Woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses (primarily in the Siberian part of Beringia), horses, steppe bison, caribou, musk oxen, saiga antelope, and a range of smaller herbivores were all present in the Beringian landscape.

The bones of these animals, found in abundance in the permafrost-preserved deposits of the region, attest to the richness of the large-animal fauna that a human population could exploit.

The Bluefish Caves cut-marked bones include specimens from horses — the same species of Ice Age horse, Equus caballus lambei, that would eventually go extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene — and from caribou, Rangifer tarandus, which is still present in the Yukon today.

The selection of these species for butchery reflects the specific large herbivores that were most available in the eastern Beringian landscape.