Men Hunt For Mammoth Tusks In Remote Wilderness In Hopes Of Striking It Rich

Deep in the forests of the Yakutia region in Russia’s arctic north are a group of men hunting for objects rarer than gemstones and more valuable than gold. They are digging for the tusks of pre-historic mammoths.

Like gold prospectors of the past, these men are digging for a treasure that will make them wealthier beyond their wildest dreams. But the work is not only challenging it comes with high risk.

Photojournalist Amos Chapple visited these ‘pirates’, known as tuskers, and photographed their work, returning from the experience with an astounding story.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

In his photo essay with Radio Free Europe, The Mammoth Pirates, he explains that the rush on mammoth ivory is creating dollar millionaires in some of the poorest villages of Siberia. He gained exclusive access to accompany the tuskers on condition that he not reveal their names or exact locations, as their excavation methods are illegal yet incredibly profitable.

Chapple graciously provided Reshareworthy.com with permission to share his pictures and story.

“With the sale of elephant tusks under close scrutiny, ‘ethical ivory’ from the extinct woolly mammoth is now feeding much of China’s hunger for tusks,” Chapelle explains.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

Every summer, tusk hunters head out into the Russian wilderness in hopes of striking it rich. Along the bend of a river is a deposit of mammoth remains buried in the river’s edge and hills.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The mammoths likely drowned in what was once a swamp or bog.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The tuskers use water pumps (the same kind firefighters use) to suck water out of the river and blast it into the hillside, trying to dig through a layer of permafrost.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

Others dig long, deep tunnels in the soft soil. Chappelle calls the tunnels “terrifying” as the walls are as soft as garden soil.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The hoses can carve out underground caverns for the tuskers to search.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

Other use the hoses to blast away the top soil.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

They all are searching for the perfectly preserved mammoth tusk. Each is worth around $520 per kilogram.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

As Siberia’s Yakutia region is covered with permafrost, the frozen soil perfectly preserves the fossilized remains underneath.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

“This 65-kilogram tusk, photographed a few minutes 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.”

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The lucky tuskers flashing a “cash” gesture. They likely earned around $100,000 in eight days. In comparison, the average salary of a worker in the region is $500 a month.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

According to Chapple, in the tuskers’ hometown, elusive “agents” pay cash for fresh tusks and arrange them to be shipped to Asia. These plastic-wrapped tusks are on a flight to the city of Yakutsk, en route to China. When Chapple took a picture of them, the air stewardess yelled at him and slapped his camera out of his hand right after I took this photo.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The men uncover other remains than just mammoths. Here is a skull of a bison.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

And this skull, helping to prop up a kettle, is from a woolly rhinoceros.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

This rhino skull is above ground for the first time in at least 11,000 years. The man who found it says that “when you find a skull, the horn is usually 15 or 20 meters away.”

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The rhino horns are also valuable finds. “This 2.4-kilogram rhino horn was sold to an agent for $14,000. It will probably end up in Vietnam, be ground into powder and marketed as medicine,” says Chapple.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

But Chapple points out that for most tuskers, they will toil away in the mud for the entire summer and end up losing money.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

Despite their digging, most tuskers will only turn up worthless bones. Dr. Valery Platnikov, a paleontologist familiar with this tusking site, estimates “only around 20-30 percent [of tuskers] will make a profit. It’s very sad…A lot of these guys have taken out bank loans to pay for these expeditions.”

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

The men are often trying to evade police patrols as they are using illegal and environmentally destructive methods to retrieve the ivory from the mud.

 

 

To keep his expedition cheap, this young tusker converted the engine from a Soviet-era Buran snowmobile into a water pump.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

Camp life is rough. Most men spend the entire summer away from home and family.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

This tusker has just received a letter from his wife – the first news he’d had from her in a week.

Amos Chapple/RFE/RL

Most meals are canned beef and noodles. “This joint of reindeer is a rare treat.”

“Mosquitoes are a near constant plague,” says Chapple. “Only the coldest mornings offer an hour or two of relief.”

Beekeeping outfits are warn on warm days to protect from the bugs.

When booze arrives in camp it often brings chaos and sometimes misfortune.

“This memorial is for two young tuskers who made more than $100k, partied hard, then allegedly returned up the river drunk,” says Chapple. “They flipped their boat and drowned.”

The tuskers excavation methods are also taking its toll on the landscape, pouring silt into the river, choking and killing the fish.

One tusker told Chapple, “I know it’s bad, but what can I do? No work, lots of kids.”

Despite the high risk and impact on the environment, the number of tuskers in the Yakutia region is increasing every year, as others seek out the spectacular wealth that comes the ancient tusks.

The “gold rush” is likely to continue as the promise of wealth is too strong for the “tuskers” to ignore.

Photographs are the copyright of Amos Chapple and published on Reshareworthy.com with permission of Chapple.

You can visit Chapple on reddit here and see more of his amazing story here.

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