Sales of mammoth ivory should be banned, just like the sales of elephant ivory. Distinguishing mammoth ivory from elephant ivory is pretty hard and as a result sales of mammoth ivory can act as a cover for sales of illegal elephant ivory.
Can't help but think that this is one of the utterly bizarre and wide ranging consequences of extreme income disparity.<p>The original article is at [1] (they link to it, but it's kinda easy to miss); the post on Bored Panda does contain additional photos.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html</a>
I was suprised to see that none had commented on draining the possible genepool for Mammoth yet?<p>These "miners" are bound to reduce the available DNA for researchers that do work within this field, humans likely killed off the mammoth - if we brought it back it could serve to upkeep large quantities of open grounds (believe it or not but herds are important to grasslands and soilvalue).<p>Either there should be a larger rewards than the bones can offer and a get out of jail freecard for the offense if fresh DNA or what to is believed to be such is found (so that scientifical extraction is possible on site).<p>Or the regulation should be strengthened, both the governement and the criminal networks should realise what a potential goldmine living and breeding mammothherds could be for russia...
This is almost like improvised strip mining. The RFERL article states that one of these teams went through 5 tons of gasoline for the water pumps blasting that mud apart; it's obviously also a major investment that you may simply gamble away..
Josh Gates and crew went and documented this for an episode of Expedition Unknown [0]. I don't envy those guys, but I found the process fascinating.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/expedition-unknown/episodes/woolly-mammoth-part-2" rel="nofollow">http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/expedition-unknown/episod...</a>
Here's a link to the actual work - which is impressively presented - instead of this BoredPanda nonsense which is little more than bootleg theft.<p><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.rferl.org/a/the-mammoth-pirates/27939865.html</a>