Kenosha fossil hunters make rare dino find; afraid program will go extinct

KENOSHA, Wis. - It's been two years since a group from Carthage College in Kenosha made a rare discovery while searching for dinosaur bones in Montana.

It may be their most important find in their program's history. 

However, as the group prepares to head back to the spot where parts of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex fossil were found, they fear this dig may be their last.

In the center of Kenosha, replications of the kings that used to rule the land stand tall. Inside the Dinosaur Discovery Museum, displays show some of the most famous fossils in the world. But it's down in the basement where Dr. Thomas Carr, the director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology, said the real deal can be found.

"We want people to see science in action, real science happens here," Carr said.

Behind closed doors sits a collection of more than 120,000 fossils. Carr and his team have been collecting these fossils since 2006 in Southeastern Montana and bringing their most important finds back to Kenosha.

"All from the last millions of years of the age of dinosaurs, so right before the asteroid hit," Carr said.

It's what his group found during their most recent dig that Carr can't stop thinking about two years later.

"On the second to last day, I decided to take my small group to an area that we'd only visited once before, and we were just trying to see what’s there," Carr said.

After a long walk through the badlands, a discovery was made by a member of the team named Mason.

"And Mason, who was off to the left and said, ‘I found a dinosaur bone in the ground,’" said Carr.

"I remember Mason bringing the bones to Dr. Carr," said Megan Seitz.

Seitz was a member of the expedition and said it was after dinner that the group finally realized the importance of their find.

"He was very quiet," recalled Seitz of Carr.

Sitting before them is one of the most important finds the group said they have ever made.

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"And I started pulling the fragments out.  And one of the first fragments I pulled was the first part of the tibia, which is the shin-bone," Carr said. "And it looked like a T. rex.  Not only a T. rex, a small one."

"Everybody erupted," Seitz said. "Everyone was very excited."

The fossil of the juvenile T. rex now sits in pieces in a box in Kenosha and could be one of the rarest finds in the world.

"Here’s why. There are a lot of adults in museums and the juveniles are rare. And half decent juveniles, there's maybe three or four in museums," Carr said. "They are that rare."

"So here’s what happened. About 66 million years ago, a juvenile T. rex  died, and its skeleton was on the side of the river and got buried by flooding and such, and the skeleton was all there in one place. 66 million years later, erosion took down all that rock," he explained. "And started to expose the bones at surface. It’s what Mason came across. Here’s the punch line, we’ve got bits of skull, teeth, backbone, leg, and ankle.  The ankle bone is not bleached, which suggests there is a really good chance there is more of this thing in the ground."

This summer, Carr will lead a team again to try and find the rest of the fossil.

There's just one catch.

The dig Carr says could be the Paleontology Institute's last.

"For the college to have turned its back on us the way that they have makes no sense," Carr said. "We don’t understand this at all. When that money runs out, that’s it."

In 2020, amidst campus wide cuts at Carthage College, the school stopped funding the institute's only other job besides director, the preparator position.

"I care a lot about the specimens that we bring back, preserving them for the future," said Seitz, who holds the position.

For the past four years, Seitz's job has been kept afloat by grants which are due to expire in weeks.

"We have the funding for the 2024 season, we don’t have anything else currently," Seitz said. "We have applications out, we’re trying to get the support we need. But if you had to ask me right now, it’s ending in August."

Without the preparator, a job which helps train students and volunteers as well as categorize and maintain the collection of fossils, Carr and Seitz say the institute is at risk of going extinct.

"Without the preparator, this room just becomes an empty room," Carr said.

Bones collected from Montana could stay in field jackets.

And Carr warns that without the position the entire collection could be at risk of being confiscated and moved.

"Since we collect on federal land, we are a federal repository. And a federal repository has to have a collection manager," he said. "And that’s what the preparator does, it maintains and conserves and categorizes this collection."

Carthage said they're proud of the program. In a statement, the school wrote:

"Carthage is proud of its paleontology track within our biology major. While it is one of our smaller specialty programs, Dr. Thomas Carr is a renowned vertebrate paleontologist who has provided students with one-of-a-kind experiences in the field, classroom, and lab for two decades.   The preparator position has supported Dr. Carr's research and has been fully funded by external grants since 2020. It is common for colleges and universities to rely on external funding to support research programs. For example, Carthage has a long-running and internationally recognized space sciences program that is entirely grant-funded. Carthage must carefully evaluate all expenses so we can continue to deliver transformative and affordable education to our students. That sometimes means making difficult choices about which positions to fund through the college vs. external resources. Our grants office continues to work with Dr. Carr to identify potential new grants so the preparator position can continue."

Carr said attempts to find funding elsewhere, like through the City of Kenosha, have also been unsuccessful. City leaders said they remain committed to the program.  

City administrator John Morrissey released this statement:

"The City of Kenosha has an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management and we (the museum) is the Federal Depository for any materials collected on the federal site that Dr. Carr has a permit for.  The City of Kenosha also has an agreement with Carthage College in reference to the Institute of Paleontology, not Dr. Carr.  We are continuing discussions with Carthage College to determine the future of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology. We continue to support the program and we are committed to the educational opportunities it presents."

Carr remains frustrated.

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"And no one will get to see Kenosha’s dinosaurs," he said. "They are just going to sit there."

With their future in doubt, the team says their work is not done.

"This may be our last field expedition, and for that reason, all of our resources will go towards this T. rex," Carr said.

But there will be one person who will not be traveling back to Montana.

"I’ve been looking for other jobs, I’m actually leaving next week," Seitz said.

After more than a decade with the institute, we spoke with Seitz on her last day working in Kenosha. She's accepted a job at a small museum in Colorado.

"It’s something I care a lot about," she said. "I’ve had nightmares where I come back, and the room is empty and nothing was ever done. I hope that doesn’t come true."

She's cheering on her colleagues, hoping for two big discoveries: a fossil and a way to fund its future.

"If there is a skeleton there, the whole crew will be on it," Carr said. "And we will bring that thing home."