In Chapter 8 "Nastier than Ebola," Stone examines extinction hypotheses based on the idea of a "hyperdisease" pathogen. Why were 75% of the species going extinct at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch megafaunal, when the proportion for the last five hundred years is only one in eight?
In Chapter 9 "The Big Lift," Stone introduces Larry Agenbroad, a geology professor who had worked with mammoths in South Dakota. Agenbroad had worked with Mol, who suggested him to be the American representative for a Siberian mammoth hunting trip to be filmed by the Discovery Channel in 1999.
In Chapter 10 "The DNA Menagerie," Stone continues his discussion on the difficulties of trying to clone a mammoth: cloned embryos suffer a high rate of miscarriage, and those brought to term suffer more birth defects. Stone also mentions other extinct species that may be candidates for cloning.
In Chapter 10 "Pleistocene Park," Stone introduces us to Sergei Zimov, a Russian who wishes to create Pleistocene Park, where mammoths and other cloned Pleistocene animals could live. In Chapter 11 "Into the Ice Cave," he describes the Discovery Channel expedition back to Siberia to retrieve the Jarkov mammoth discovered in 1999. This chapter is a bit anticlimactic. In the Epilogue, Stone recalls the main characters that he has introduced us to in the book, discussing their hopes and dreams for the future, despite the disappointments they have endured while mammoth hunting.
Also included are black and white photographs of different mammoth hunting expeditions in Siberia. At the end of the book are Suggested Readings for those wishing to learn more about mammoths, genetics, and other topics.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant. Stone's narrative kept me interested in the struggles of the mammoth hunters, their hopes to learn more about mammoth biology, and the possibility of cloning a mammoth. Although I would have liked for the book to end with a report of a successful mammoth cloning, we must wait for science to provide us with that. Perhaps there is still hope that we will someday see mammoths again grazing on the steppes of Russia.
