The Mammoth Pirates

[727Sky]

http://www.rferl.org/fullinfographics/in...39865.html
Absolutely beautiful pictures at the above link:
With the ban on Ivory some enterprising Russians have found a way of getting rich while really causing a muddy mess. They are using high pressure water pumps to find Mammoth tusk that have been buried in the permafrost for several thousand years. Click the link for the many pictures and for a detailed description of their methods , the money, the life, and the damage. The blasted Mosquitoes would be enough to drive off all but the most hardy IMO.

By Amos Chapple

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.

One 65-kilogram tusk was sold for $34,000 and the same 2 guys found three more tusk..

They are also finding woolly rhinoceros skulls and if they are lucky the horn which can bring around $14,000 in parts of S.E. Asia.... However most will spend their summers excavating only to return empty handed....

Because the area villagers are very poor many used borrowed money to buy the water pumps for their digs... It might get very interesting when the loans are called depending on where they got their money from ?

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

At the end of the valley, this stream, thick with runoff from the tuskers' hoses, runs straight into the river. In a region famed for its fish, the men working this site now don’t bother to take fishing rods.

[senona]

Wow, how intriguing

To be honest tho, figured a mammoth tusk would sell for more, you know.... considering how old it is.
But at least they are leaving the elephants alone, more or less.

...to nozzles that the prospectors blast straight at the landscape.

The density of animal remains at this site suggests it was once a swamp or bog that swallowed up prehistoric animals.

Oh dear, sounds like global warming happened. /sarcasm

When will people accept the natural climatic cycles for what they are.



Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
Will bookmark so I can read over it some more.

[guohua]

That is just WRONG!
Reminds my husband of pictures he's seen of the Old Gold Rush days in California, they used water cannon to blast away at hills and mountains.
The river must be choked with mud and silt and other debri.

[senona]

That is just WRONG!
Reminds my husband of pictures he's seen of the Old Gold Rush days in California, they used water cannon to blast away at hills and mountains.
The river must be choked with mud and silt and other debri.

True that --how they do it by way of destroying the mountains is horrible.
Ruining the landscape.