Nation's public land being looted

Paul Nelson reportingLand management officials say they're noticing a certain kind of crime happening on public land. Much of the land all over the country is being looted.

There are many different kinds of people that stroll through the Utah Museum of Natural History. On any given day, you can see students, parents, and people asking the curators, "I have some Native American artifacts. How much can I get for them?"

Assistant Curator of Archeology Michelle Knoll said, "There is a market for antiquities, and it's a black market. It's an illegal market."

Knoll says rules are so strict on handling antiquities and artifacts; they can't typically take donations because they can't prove if the item really belongs to the donor.

"As far as verifying legal title to it, it's very difficult," she said.

USA Today reports there have been about 340 significant lootings at national parks, historic sites and battlefields, and that could be just a quarter of actual violations. U.S. National Parks officials say many of these items are being sold to collectors in Europe and Asia online. Knoll says you can get in big trouble if you're caught stealing from a park.

"For a first-time offense in either destroying or removing archaeological resources, or attempting to buy, purchase, trade or transport [them] is up to $20,000 and one year in jail."

Utah Bureau of Land Management Public Affairs Specialist Megan Crandall said, "In our case, in Utah, we have a real problem with rock, sand and gravel theft."

You may be asking yourself, "Who is stealing sand, for crying out loud?"

"The landscape industry is booming. We do give permits for people to come in and take a certain amount of that rock for their use for contracting and that kind of thing. It does happen sometimes that they will take more than they have been permitted to take," Crandall explained.

Crandall says the BLM has its own investigators and law enforcement to crack down on theft on public lands, but it can get tricky sometimes. "We [The BLM] do manage millions of acres of land across the United States," she said.

Crandall says many people might not realize they're committing a crime when they decide to keep something they picked up on public land.

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