Extinct Animals Research: Woolly Mammoth
We have learned much about the Woolly Mammoth almost more than any other
dinosaur that has been identified. Due to the fact that the Woolly Mammoth so closely
resembles today's elephants, care for them would most probably require most of the same
factors to keep it alive. Since the Woolly Mammoth has been extinct for 4000 years, it is
difficult to tell exactly what they lived on, but we can hypothesize.
The Woolly Mammoth lived during the Ice Age, so if alive today, it must be kept
in a tundra environment. For food, only basic tundra vegetation is necessary. Due to the
thick pelt that the Woolly Mammoth has, any known Ice Age temperatures would suffice
since the thick fur protects the animal in any extreme temperatures.
Large enclosures would not be needed as they would be for a normal elephant
since the Woolly Mammoth is only three meters high.
English: Woolly mammoth restoration at the Royal B...
English: Mammuthus primigenius hair. From the mamo...
12.500 year old Atlatl from France, carved as a wo...The huge tusks would allow it to
scavenge for its own food, so no special feedings would be necessary. Feedings would
also be needed on a less frequent basis since the Woolly Mammoth, much like today's
camels, keeps under its sloping back a thick layer of blubber as nutrition when food was
not needed.
The problem in keeping a creature such as the Woolly Mammoth in a zoo-like
surrounding would be poachers. Due to the endangerment of such a magnificent species,
poachers of pelts and ivory would most certainly be after it's huge tusks and thick furs, so
it would be necessary to post guards around it's cage at all times.
A large-scale habitat would be constructed for this creature since, during the
period it lived, the Pleistocene, there were no restrictions on the places it could roam to.
There was nothing stopping this...