NM: Tracking Bigfoot (via Chad Arment)

SANOSTEE — There's only one rule when it comes to hunting for Bigfoot: Don't.

Whether you call it Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Skookums or one of the more than 60 names American Indian tribes have given the legendary beast, the harder you look, the less likely it is you'll find him, said Frank Smith, supervisor of the Sanostee Senior Center and keeper of tales from the various recent sightings.

"If you look for it, you never see it," Smith said Wednesday. "You have to be in the right place at the right time. Or maybe it's the wrong place at the right time."

The lunchtime conversation Wednesday at the senior center briefly turned to Bigfoot. The topic got smiles, chuckles and the occasional knowing smile. Many don't believe the stories of sightings, but a few swear they have seen the creature firsthand.

They are not alone.

Mobile photo messages, emails and word-of-mouth stories have circulated the northeastern chapters of the Navajo Nation in recent months. Some photos show giant footprints in the snow or mud; others show shadowy figures at water's edge or among trees.

All of the accounts are similar: a hulking, hairy figure is sighted standing or walking upright, leaving giant footprints in the earth and spooking animals and humans. Other reports tell more gruesome tales of slaughtered or missing livestock.

But the particulars of each story vary as much as the people who tell them.

Raymond Peter, of Sanostee, remembers the first time he encountered Bigfoot. 

A sheepherder, Peter was in the Chuska Mountains at about 5 p.m. on July 4, 2009.

"First, my dog Stookie started to growl," Peter said through an interpreter. "I looked to where the dog was growling. Bigfoot didn't see me, but I saw Bigfoot."

Gesturing with his tattered NYC baseball cap, Peter indicated the creature was 8 or 9 feet tall, gray in color and about a quarter of a mile away.

"I could smell him," he said. "He really stinks, like it doesn't take a shower."

The creature was walking among the trees, heading west, Peter said. His face was covered in "shaggy hair" and his legs were "big, like tree stumps."

After the creature left, Peter said he found giant footprints in the damp earth.

"I didn't have a gun," he said. "After I saw that, I didn't want to be there anymore."

Bigfoot sightings on the Navajo Nation are not uncommon, especially on the pinion- and juniper-covered Chuska Mountains that frame the Sanostee community and tower over portions of the Nation in New Mexico and Arizona. Sheepherders often camp high in the mountains during the summer with their livestock.

The mountains have become prime Bigfoot hunting grounds even for outside experts. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization sent a team in October 2002 to the Chuska Mountains to investigate reports of sightings.

Armed with scented bait as well as tracking and recording equipment, the team spent five days camping in the mountains and searching for evidence of Bigfoot.

"With only four full days to spend there, we were limited in what we could accomplish and, like everyone else who looks for this creature, we were surrounded by thousands of square miles of forested mountains, valleys, canyons and it could be anywhere," team members wrote in an online report.

"We chose to rely mainly upon finding tracks as a way of detecting the presence of Sasquatches," the team wrote. "That was possible because of a characteristic of the Chuska Mountains that is surprisingly rare; instead of being hard and rocky, the ground is covered by rich, soft topsoil that takes tracks extraordinarily well."

The team did not find any evidence linked to Sasquatch, but after researching the mountains, the team found that the likelihood of meeting Sasquatch face-to-face was very low.

Based on the assumption that Sasquatch lives in black bear country, it is likely that the creature dwells in the Chuska Mountains, the organization found. The estimated population of black bears in North America around the time the team visited the Navajo Nation was about 685,000.

"Even using a generous estimate of 10,000 Sasquatches in North America, it would mean that for each Sasquatch, there are at least 68 bears," the team wrote in its report. "So, at best, in the Chuskas with 300 bears, there could have been 4.4 Sasquatches, and for us to have any real expectation of seeing one of those Sasquatches during our four days in the Chuskas we would have had to see at least 68 bears.

"We didn't see any bears (we saw one fresh track and one bear dropping). And if the North American Sasquatch population is around 1,000, we would have needed to see about 685 bears before having a statistical chance of seeing a Sasquatch," the report states.

"The same reasoning applies to finding the tracks of the two animals," the team found.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, when reached by email this week, confirmed it was familiar with the Chuska Mountains. The organization did not immediately respond to a request for a phone interview.

The organization was founded in 1995 and is touted as the only scientific research organization exploring the Bigfoot mystery.

Most consider Bigfoot to be a large, hairy, bipedal non-human primate distributed across North America, though the concentration varies greatly. Staffed by a group of stanch believers, the organization describes the beast as a creature unlike any other.

"Its massiveness, deviation from human bearing and different gait leave no doubt in the mind of observers that they have seen a creature different from man or known animals," the organization's website states.

A handful of Sanostee residents agree with that description. They are the few who claim encounters with Bigfoot, despite what doubters may say.

"I know what people think," Peter said. "People don't believe until they see it."

Reported sightings of Bigfoot on the Nation come in waves. Historically speaking, dozens of sightings were reported in 1973. Another wave of reports of strange phenomena came in 1989.

More recent sightings were reported in January 2011, November 2011 and last month, Smith said. Those sightings range from actual views of the big animal to footprints left in mud or fresh snow.

And some residents believe Bigfoot had a presence in the area even in prehistoric times.

Carved into the bluffs north of Sanostee are etchings reminiscent of the big creature. Although no records exist to indicate when the pictures were formed or who made them, some locals point to them as further evidence that Bigfoot roams these hills.

Some of the pictures show giant figures with oversized hands and feet with six toes. Other pictures are simply enormous footprints.

Sanostee resident Jerry Lewis said he recently saw Bigfoot in the Chuskas when he took his horse and donkey into the mountains.

"My animals froze and I saw the thing walk over the hill," Lewis said through an interpreter. "It was taller than 8 or 9 feet, taller than the bushes, upright and hairy."

Lewis also observed holes punched into the ice in his livestock trough holes that looked like they were made by a fist.

Seeing Bigfoot may not be a good thing, however, Lewis said. Navajo legend states that when such creatures start coming back, it's an indication that the end of the world is near.

"Things that are happening now are things we learned about," Lewis said. "Once people know how everything works, when there's nothing else to learn, some of these creatures start coming back."

Smith, however, takes a lighter view of Bigfoot. Although he believes some of the stories, he doesn't think the beast is a threat.

"I feel like it's probably hanging around here," he said. "To me, from all the stories I've heard, he's afraid of humans. Maybe he thinks we look funny, too."

http://www.daily-times.com/ci_19895147

Lone Gray Wolf On The Move

A lone gray wolf, fitted with a GPS collar by Oregon Department of Fish and Game, has been tracked crossing into northern California, report biologists from the golden state.

The two and a half year-old male wolf was fitted with the collar in Oregon last February and has been tracked wandering more than 300 miles from its original location. Its movement into California was widely anticipated as it approached the border just before Christmas, ABC News reports.

Department of Fish and Game Director Charlton H. Bonham released a statement saying, “Whether one is for it or against it, the entry of this lone wolf into California is a historic event and result of much work by the wildlife agencies in the West. If the gray wolf does establish a population in California, there will be much more work to do here.”

Gray wolves are a designated a federally endangered species and there is conflict between wolves and ranchers across western states as the animals are reintroduced into wilderness areas.

Whether the wolf will remain in California or wander back to Oregon or on to Nevada is not known, it is typical for young male wolves to wander.

California authorities expect a slow wolf migration in the future after the 1995 introduction of a Canadian gray wolf pack to Idaho and areas around Yellowstone National Park. Wolves first re-entered Oregon in 1999.

New packs could become established if more wolves migrate, “If the gray wolf does establish a population in California, there will be much more work to do here,” Bonham said.

Any gray wolf that returns to California is protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Based on experience from states where substantial wolf populations exist, officials said, wolves pose little risk to humans, however the Department of Fish and Game recommends that people never approach or feed a wolf, reports Cathy Locke for the Sacramento Bee.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112447431/lone-gray-wolf-on-the-move/

Drones used to track Japan whaling fleet

Anti-whaling activists' drone tracks Japan fleet

Anti-whaling activists intercepted Japan's harpoon fleet far north of Antarctic waters on Sunday, they said, with the help of a military-style drone.


Sea Shepherd Conservation Society spokesman Paul Watson said the unmanned long-range drone, launched from the anti-whaling ship the Steve Irwin, had located the Japanese fleet and relayed the coordinates back to the activists.

Watson said Sea Shepherd, a militant activist group which regularly shadows and harasses the Japanese whalers, had caught up with the fleet at 37 degrees south, 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) above Antarctic waters.

No whales had been killed so far, he added.

"This is going to be a long hard pursuit from here to the coast of Antarctica," said Watson.

"But thanks to these drones, we now have an advantage we have never had before -- eyes in the sky."

Three Japanese security vessels were tailing the Steve Irwin to prevent it from following the Nisshin Maru factory ship, Watson said.

But he said the activists had established the upper hand with their two drones, donated by Moran Office of Maritime and Port Security (MOMPS), a private US firm.

Fitted with cameras and detection equipment, the drones have previously been used to combat bluefin tuna poaching off Libya.

Unmanned aircraft are most notably used by US forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Sea Shepherd drones were developed by New Jersey-based MOMPS, which is described as working to enforce international maritime and fisheries rules and "helping to prevent acts of terrorism and piracy worldwide".

Watson said: "We can cover hundreds of miles with these drones and they have proven to be valuable assets for this campaign."

While the Steve Irwin was being tailed by the harpooners' security detail he said Sea Shepherd's other vessels the Bob Barker and Brigitte Bardot -- which can travel faster than the whalers -- were free to chase the Japanese south.

Commercial whaling is banned under an international treaty but Japan has since 1987 used a loophole to carry out "lethal research" in the name of science -- a practice condemned by environmentalists and anti-whaling nations.

Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the Netherlands issued a joint statement earlier this month expressing their "disappointment" at the annual hunt and warning against violent encounters.

Confrontations with the increasingly sophisticated Sea Shepherd group have escalated in recent years, with one clash sinking an activist powerboat and a protester arrested for boarding a Japanese ship.

Sea Shepherd harassment saw the Japanese cut their hunt short last season, and they are now suing the activists in Washington seeking an injunction against what they say is a "life-threatening" campaign.

Japan's coastguard has deployed an unspecified number of vessels to protect the whaling ships, and Tokyo has confirmed it will use some of the public funds earmarked for tsunami reconstruction to boost security for the hunt.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/anti-whaling-activists-drone-track-japan-fleet-011629785.html

Elephant seal travels 18,000 miles in 11 months

Wide ranging nomadic existence
December 2011. An elephant seal, fitted with a satellite tracking device by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), was tracked travelling an astonishing 18,000 miles in 11 months.

WCS tracked the male seal from December, 2010, to November, 2011. The animal - nicknamed Jackson - was tagged on the beach in Admiralty Sound in Tierra del Fuego in southern Chile. WCS conservationists fitted Jackson with a small satellite transmitter that recorded his exact location when he surfaced to breathe.

Nomadic existence
Jackson swam 1,000 miles north, 400 miles west, and 100 miles south from the original tagging location, meandering through fjords and venturing past the continental shelf as he foraged for fish and squid. During this tracking, the WCS team analyzed the data to better understand elephant seal migratory routes.

Elephant seals are potential indicators of the health of marine ecosystems and may show how climate change influences the distribution of prey species that serve as the basis of Patagonia's rich marine ecosystem. To protect this vast region, conservationists need to know how wildlife uses it throughout the year.

Clues to sustainability
"Jackson's travels provide a roadmap of how elephant seals use the Patagonian Coast and its associated seas," said Caleb McClennen, WCS Director for Global Marine Programs. "This information is vital to improving ocean management in the region, helping establish protected areas in the right places, and ensuring fisheries are managed sustainably without harming vulnerable marine species like the southern elephant seal."

The information WCS gathers will serve as a foundation for a new model of private-public, terrestrial-marine conservation of the Admiralty Sound, Karukinka Natural Park (a WCS private protected area), and Alberto de Agostini National Park. It will help build a broader vision for bolstering conservation efforts across the Patagonian Sea and coast.


Read more here ...

The wolverines that float on snow

Eight-year tracking programme reveals more about mysterious species

December 2011: Born during February in snow-caves at 9,000 feet on the north slope of craggy peaks in the Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone's wolverines are tough.

Now experts at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are revealing more about this mysterious and awe-inspiring species.

Eight years of capturing and radio-tracking the elusive wolverine revealed that adults live year-round in the high mountains, near the alpine tree-line, and inhabit some of the west's most remote and rugged terrain. Amazingly, the home range of an individual male can more than 500 square miles.

The winter endurance athletes of the animal world
‘Not only do they use an area even larger than a grizzly bear does,' said Kurt Alt, a coauthor with Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, ‘they cover their territory on a fairly regular basis to scent mark it and defend it from other wolverines.'

The wolverine's capability for movement is stunning. Their large feet allow them to float on top of deep snow, and they were documented making winter traverses from one side of the massive Teton Range in Wyoming to the other in just a few hours.

‘They are the winter endurance athletes of the animal world,' said Steve Cain of the National Park Service. ‘We were impressed by their constant movements across large areas of snow-covered and incredibly rugged terrain.'

But covering this terrain comes with its risks, as two of the radio-collared wolverines were killed in avalanches.

One wolverine travelled more than 500 miles
Another wolverine travelled more than 500 miles from near Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. This was the first documented wolverine in Colorado in almost a century. Other young wolverines regularly moved 100 miles or more searching for their own territory.

While bears are hibernating and most ungulates and their predators have moved to low elevation wintering ranges, the wolverine patrols a vast, frozen territory, looking for scraps of meat that they cache under boulders and snow.'

‘We learned that wolverines are adapted to eke out a living in very harsh conditions,' said Robert Inman, conservationist for the WCS. ‘As a result, they naturally exist in low numbers and reproduce slowly.'

The wolverine's reputation as a fierce competitor was also affirmed during the study. One individual challenged a bear probably ten times his size over an elk carcass.


http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/wolverine-yellowstone.html