Police are praised for repossessing a 20 million-plus-years-old West Coast whalebone fossil despite uncertainty about any laws having been broken
West Coast authorities are still mulling over how to deal with a collector who upset the Karamea community and iwi by hacking a well known whale fossil from the banks of the Little Wanganui River.
Police armed with a search warrant took the fossil yesterday from the man’s home at Granity north of Westport.
They say they’re working with other agencies and iwi to return the taonga to the Karamea community and no charges have been laid against the man.
Karamea local Tom Horncastle, who tried to stop the collector hacking the local landmark out of its rock bed, says he’s rapt with the police action.
“I think the cops have done a marvellous job getting it back considering how vague the laws are about this sort of thing.
“The guy had three rocks, apparently, so I just hope it’s not broken. We want it back.”
Heritage New Zealand has confirmed the fossil, which is about 23 million years old, would meet the legal definition of a protected object, but that restricts only its export, not the act of taking it.
On the agenda
The community uproar over the Labour Weekend incident generated several complaints to the West Coast Regional Council and a brief report on the agenda of Tuesday's meeting of the council’s resource management committee.
Consents manager Colin Helem says the collector breached West Coast plan rules by using a power tool to saw the fossil from bedrock in the coastal marine area.
But staff have not decided whether to serve the man with an infringement notice.
“You need a resource consent to use machinery, but the rule was aimed at stopping people causing erosion by taking diggers onto the beach and removing stone.”
The rule has not been invoked before to regulate fossil-taking and the incident probably indicates a gap in the plan, Helem says.
“In terms of the spirit of the rule, it’s a fairly minor breach, and we need to do more enquiries before we decide whether to take action.”
Regional council chair Allan Birchfield has told Newsroom he would not like to see council rules used to restrict people from exploring nature and collecting such items as fossils.
Ngāti Waewae chair Francois Tumahai, who’s a member of the resource management committee, has called the Karamea fossil removal the “desecration of a taonga”, and as kaitiaki of the whenua, the iwi hoped the person responsible would be held to account for their actions.
Made with the support of the Public Interest Journalism Fund
