements to date from the FHSU administration to maintain the Sternberg’s collections intact at the museum is also driving potential specimen donors away.”
SVP President Sumida’s Wednesday response described “the lack of transparency regarding the Sternberg” as “already having a ripple effect far beyond the partial fiscal year deadline that has been imposed by President Mason.”
“This type of damage won’t be undone until President Mason and Fort Hays State University come up with a viable long-term plan for the Sternberg – as opposed to holding it hostage to the short-term fund-raising efforts of others,” he wrote.
“By abdicating the responsibility of finding funds for the Sternberg to others, President Mason is essentially washing her hands of a problem that she herself created.”
Sternberg: A longtime collaborator and Triebold’s “perfect repository”
Maltese holds a University of Kansas geology degree and has worked at Triebold for approximately 22 years. The company has excavated western Kansas fossils since the late 1980s, supplying specimens and casts to museums worldwide while donating scientifically important finds.
“In the past, we’ve donated them to the Sternberg Museum in Hays because it’s a perfect repository,” Maltese said. “It has a great collection of these fossils, so that they can be studied in context of a lot of other fossils from the area as well.”
He described decades of collaboration with Sternberg and KU as “building up a relationship, building up trust.”
“And I want to see that continue as much as possible,” he said.
His collaboration with researchers, including Shimada, helps identify discoveries and place them in public collections. That objective provides context for SVP’s member ethics, which call for permanent scientific preservation.
Article 12, Section 6 states: “The barter, sale or purchase of scientifically significant vertebrate fossils is not condoned, unless it brings them into, or keeps them within, a public trust.”
Fundraiser: Triebold support for Sternberg continues despite donation loss
Triebold will donate a Megacephalosaurus cast skull to the Nov. 20 fundraiser, benefiting the FHSU Foundation’s Save Sternberg effort. The reconstruction was completed in 2012 using casts of a specimen George Sternberg excavated in 1950.
“This specimen was excavated by George Sternberg himself and is a great example of how we like to work collaboratively with institutions,” Maltese wrote. “We don’t get any financial benefit from this donation, we just hope it helps the situation.” He plans to attend and speak on Sternberg’s behalf.
“Roar & Raise for the Future” begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Ellis County Historical Society, with the live auction at 7:30 p.m.
