"The individuals who did this were not surgeons, they were smashing and grabbing," U.S. Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Greg Haverstock said last week as he examined the damage. "This was the worst act of vandalism ever seen" on the 750,000 acres of public land managed by the BLM field office in Bishop.
The theft required extraordinary effort: Ladders, electric generators and power saws had to be driven into the remote and arid high desert site near Bishop. Thieves gouged holes in the rock and sheared off slabs that were up to 15 feet above ground and 2 feet high and wide.
Visitors discovered the theft and reported it to the BLM on Oct. 31. BLM field office manager Bernadette Lovato delivered the bad news to Paiute-Shoshone tribal leaders in Bishop.
"It was the toughest telephone call I ever had to make," Lovato said. "Their culture and spiritual beliefs had been horribly violated. We will do everything in our power to bring those pieces back."
The region is known as Volcanic Tableland. It is held sacred by Native Americans whose ancestors adorned hundreds of lava boulders with spiritual renderings: concentric circles, deer, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep, and hunters with bows and arrows.
For generations, Paiute-Shoshone tribal members and whites have lived side by side but not together in Bishop. But desecration of the site, which Native Americans still use in spiritual ceremonies, has forced reservation officials and U.S. authorities to come together and ask a tough question: Can further vandalism be prevented?
"How do we manage fragile resources that have survived as much as 10,000 years but can be destroyed in an instant?" asked archaeologist David Whitley, who in 2000 wrote the nomination that succeeded in getting the site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. "Do we keep them secret in hopes that no one vandalizes them? Or, do we open them to the public so that visitors can serve as stewards of the resources?"
Full story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-petroglyphs-theft-20121119,0,6886011.story
Reshared post from +Robin Black
Those of you who were part of +elizabeth hahn's excellent discussion about not revealing sensitive locations that we shoot (also +Lori Hibbett, +Jeff Sullivan and +G Dan Mitchell ) will want to see this. Sickening and heartbreaking. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-petroglyphs-theft-20121119,0,6886011.story
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Petroglyph thefts near Bishop stun federal authorities, Paiutes
BISHOP, Calif. — Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed onl…
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Humans showing the lack of their respect for their own unreplaceable Past. Well done.
That's horrible, I hope they are recovered soon. I also hope the things responsible go to jail for a very long time. Very very long..
That is just awful to read.
This pisses me off man!!!! You would think as humans, we have evolved somewhat. This is very upsetting.
To the extent that photographers display photos of these sites, show petroglyph details, name the site, show enough of the surroundings to find it, sometimes even map it, perhaps it might be timely to consider what role we could inadvertently be playing in this outcome?
This is so sad. I want to cry. I already posted another comment on this terrible vandalism.
This is like something out of Tony Hillerman's books. Things just haven't changed.
If only people also cried when they looked at Mt Rushmore, mind you, instead of going to gawp at it in droves, it might set an example of sorts
"The BLM is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves. Damaging or removing the petroglyphs is a felony. First-time offenders can be imprisoned for up to one year and fined as much as $20,000, authorities said. Second-time offenders can be fined up to $100,000 and imprisoned up to five years."
this is a joke
I agree with you +Jeff Sullivan. I remember people giving me a hard time about a location in the Sierras. I told them DO NOT put the name of the location, where it's at or any other tags that may indicate/pin point where the location is at. The response I got, which I'll never forget was "they would find the location anyway." What a shame, it reasons like this why I said what i said to him. We as photographers need to have some type of integrity with some of these locations.
I'll be sending a check to help add to the reward for finding these guys. Here's the address:
Bernadette Lovato, Field Manager
Bureau of Land Management
Bishop Field Office
351 Pacu Lane, Suite 100
Bishop, CA 93514
Phone: (760) 872-5000
Fax: (760) 872-5050
Office Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., M-F
I hate stupid people!
Thought I'd pass along the response I received from a gentlemen that posted this video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/24859837. Any opinions or ideas about a response. I'm seething a little right now. Probably not a good place to respond from.
"Paul, thanks for your comments. Like you, I was saddened and angered by the news of these recent thefts. I'm afraid though that we are on opposite sides of the philosophical divide regarding "protecting" these sites through secrecy and misdirection. This crime itself is an example of the inadequacy and failure of this policy. I've been interested in petroglyphs and other types of rock art for more than 15 years. I've visited hundreds of sites all over the United States and Canada. More often than not there was not a single other person within miles of the area. More often than not I've found these sites vulnerable to theft, vandalism and eventual disappearance through erosion via exposure to the elements. And more often than not I've been struck by the realization that when they are gone almost nobody will care. Because they never knew they even existed. The sad fact is that crimes like these are aided more there being nobody around to stop them than by anything else.
The thieves know these sites exist and they know how to find them. What the policy of secrecy really hopes to achieve is to discourage discovery by the casual visitor. It's motivated by a deep misanthropic impulse that views people as a scourge.
All that said, I've removed the tags from this video. I will not however re-title it, or remove it from the internet. I also will not hesitate to tell my friends about these places and encourage people to visit them. We only preserve what we care about and have a personal connection with. These sites are a union of the natural landscape and the human imagination. They cannot be fully appreciated through photographs in books, or videos on the internet. They must be experienced directly."
+Paul Porter Wow. That flawed logic is exactly what has failed in this recent case. Thieves aren't going to work in broad daylight when visitation is greatest, and how many of the allegedly "protective" visitors are watching these sites at 3am?
We have also have very specific data on the outcome, the failure of exactly that described approach. The local BLM office was handing out brochures detailing directions to 3 or 4 of the local sites. How well did that policy protect the petroglyphs? They weren't protected at all, but there is now a great catalog of sites and symbols online which thieves can use to shop for items to steal, and new sites to desecrate.
All you can do is present the facts.
Labeling people "misanthropic" for simply acknowledging that the Internet can facilitate discovery and destruction of these sites by thieves is astonishingly self-serving. _"Misanthropy is the general hatred, mistrust or disdain of the human species or human nature."_ There's a flip side that that argument… assuming that enough people will use expanded access to information on petroglyph sites in virtuous ways, even proposing that such exposure will be magically protective, even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, demonstrates extreme denial and unjustified arrogance… hubris.
“Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Something drives someone in an obsession spanning 15 years exploring ancient sites… wouldn't a self-rightous "protection" argument also extend to items picked up? After all, they'd be "protected" from people with less virtuous intent. I'd bet a large sum of money that if a search warrant were exercised on that guy's home, his may have yielded him quite a collection of artifacts collected in violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) of 1979.
"ARPA was enacted in recognition that archaeological resources are an irreplaceable part of America’s heritage and they are increasingly endangered because of the escalating commercial value of some kinds of artifacts."
The recent damage to these sites shows what the end result is. Asking people not to catalog, display, name, or map these sites does not display misanthropy, a general lack of confidence in the human race, it simply acknowledges that there is a specific, real person or group pursuing a buck or two in exchange for destroying them.
Well said +Jeff Sullivan !
Thanks Jeff! I'm not done with this guy and I'm still trying to connect with the editor or American Archaeology magazine. I think I have to start steeling myself against those I'm probably going to anger. But its worth fighting for.
I remember reading the message thread on CalPhoto Yahoo group, +Jeff Sullivan, a couple weeks ago. I still have 2 different replies sitting in "draft." On one level, there's some Native American blood in my veins that would enjoy seeing great harm and pain finding these thieving individuals. Call the Mafia or Hells Angles to find the culprits, rather than the police. Their punishment will be swifter and more appropriate. They'll be found out in the desert…someday…after the coyotes and crows get their meal.
If these thieves didn't already own the large-scale equipment to pull this off – generators, lights, saws, rigging and a trailer, etc. – then someone somewhere with good detective skills may find a rental company paper trail…maybe.
These people join an interesting (in the wrong sort of way) and dangerous company that the curious explorer personalities among us would not wish to encounter. (Even Inyo NF's website has a note to alert visitors to the possibility of accidentally coming across a marijuana farming site.)
In years past, I had no issue wandering backroads, whether in the Sierra or in Eastern California, just following "jeep road" lines on the old topographical maps I have. That magic sense is more restrained these days. My wife and I came across a rustic campsite a couple years back where we'd camped maybe 10 years before not far east of Mammoth Lakes. It had become a deer poaching campsite, with numerous partially cut up carcasses strewn around, skins just tossed aside or draped over branches. A once comfortable campsite had become "creepy." We'll never return to that nice grove of aspens, and am so very happy we didn't chance upon the site while occupied.
Some cameras add a GPS coordinate automatically, but NOT including this doesn't end the problem. (That's supposedly how John McAfee was found in Guatemala, by someone posting a cell-phone picture without turning off the auto-GPS tagging.) Any decent world-curious individual, photographer or not, can find things without someone hand-feeding them a coordinate. This only stops the not-so-curious from finding things on their own. Those that know, know they are there to see, or can figure a way to find them. Those with bad intent also know the sites are out there, and how to find them.
In a reply to the article at Calphoto, +Michael Frye noted he found the petroglyphs with only a map and a good study of a photograph of them (he thought maybe a David Muench print), and a bit of geographic effort with a compass.
I learned of the petroglyph sites via a photo workshop back in the mid-1980s. (I can't vouch first hand for anyone else on that workshop…maybe the guilty party was among us?) Older USGS topo maps in my collection have interesting places already marked on them – "mine", "petroglyph", etc. that can be followed by anyone with skills to read a map and landscape. I should go back to see if my 1980s-era NF maps also indicate the sites…I wouldn't be surprised.
The individual that +Paul Porter refers to DOES have a point. "…And more often than not I've been struck by the realization that when they are gone almost nobody will care. Because they never knew they even existed. The sad fact is that crimes like these are aided more there being nobody around to stop them than by anything else…"
Many a crime has probably been thwarted by a group of visitors already being somewhere when potentially guilty culprits arrived and didn't want to draw attention to themselves.
Most people learn of historical and other interesting sites via teachers, books, the internet, etc. Not by actually visiting, first hand. When any of us with experience leads first-time visitors to the shores of Mono Lake, we see first-hand that delightful sense of awe and wonder finding our students' faces as they connect what they saw in photos and read in text to the reality before them. Whatever caring awareness might have existed before has just been amplified by a million! It has become relevant to them.
"…The thieves know these sites exist and they know how to find them. What the policy of secrecy really hopes to achieve is to discourage discovery by the casual visitor. It's motivated by a deep misanthropic impulse that views people as a scourge…"
Yes, I seriously see the point of not including spoon-fed directions to those that might not care to start with. There are some who would just as soon read about these places on a backlit display at the visitor center, rather than see them first-hand. And yes, I have intentionally excluded ID'ing accurate mapping on some posted images where the specific site had potential of receiving harm. I also know that the sites aren't at all hard to locate…anyone carefully studying a Google Map/Earth satellite image can find them.
I'll close how I started…wishing those guilty a great deal of harm. No differently than wishing the same a marijuana grower on public lands for creating an environmental damage, guarded by a lethal hazard to a casual and unknowing accidental visitor. There's worse things for these culprits to be concerned about than fear of the law.