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Thursday, Jan 3, 2013 10:15 PM UTC

Peru moving to protect fossils from car race

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Topics: From the Wires,

Peru moving to protect fossils from car raceCrew members begin to ready their vehicles for technical and administrative checks to compete in the 2013 edition of the Dakar Rally in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. The rally will feature over 400 vehicles including cars, bikes, trucks and quads and will cover more than 5,000 miles. The race begins on Jan. 5 in Lima, replacing Mar de Plata, Argentina as the starting point, and finishes in Santiago, Chile on Jan. 20. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)(Credit: AP)

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Culture Ministry says the government is taking steps to protect one of the world’s largest fossil deposits from being damaged by this year’s Dakar Rally.

It’s the second year that the long-distance race involving hundreds of cars and motorbikes has included Peru. The race begins Saturday and will cross into Chile and Argentina before ending Jan. 20.

Klaus Honninger is director of the private Meyer-Honninger Paleontological Museum in Peru. He calls the race an “enormous danger” for the Ocucaje fossil zone in Peru’s Ica region, which is home to fossils of whales, dolphins, penguins and other animals.

Honninger says spectators at last year’s rally dumped tons of trash in the desert and some people reportedly used whale fossil vertebrae as benches. Some autos crushed fossils in their path.

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