From lab to big screen: INE researcher featured in documentary film

About 180 people braved the snow on December 3, 2025, to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s premiere of the feature-length documentary “Mammoth Hunters” at Schaible Auditorium. 

The film showcases the—sometimes quite spirited—endeavors of a small group of people with a deep-seated passion for mammoths. Among the individuals featured is INE researcher and Alaska Stable Isotope Facility director Matthew Wooller.

Wooller, whose research uses stable isotopes to track the movement of animals such as mammoths, was tailed on-and-off for about 2.5 years by independent filmmaker Fritz Mueller at Sagafish Media, a production company based in Whitehorse Canada.

A large crowd gathered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Schaible Auditorium on December 3, 2025 for the screening of the full-length documentary "Mammoth Hunters."

The movie premiere was organized by the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility with support from INE and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Highlights of the event included free popcorn lovingly prepared, provided and served by College of Engineering and Mines dean Bill Schnabel and INE director Nicole Misarti.

A trailer of the Mammoth Hunters movie can be seen on Vimeo. Plans are afoot to stream the movie and hold additional screenings in the future. Stay tuned!

Wooller, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility were also featured in a new documentary series made by the BBC Natural History program on the Ice Age, which is available on Apple TV.

Image top: Matthew Wooller addresses the audience during the December 3, 2025 screening of Mammoth Hunters at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Schaible Auditorium.