Police recovered 45 fossils taken from Canadian national parks/Parks Canada

A person who removed 45 fossils from Kootenay National Park has been slapped with a $20,000 fine (about $15,000 USD) and given a five-month conditional sentence with a curfew order.

The individual — whose name and gender were not revealed — pleaded guilty April 27 in Cranbrook provincial court in British Columbia to two offences under the Canada National Parks Act and National Park General Regulations. The offences were removing natural objects and unlawfully trafficking in wild animals by transporting them. The act protects living and dead wild animals, which includes fossils.

Parks Canada park warden Paul Friesen with the recovered fossils/Parks Canada

“This is the largest fine that has been levied to date for the removal of fossils from the Burgess Shale, and demonstrates the seriousness of the offence and the importance of this site,” Parks Canada said in a news release this week. The money from the fine will go to the Environmental Damages Fund and support projects that restore nature and conserve wildlife and habitats.

The case began in the summer of 2020, when park wardens in Lake Louise, Alberta received a public tip about fossil removal from the Burgess Shale and launched an investigation. On Nov. 20, park wardens from La Mauricie National Park and the Québec Waterways, and the Longueuil Police Department, executed a search warrant at a private residence in the Montreal area in Quebec.

They recovered 45 fossils, which an expert from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) said originated from sites within Kootenay, Yoho National Park (in B.C.) and Jasper National Park (in Alberta). Most of the fossils originated from the Burgess Shale Marble Canyon Quarry in Kootenay, an area not currently accessible to the public. They have been returned to Parks Canada.

This complex investigation involved the RCMP, Longueuil Police Department, ROM and Parks Canada park wardens from British Columbia, Alberta and Québec.

First identified in 1909 in Yoho, the Burgess Shale is widely recognized as one of the most significant fossil sites in the world and was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1980. The Burgess Shale contains fossil evidence of some of the earliest complex animals that existed in our oceans more than 505 million years ago. 

One of the recovered fossils/Parks Canada

Burgess Shale fossils near Stanley Glacier in Kootenay were first noted in 1989 by researchers with the ROM. The Marble Canyon Quarry in Kootenay was discovered by ROM researchers in 2012. The ROM has now collected more than 10,000 fossil specimens from this new site. Research continues on this fossil quarry and in the surrounding area.

Each expedition to the Burgess Shale requires a proper Parks Canada research and collection permit, and the fossils remain the property of the federal government. The ROM Burgess Shale collection — held in trust for Parks Canada — is actively used for research, teaching and display.