ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

A theft of mammoth proportions: US agency seeks stolen woolly tusk

ANCHORAGE, Alaska

A federal agency wants its woolly mammoth tusk back.

The Bureau of Land Management in Alaska on June 19 asked the public’s help in recovering an approximately 10,000-year-old tusk stolen from the Campbell Creek Science Center, an interpretive center in east Anchorage.

The woolly mammoth is Alaska’s official state fossil. The tusk was on display when the center was burglarized March 8. Anchorage police say a thief broke in through a window and took only the tusk, which weighs 100 pounds.

The curved tusk is dark- and light-brown, mottled and about 5.5 feet long. The tusk is 8 inches in diameter on the large end and 6 inches in diameter at the narrow end.

BLM spokeswoman Maureen Clark said the tusk was one of several found in the mid-1980s near the Colville River, which flows into the Arctic Ocean north of the Brooks Range.

Pat Druckenmiller, earth sciences curator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, said mammoths generally died out at the end of the Pleistocene Era 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. A few survived on islands such as Wrangel Island off northeast Siberia until about 4,000 years ago, he said.

The legal sale of a mammoth tusk depends on whether it’s found on private land. A property owner may sell tusks found on their land. Tusks cannot be sold if found on state or federal land.

Druckenmiller said he’s not qualified to say how much a tusk could fetch and he’s only interested in their scientific value.

“But I’m not naive. There’s a market for them. The do sell and they’re either used for display as is at home, or there’s a thriving trade that carves mammoth ivory,” he said.

The BLM is offering a $500 reward for the return of its tusk.

Video shows officers singing patriotic tune in ‘Cop Pool Karaoke’

BOSTON

Two Boston police officers are showing that America is the land that they love with their Fourth of July version of “Carpool Karaoke.”

In what they’re calling “Cop Pool Karaoke,” Officers Stephen McNulty and Kim Tavares discuss the Fourth of July holiday on the video before belting out a stirring rendition of “God Bless America.”

The officers talk about the holiday and how it’s fun to fire cannons over the city’s Charles River ... legally.

The video is a spoof of “Carpool Karaoke,” a segment on the “Late Late Show with James Corden,” where musical guests join Corden for a joyride as they sing along to their songs.

Associated Press