If Françoise and Jacques Hurtrelle had not been able to satisfy their passion for collecting fossils for ten years at the foot of the cliffs of Cricqueboeuf, on the Côte Fleurie, between Deauville and Honfleur, science would undoubtedly have missed a crustacean unknown prehistoric.
“If we hadn't been there, everything would have been destroyed,” slips the retiree, passionate about paleontology, who gave his name to the crustacean named after his own family name
Meyeria hurtrelleorum
.
However, a project to classify the Vaches Noires cliffs as a nature reserve, in Villers-sur-Mer, would have the indirect consequence of purely and simply prohibiting the collection of fossils by amateurs.
The Paléospace museum, which recovered the Hurtrelle fossil collection, has been up in arms against this measure for several months.
He has just published a column to explain the importance of collection by small hands who, very often, bring their finds back to the establishment.
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The title of the column sums up the message very clearly: “Collecting is preserving”.
“The people on the strikes are our eyes.
So we are not very favorable to these stories of nature reserves where exemptions are required to collect... By the time we warn, everything will be destroyed.
The sea cleans, breaks and everything becomes sand if it is not collected,” explains Laurent Picot, the director of the museum.
The Paléospace welcomed with undisguised pleasure, in mid-February, the scientific study published on the incredible collection of 800 fossils amassed by the Hurtrelle couple.
Not to mention this discovery of an unknown crustacean.
“The free collection of fossils is decisive for science, for French museums like ours, to continue our mission of transmitting knowledge,” asserts Karine Boutillier, the director.
“Those who govern us prefer that the sea destroys fossils rather than collecting them”
Jacques Hurtrelle, amateur fossil hunter
And to remind that collecting “does not feature in the museum’s missions.
Our collections were built up thanks to regular donations.”
The Vaches Noires cliffs, exposed to erosion, regularly release fossils... in the swirl of the tides, even storms.
“We cannot copy the operation of other nature reserves here, on the seafront,” continues the director.
Paléospace also pays tribute to its main donors on its website.
The latter are also angry against the future provisions on collection.
Jacques Hurtrelle was the first to be outraged: “forbidding kids to collect fossils in Villers is nonsense, it’s even unbearable to think about it.
Those who govern us prefer that the sea destroys fossils rather than collecting them.
It is unacceptable ".
The release of the decree on the nature reserve is long overdue.
The museum and the scientific community are trying to challenge the State so that the ban on amateur fossil collecting is not included.
In the meantime, a prehistoric fish has sprung from the cliffs, found and donated to the museum by… an amateur.