Ethics

Committed to education & science

We’re more than a group of people who love to discover and learn about fossils. Our members are encouraged to understand the paleoenvironments that produce fossils, to describe and catalog specimens, and to consider their educational and scientific purposes. 

Our Code of Ethics

Members of the Western Interior Paleontological Society will: 

  1. Conduct themselves with a positive attitude toward each member of the society, its officers, and organizations with which it interacts.
  2. Stay informed and comply with all Federal, State, and Local regulations pertaining to collection policies practices, and regulations.
  3. Obtain permission from private landowners or governmental agencies prior to collecting on lands either as an individual or as a WIPS member.
  4. Assure that all land and property are left without damage and litter.
  5. Cooperate with field trip leaders and be responsible as a parent or sponsor during field trips and meetings.
  6. Strive to adequately identify and label locality, age, and formation of specimens collected.
  7. Report to proper authorities any discovery of scientific or public interest and allow specimens to be studied for scientific purposes.

Our Purpose

  1. providing educational programs in and promoting the study of, paleontology and related disciplines;
  2. planning field trips, lectures, seminars, and other educational and science related activities;
  3. making available information pertinent to searching for, identifying, preparing, preserving, and displaying fossils;
  4. adhering to responsible codes of conduct while prospecting for and collecting fossils;
  5. assisting museums and educational institutions in the furtherance of their paleontology related actives; and
  6. cooperating with government authorities and agencies in the development of laws governing the collection of fossils and their preservation for future generations

Determining scientific significance

To help underscore the educational focus of the Society, a set of criteria for scientifically significant fossils is used as a touchstone to ensure fossils of value to the scientific community are recognized and accessioned to an approved repository.

These guidelines are presented for use by members on WIPS sponsored activities, but are recommended for all members at all at all times. Scientific significance may refer to the occurrence of a specimen rather than the specimen itself. This makes it important to document all taxa recovered from all localities. However, the specimen represents the scientific significance. Therefore, we define a scientifically significant specimen as one that:

Represents a new taxon; or
Represents a rare, seldom found taxon; or
Is especially well preserved; or
Is useful to ongoing paleontological research; or
Represents a rare geographical or stratigraphical location; or
Were preserved under rare conditions or in such a way as to preserve an unusual happening, i.e., a common taxon in a previously unknown geographic or time/rock location, a common specimen smashed in a dinosaur track, or an ammonite with mosasaur teeth marks; or
May be specific to a particular region (possibility should be emphasized in the pre-trip meeting); or
Is a vertebrate specimen (Vertebrates are usually considered to be scientifically significant unless demonstrated not to be; invertebrates are usually considered not to be scientifically significant unless demonstrated to be); or
Is collected before it has been determined that no additional specimens are significant to the attributes under study.

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