Ice and Ivory: the cryopolitics of mammoth de-extinction

Abstract

Woolly mammoth tusk hunting has become a black-market industry in the Siberian region of Yakutia, where thawing permafrost due to climate change is revealing the bodies of thousands of mammoths. They are often in a state of incredible preservation, and their accompanying tusks can be sold to China where they are carved into ornaments as a marker of status. Alongside tusk hunting, another potential industry has emerged: de-extinction. Many of the mammoths found on the tundra have potentially viable DNA that might be used to resurrect a mammoth through genetic technology. Mammoth de-extinction is a cryopolitical process – a focus on the preservation and production of life at a genetic level through cold storage. 'Cryobanks' have emerged as a way to safeguard endangered and extinct species' genetic material, and forms part of a turn towards pre-empting conservation crises during what some scholars are calling the 'sixth great extinction.' The mammoth's body is broken down into pieces – tusks form luxury commodity chains, whilst flesh and blood is parceled into frozen genes and cells. The mammoth in the freezer is indicative of a reorganization of cold life in a warming world, with the specific cryopolitics found in the cryobank an attempt at extending human control over planetary processes that are now seemingly out of control. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken at the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, Siberia, and at the Natural History Museum's cryobank in London, I follow the mammoth from permafrost, to freezer, to back outside, and consider how her de-extinction is a response to a particular sort of future crisis –that of our own extinction.

Political ecologies of extinction: from endpoint to inflection-point. Introduction to the Special Section

“…These are, and have long been, dialectically integrated, yet their specific relations have developed over time in ways that demand urgent research and conceptualization. This starts from the history of the 'discovery' of extinction by George Cuvier in the early 19 th century, as alluded to by Wrigley (2021). This was the time when the earth system was frantically mapped and studied and when it dawned on western savants that the earth was much older than previously presumed.…”

“…Indeed, there is such a rich field of research to be set up around the question of extinction that this Special Section only scratches the surface. Important areas for further research that the articles in this Special Section point at, amongst others, are the connections between extraction and conservation in relation to extinction (Le Billon, 2021;Nel, 2021;Meszaros Martin and Pedraza, 2021), the relation between new digital technologies and studying, knowing and understanding extinction processes (Kiggel, 2021), the relations between extinction, de-extinction and a broader cryo-politics of life (Wrigley, 2021), the relation between psycho-analytic dynamics and extinction (Koot, 2021), how biopower affects extinction and responses to it (Thakholi, 2021) and how extinction fears can in fact be profitable and conducive to, rather than an indictment of, contemporary capitalism (Büscher, 2021).…”

“…Charlotte Wrigley (2021) presents a detailed study of wooly mammoth hunting in Siberia to highlight two important ways in which extinct animals and their frozen remains become part of broader political economies. The first is through their tusks, which are sold to markets in China and elsewhere for ornamental use.…”

A female woolly mammoth’s lifetime movements end in an ancient Alaskan hunter-gatherer camp

“…Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), an iconic ice age species, are undergoing a cultural, scientific, and perhaps even literal renaissance stemming from new evidence of late-surviving populations (1)(2)(3)(4)(5), ongoing debate about the causes of their extinction (6)(7)(8)(9), and well-publicized efforts to "de-extinct" them (10,11). However, their behavior remains largely enigmatic, despite its importance to our growing interest in how mammoths survived, why they became extinct, and what they might need to live in our modern world if rewilded.…”

Discrimination of ivory from extant and extinct elephant species using Raman spectroscopy: A potential non-destructive technique for combating illegal wildlife trade

“…However, these ivory trade rules do not apply to extinct species such as mammoth ivory [ 1 ]. The trade of mammoth ivory is on the increase with the rise of ‘mammoth hunters’ undertaking expeditions through the Siberian arctic to harvest mammoth tusks for financial gain [ 2 ]. This activity has been made easier during recent years, as an increase in global temperatures has resulted in thawing of the permafrost [ 3 ], revealing almost perfectly preserved mammoth specimens during the summer months.…”