Alaska

Alaska's collectable material — mammoth tusk and bone, Pleistocene mammal remains from placer mines, Cretaceous invertebrates and plants, and the North Slope dinosaurs — is governed by land ownership more than anywhere else. Placer mines on private or Native corporation land yield the mammoth ivory that supplies the legal ivory trade; the miner or landowner owns it and sells it with a bill of sale. Native corporation and allotment land needs the corporation's or the allottee's permission.

State land is covered by the Alaska Historic Preservation Act (AS 41.35): historic, prehistoric and archaeological resources on state land are state property and excavation needs a permit from the Office of History and Archaeology; the Department of Natural Resources treats paleontological material as within that scope and requires a permit for fossil collection on state land. Verify locally: DNR's Division of Mining, Land and Water publishes what is allowed under the general recreational use of state land, and small surface finds are treated differently from digging.

Federal land is most of the state and follows the federal rules: casual collecting of common invertebrates and plants on BLM land, nothing in the national parks, preserves and wildlife refuges, and vertebrate material (including all Pleistocene bone and ivory on federal land) only by permit. The Colville River dinosaur sites are on BLM and Native land and are permit-only.

Mammoth and mastodon ivory from Alaska is legal to sell federally and in Alaska but is banned or restricted in New York, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Nevada, Illinois and others; walrus ivory is a Marine Mammal Protection Act item that only Alaska Natives may take and only in handicraft form may be sold to non-Natives. The record needs the mine, the landowner and the date.