'It became this really cool thing': Utah's long history with mammoths

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Utah's NHL team, named the Mammoth, highlights the state's rich mammoth history.
Mammoth history helped inspire the team's name, owner Ryan Smith said.
Scientists say mammoths last roamed Utah about 10,000 years ago, with fossils found all over the state.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's mammoth history became "daunting" as Smith Entertainment Group narrowed its search for a final hockey team name.

"Whether it was Lake Bonneville or Fairview, Utah, or Lake Powell — and the size of the mammoth and how fast they go — it became this really cool thing," team owner Ryan Smith explained.

This spiraled into Wednesday's announcement that Utah's NHL franchise will move forward as the Mammoth.

So, what is Utah's history with the large prehistoric creature?

Mammoth fossils have been collected all over Utah over the past few decades. The NHL team referenced this after the announcement, pointing out that fossils tied to the estimated 11-ton beast have been found from Bear Lake to Lake Powell and from Fillmore to Vernal.

One of the "best preserved" Columbian mammoth fossils was discovered just outside of Fairview, Sanpete County, in 1988, a fact that Gov. Spencer Cox — a Fairview native — proudly pointed out when Mammoth became a finalist for the NHL team name earlier this year.

These discoveries — and others across North America — have helped experts piece together their story.

Mammoths first made their way to Utah sometime after emigrating to North America from Asia, about 1.6 million years ago, as noted by the Utah Geological Survey. They slowly spread out as they adjusted to North America's changing climate, moving southward as the "enormous sheets of ice" formed in central and eastern Canada.

Freshwater lakes formed as glaciers rose and fell in the area of what is modern-day Utah, creating the perfect habitat for mammoths throughout most of the state's current boundaries.

"Habitats suitable for mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses and muskoxen were restricted to the margins of lakes and the periphery of mountain glaciers," the Utah Geological Survey wrote in a 1996 report. "Large ungulates that for generations had migrated with the seasons had to move along shorelines rather than across valleys."

However, climate disruptions ultimately contributed to the demise of many species. Utah gradually morphed into its desert climate toward the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many of the plants and animals that thrived in its old climate either died off or moved away; now, their fossils provide the only clues of their existence.

That includes the mammoth.

Experts still debate how the creature became extinct, but it's estimated that mammoths last roamed Utah about 10,000 years ago, the Natural History Museum of Utah noted in a piece five years ago. Palaeontologists still don't know if the changing climate or human hunting led to the species' final demise, said Tyler Faith, the museum's curator of anthropology, at the time.

But one thing's for sure with Wednesday's announcement: Mammoths are once again a key feature in Utah as it enters a new kind of ice age.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.