Mining Mammoths

By Katarzyna Nowak, Safina Center Fellow

I used to live in East Africa where I was involved in elephant conservation efforts. Eventually I moved to the Yukon, Canada, to do environmental work. I thought I’d moved away from the ivory trade. But ivory and gold intersect in the Yukon when miners quest for gold and hit on bone: that of mammoths that once roamed Beringia. 

These wooly giants wielded their mighty tusks—in competition, in defense, in feeding. These same tusks lay buried for thousands of years, rendered fossils. These same tusks are being unearthed now and leaving their burial and origin place. 

Mining activity in the Indian River watershed near Quartz Creek. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd / CPAWS Yukon

According to a 2013 report about the “resources” of the Yukon’s Dawson region, “the Klondike placer mines are Canada’s most productive source of fossil mammoth ivory.” Placer miners’ finds in Dawson have drawn substantial paleontological activity and contributed to scientific knowledge, and, according to a decade-old article in the Yukon News, the Yukon government has encouraged placer miners to donate the mammoth ivory they find to science. However, authorities concede that, “We also know that the opportunity to make extra income from the illegal trade in fossils such as mammoth ivory (valued as much as $1000 per kilogram in Asian markets) may occasionally be too tempting.” 

Elephant ivory stained to make it appear antique, held by USFWS wildlife inspector during a detection dog training session in Anchorage airport. Photo: Katarzyna Nowak

Yukon-based Debborah Donnelly explains that, "As an archaeologist and a certified gemologist I see two major problems with the digging up and selling of fossilized ivory by miners: the destruction of context and loss of scientific knowledge that would otherwise be gained by proper excavation of sites; and, the sale of fossilized ivory which just continues to feed the demand for ivory (fossilized or not)."

Outside of what historically constitutes the Klondike goldfields, the Yukon government has relatively little paleontological information. These inventory gaps contribute to a lack of paleontological regulations under the Heritage Resources Act and thwart enforcement of compliance by industry, possibly helping beget a “substantial unregulated commercial trade in fossils from the Klondike region” reports say.

In a recent “What We Heard report” summarizing the Yukon’s public submissions on an evolving mineral development strategy, concerns were raised about miners dispossessing the Yukon of its mammoth ivory. Such removal of mammoth ivory goes against the principles of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) First Nation, who, along with the Yukon government, has entitlement to all paleontological objects unearthed by miners in the Dawson region (TH’s traditional territory). 

Mining activity in the Indian River watershed near Quartz Creek. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd / CPAWS Yukon

“The illegal export and sale of fossil mammoth ivory deprives the Yukon of objects of cultural, scientific and historic significance and value, as well as potential monetary revenue, and undermines TH’s responsibilities as stewards of the land,” says the report.

A new mining regime would ideally prohibit the illegal excavation, export and sale of fossil mammoth ivory by miners. And a communications campaign—about the cultural, scientific and historical importance of mammoth ivory—would be beneficial.

Some might see gold and ivory as inert. But, as Donnelly points out, mammoth ivory can provide cover for trade in ivory of mammoth’s living relatives, the elephants, and, as Donnelly’s colleagues at the Yukon Conservation Society emphasize, gold mining leaves habitats like wetlands forever transformed. 

I admit to not thinking much about ivory and gold together until hearing Robin Wall Kimmerer, in a conversation with Robert Macfarlane for Emergence Magazine, convey powerfully the importance of consuming with honor. In doing this, we are obliged to remember how much ivory has historically been sourced from poached elephants and that gold continues to be extracted from living land, too often to the detriment of Indigenous peoples, healthy ecosystems and wildlife.

History warns us: in 40 tons of cargo found in a Portuguese ship that sunk in the 1530s, among hundreds of gold coins and other “treasure” were more than 100 elephant tusks. More than ten years since the ship’s cargo was recovered, we are now learning—thanks to the detective work of a multidisciplinary group of scientists—that the tusks came from a lineage of West African elephants. This lineage has since been wiped out.

In today’s world on the brink, can we consume with more honor?