On the morning of March 18th, ranger Bryan Adams checked a vehicle that was parked near a dry streambed along Highway 240 just west of the Saddle Pass trailhead. Adams looked inside it and saw a fossil book that is commonly sold at the park visitor center. Knowing that the riverbed is a frequent target of fossil collectors, Adams began hiking up the bed, searching for the vehicle’s occupants, later identified as Evan Gulstine and Michael Bylsma, both 19. Adams soon came upon the two men, who were working the streambed with a rock hammer. They would periodically stop their work and use the hammer to break open rocks collected from the area, then toss the pieces down. After watching them for several minutes, Adams approached the men. When they say him coming, the man with the hammer attempted to hide it. Adams searched their persons and backpacks and recovered 30 to 40 fossil fragments and a GPS unit that Bylsma and Gulstine were using to plot their collection points. Additional fossils were found in the vehicle, including two large blocks of sedimentary rock containing numerous fossil fragments. It had been on the rear passenger floor, covered by a jacket. Another 10 to 15 fossil specimens were found in the vehicle’s center console. All the fossils and tools were seized as evidence. Rangers have been working with park resource management specialists to determine a cost value for the seized fossils and to recover the data collection points from the GPS unit. Criminal charges have been filed.
