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graveyard, Anderson sold the land at cost to the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, a nonprofit
corporation set up to let Agenbroad develop the graveyard.
SCIENTIST, SCHMIENTIST
“You don't need a Ph.D. to look at your watch and say the monkey has been sleep-
ing for 10 minutes.”
—Alison Jolly, a Princeton primatologist who since 1983 has been using Earth-
watch volunteers to study lemurs in Madagascar
Some scientists scoff at the idea of using unpaid volunteers who walk in off the
street. According to Dr. Larry Agenbroad, professor emeritus of geology at North-
ern Arizona University and principal investigator for the Hot Springs mammoth dig,
however, volunteers are extremely motivated. And because they're afraid to do any-
thing wrong, they pay strict attention to his instructions, something that can't always
be said for grad students.
“My colleagues used to give me a lot of flak about [using volunteers],” Agen-
broad says, “but after picking crews every way you can—grade point average, ex-
perience, degrees—I'm happy with the volunteers.”
Some scientists claim volunteer funding is better than government funding.
“You don't have political people breathing down your neck, and you can do
whatever you damn please,” says Harold Edgerton, an MIT emeritus professor who
is now on the Earthwatch board of advisors.
Jane Phillips-Conroy, who studies baboons in Ethiopia, says volunteers some-
times teach her a thing or two. The best tooth casts she ever collected were made by
a dentist who volunteered for the expedition.
So agree with the volunteer concept or not—no one can argue with the results.
Since Earthwatch was started in 1971, the research the volunteers have contributed
has resulted in 12 new national parks and reserves, hundreds of new species dis-
