Kenya hominid's US trip sparks row

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

NAIROBI (AFP) — Plans to send Turkana Boy -- a unique hominid skeleton -- and other prehistoric jewels from Kenyan museums for exhibition in the United States have sparked heated debate among Kenya's scientific community.

The trip will bring in a much-needed windfall to Kenya's cash-strapped museums but the fossils' discoverers and researchers -- led by world-renowned Kenyan paleo-anthropologist Richard Leakey -- fear it could cause irreparable damage to the relics.

"We have government approval and will send the fossils to the Chicago Field Museum next year ready for the exhibition planned for 2009," National Museums of Kenya (NMK) director general Idle Omar Farah told AFP.

But Leakey's daughter Louise Leakey was among those who are outraged.

"It is...