Did the tribe that was doing the element vein go up to the main center vein at the beginning, hold 'E' on it and select 'Claim' before doing the vein protection?
You have to be there to render it in almost immediately after it is tamed otherwise the game registers at as 0 hours 0 minutes left until it autodecays
If its happening on genesis, do the hunt for the Gold nuggets mission that is in the Arctic
Can't remember what it's called but it does give you quite a bit of meat and hide