NEW DELHI, February 3 (RIA Novosti) – India’s government plans to introduce a ban on illegal sales of dinosaur eggs that are millions of years old, The Times of India said on Sunday.
The Fossils Preservation Act, which has been sent to a local parliament, aims at stopping the sales of the eggs by local citizens at the site of dinosaur nesting in Padlya, in central India's Madhya Pradesh state.
The site covers the area of some 89 hectares and has been unprotected since 2007, “making it a fertile hunting ground for egg smugglers,” the newspaper said.
The eggs, dating back to the Cretaceous period 145 to 66 million years ago, are sold by local citizens for just $10 while experts believe they are worth some $190,000 on the international market.
"There is no count of how many dinosaur eggs have been removed… But with the impending passage of the Act, we can prohibit possession and sale of fossils,” Madhya Pradesh's forest minister Sartaj Singh said.
