Vandals destroy dinosaur footprint

[Doug Watson]

The photos in the article don't appear to show any damage unless my fever is hampering my vision so they are probably stock "before" shots. I fear the motive that laticauda hinted at may be more likely. This could be a collector that either tried to extract the entire fossil or a section for their personal collection. The fact they claim a hammer and chisel were used leads me to that conclusion. If vandalism was the aim simply smashing it with a hammer would suffice. It would help to see shots of the damage. There are wealthy art collectors that pay criminals to steal art work that they could readily pay for. They have rooms of art that are only viewed by themselves. So I wouldn't put it past a collector to either pay someone or try it themselves. Or it could have been someone who hoped to sell it.  They may have been scared off by someone disturbing them.

[Lanthanotus]

A year back I spent some time in Australia and learned that most - if not yet all - National Park campsites can only be booked online (which is, needles to say, somewhat difficult to impossible in some areas of the country, at least if you are right at the according National Park). One reason for this - according to a SA ranger - is, that a lot of people seem to make a hobby out of breaking into the cash boxes that are situated at the entrances of a lot of National Parks to collect fees. Even to an untrained eye it is easy to see, that a lot of those boxes (often immured) have been reinforced several times with steel paltes welded on etc.. However, people seem to make a sport out of it (rather than being in economic need) to break into these boxes with their cars pulling the whole box out of a wall or ripping it open. Also, a lot of ancient aboriginal art sites are protected from vandalism with heavy steel grills, even in remote areas. The answer to such forms of vandalism is often enough simple and dull boredom as sad as it is.

[BlueKrono]

I think Lanthanotus is quite right, far more vandalism is caused by boredom than willful maliciousness. Same goes for several other types of crimes like illegal drug use. In neighborhoods where there are other options for engaging activities it rarely happens. People commit a lot of crimes simply because they were bored.

[Simon]

The probable motive was theft, or in the alternative, alcohol-fueled vandalism, in my opinion...