The Mammoth Pirates

Amos Chapple (RFE/RL): With the sale of elephant tusks under close scrutiny, “ethical ivory” from the extinct woolly mammoth is now feeding an insatiable market in China. This rush on mammoth ivory is luring a fresh breed of miner – the tusker – into the Russian wilderness and creating dollar millionaires in some of the poorest villages of Siberia.

This 65-kilogram tusk, photographed a moment after it was plucked from the permafrost, was sold for $34,000. The two men who found it unearthed three more in just over a week, including one weighing 72 kilograms.

Some tuskers use the excavating power of the pressurized water to bore deep underground. Others carve enormous caverns under the frozen ground.

Triumphant tuskers, one flashing the “cash” gesture.

Ravaged landscape is the obvious result of the tusk hunters’ methods, but the impact on Yakutia’s waterways is far-reaching.

This young tusker converted the engine from a Soviet-era Buran snowmobile into a water pump.

Mosquitoes are a near constant plague. Only the coldest mornings offer an hour or two of relief.

See also

• Related news: China banning ivory trade in 2017 in ‘game changer’ move for Africa’s elephant
• Man wearing gas mask and sandals explores Fukushima’s Exclusion Zone — Takes time to check out 2011 porn.
• The most dangerous selfies ever taken — Rolling Stone hang out at the top of the world with Moscow’s death-defying ‘roofers’
• Movile Cave: The unique life isolated deep underground for 5.5 million years — Despite a complete absence of light and a poisonous atmosphere, the cave is crawling with life. There are unique spiders, scorpions, woodlice and centipedes, many never before seen by humans, and all of them owe their lives to a strange floating mat of bacteria.