JENSEN, Uintah County — Federal land managers say someone illegally installed climbing bolts that damaged a prehistoric petroglyph panel, and now, they’re seeking help as they investigate the case.
The damage was found at the Pregnant Sheep panel between Bourdette Draw and U.S. 40 near the Musket Shot Springs Overlook, east of Jensen, in Uintah County. It was first reported to the Bureau of Land Management’s Vernal office on Nov. 10, but both the agency and the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office asked for the public’s help on Thursday after officers exhausted all leads.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call bureau law enforcement at either 800-722-3998 or 801-539-4099.
The age of the petroglyph isn’t clear, but Utah is home to many left by Indigenous people hundreds to thousands of years ago. They’re protected by state and federal laws, including the Archeological Resource Protection Act.
It was also unclear how significant the damage was. However, experts explained earlier this month that damage by scraping or cutting into rock is often difficult to completely restore.
“When you’re scratching the rock like that, you’re physically removing some of the pieces of rock,” said Elizabeth Hora, state archaeologist for the Utah State Historic Preservation Office. “A lot of the visual effect of that is actually from the dust that is released, so we can remove the dust — we can fix that — but you can’t put the rock back.”
She spoke about petroglyph preservation and damage restoration after a November land vandalism case involving petroglyphs believed to be 3,000 to 5,000 years old in Kane County, which happened about two weeks after the Uintah County damage was discovered.
A woman was ultimately arrested in that case, but bureau officials and other experts said there are often many cases of damaged or destroyed petroglyphs in Utah every year. They believe many cases involve people who do not understand what they’re doing is illegal or damaging.
Either way, every case is “disrespectful” to the state’s tribal people, said Autumn Gillard, the cultural resource manager for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. She explained that petroglyphs are sacred spaces for Native Americans.
“For us, as tribal people, these are our churches,” she said earlier this month. “When folks go in and they vandalize panels, or they vandalize cultural sites, we correlate it to the same thing as if somebody was to go into a temple or a religious space and were to write graffiti all over it or to write their name all over it.”
