News and Updates
Jan 2024 - Our group published a new paper showing the movements of a female mammoth who's remains were found in an archeological site in interior Alaska. It was featured on the front cover of the journal. the art was designed by Julius Csotonyi based on the findings from the study. Check out the story here. The story was covered by the media - check link here - including being reported on by the New York Times.
Nov 2023 - A Canadian Geogrpahic Article talks about our fascination with Mammoths and mentions the Adopt a Mammoth project here.
Oct 2023 - Mat gave a radio interview with Pamella Stagg (Host of The County, Naturally
99.3 County FM. The voice of the County, Ontario, Canada) about a recent team research trip aboard UAF's research vessel the Sikuliaq "hunting for mammoths" (and other evidence of the past Bering Land Bridge) in the Bering Sea. You can listen to the interview here. (photo credit JR Ancheta).
Sept 2023 - JR and Natalie prepared a neat video (see here) outlining our life and science on the research vessel Sikuliaq taking cores from what was the Bering Land Bridge and is now covered by ocean. This landscape was crossed by mammoths and some of the earliest people in the Americas.
Oct 24th 2023: Smithsonian Magazine released an article about our research on isotopes in mammoth tusks and tracking the movement patterns of mammoths.
August 25th 2023: USA Today posted an article about our Adopt a Mammoth project and collaboration with Colossal Bioscience.
Hunting for mammoths in the Bering Sea. During August 7th to September 7th 2023 Mat was out in the Bering sea with Dr. Bigelow, Dr. Maio and others on a research cruise led by Chief scientist Dr. Sarah Fowell. Actually we were hunting for more than just mammoths - we were coring sediments from what used to be the Bering Land Bridge that connected Alaska and Russia and is now submerged beneath the ocean. These cores will be analyzed for a wide range of things, including ancient DNA, which we hope will reveal where mammoths might have walked across from Russia to Alaska. Here is an amazing video of our life and work on UAF's research vessel Sikuliaq.
August 21st 2023: The Bakersfield Californian posted an article about our Adopt a Mammoth project and collaboration with Colossal Bioscience.
Lynn Marino and her husband visited their adopted mammoth (they had named "Bailey") in the collection at the Alaska Museum of the North this summer (2023).
Sept 2023 - UAF press release: The American Museum of Natural History launches a new exhibit on the Secret Lives of Elephants. Some of our research on mammoths is included in a display as part of this new exhibit.
African elephant on the move. Manoj Shah via Getty Images
Sept 2023
We just started a new 3-year NSF project using stable isotopes and ancient DNA to track the movement and ecology of Woolly Mammoths (Mammoth Arctic Pathways - MAPs) in Alaska. Check out the project link here.
Jan 28th the Adopt a Mammoth project and the Fairbanks Children's Museum teamed up at a "Super Saturday" event to celebrate the museum's birthday.
Meredith Maple (shown here), the museum's director, and the museum are fund raising to adopt their very own mammoth as part of the Adopt a Mammoth project! The mascot for the museum is "Wooly" the mammoth. Can we guess what their adopted mammoth might be called?
Dec 2022 "Mammoth in the classroom!" launches with support of Colossal and the UA Faculty Initiative Fund. https://www.juneauempire.com/news/uaf-partners-with-alaska-students-for-a-mammoth-of-a-project/
Nov 11th 2022 - Mat Wooller presented "Take a walk (and maybe even adopt) a Mammoth!" as a keynote talk at the Murdock Charitable Trust Northwest Schools Conference. Two students at the conference were awarded an 'adoption' as a prize at the end of the talk.
Oct 21st 2022 - Mat Wooller presented "Adopt a Mammoth and Win!" as a talk to the Institute of Arctic Biology seminar series. The adoption of a mammoth was raffled as a door prize for those people who attended in person.
Oct 17th 2022 - Project collaborator Nick Baker facilitated Mat's visit to two STEM classes at Randy Middle School in Fairbanks to talk about how we sample mammoth fossils. The group made some terrific noise and 'smells' - and had terrific time buzzing about mammoths. Left shows two students and Mat sampling a (no-data) tusk used as a teaching tool. Photo credit Nick Baker (parent permissions were obtained to use this photo)
Sept 11th 2022 - The Bioscience Company Colossal presented at UAF on the possibilities around de-extincting and rewilding mammoths.
Sept 2022 - Mat Wooller joined field work led by Dr. Chris Maio from UAF to visit St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea. He joined with Dr. Nancy Bigelow, Lindsey Smith and Harper Baldwin, all also from UAF. They all weathered one of the biggest storms in recent history and conducted further coring to help better characterize the environmental conditions surrounding the extinction of the most recent (5,600 years before present) mammoths in Alaska (not on the mainland - which is the focus of the Adopt a Mammoth Project).
Image: Top (below): Windy app image of the Sept 2022 storm in the Bering Sea. Next: A visit to the cave where mammoths remains had previously been found on St. Paul and a schematic cross section of the cave. Next: Nancy, Lindsey and Mat coring in the crater of an extinct volcano on St. Paul Island. Next: Mat in a hole at a study site on St Paul Island. Photo credits: M. Wooller 2022.
Sept 2022 - Mat Wooller joined field work led by Dr. Chris Maio from UAF to visit St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea. He joined with Dr. Nancy Bigelow, Lindsey Smith and Harper Baldwin, all also from UAF. They all weathered one of the biggest storms in recent history and conducted further coring to help better characterize the environmental conditions surrounding the extinction of the most recent (5,600 years before present) mammoths in Alaska (not on the mainland - which is the focus of the Adopt a Mammoth Project).
Image: Top: Windy app image of the Sept 2022 storm in the Bering Sea. Middle: Nancy, Lindsey and Mat coring in the crater of an extinct volcano on St. Paul Island. Bottom: Mat in a hole at a study site. Below: A visit to the cave where mammoths remains had previously been found on St. Paul and a schematic cross section of the cav. Photo credits: M. Wooller 2022.
Aug 2022 - UAF Chancellor White adopts the first mammoth.
Image: Chancellor White (left) and Mat (right) sample a mammoth skull in the University of Alaska Museum of the North (photo credit Eric Engman UAF)
Aug 25th 2022 - Adopt a woolly mammoth and win!
News Miner by Ned Rozell.