Three Tons Of Mammoth Tusks Confiscated By Authorities

I bet you didn't expect to see that headline in your daily SlashGear feed today. Yesterday in St. Petersberg Russia, Russian authorities have indeed found themselves confiscating no less than three tonnes of mammoth tusks from a gang of criminals who were attempting to smuggle them out of the country. Inside the cache this gang was transporting were a total of 64 full mammoth tusks and 14 reconstructed mammoth tusks, all of them originally belonging to mammoths inhabiting the Siberian Sakha Republic also known as Yakutia.

Incase you were wondering, yes, these are the same mammoths that have been extinct for 4,500 years. This small group of criminals had apparently been smuggling similar bones from extinct animals across Russia's border since 2004, though how many animals they moved and paleontologist Ross Geller was apparently unavailable for comment.

This isn't the first time a woolly mammoth has been mentioned on SlashGear, nor is it the first time it's been mentioned THIS MONTH believe it or not. Take a peek at a rather popular post from less than a week ago by the name of Scientist Aims to Bring a Woolly Mammoth to Life by 2016. Are the two events related? Probably not.

Also NOTE: the man you see in the image above's name is Allen West, who is working with National Geographic on a special called Mammoth Mystery. That show also has very little to do with the thieves in this post, but I do recommend checking it out if you love mammoths: [NatGeo]

[Via Reuters]