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You asked honestly, and seriously, so here is my assessment of the situation concerning bigfoot…
In my experience, there is no such thing as bigfoot, and I have seen absolutely no evidence that would convince me of the presence of an ape living in the woods. The few tracks people have shown me that they said were certifiably bigfoot tracks were nothing more than muddled bear tracks. Strange sounds in the woods, said to be bigfoot “Mating calls” were nothing more than trees rubbing together in the wind, producing strange groaning and screeching noises.
From a biologist who studies wildlife, I find it impossible to believe that there is a self-sustaining, breeding population of large hominid that thrives in the backwoods that has remained “undiscovered” – apes and monkeys tend to be social at some level, some moreso than others, making them extremely likely to be discovered if present. An animal that big is impossible to miss if there is in fact a breeding population. “Absence of proof is not proof of absence” not only shifts the accountability, but holds no water. Until someone brings me a dead one, or gives me a picture/video crisp and clear enough to count hairs on the inside of it’s nose, then my lack of belief remains firm. Even when the platypus was thought to be an elaborate hoax, they were able to produce dead specimens to prove their existence – unlike bigfoot where the primary source of observation is someone supposedly seeing one. Furthermore almost all bigfoot footage has been revealed to be – at best – a very inelaborate and poorly done hoax. I could probably produce a far, far more believable hoax given my background, except for my my damnable professional honor. Otherwise I’d be laughing my way to the bank, as do many self-proclaimed “Bigfoot biologists”. Unlike them, I have actually earned my stripes in the field of wildlife biology.
…on the other hand, I have pranked the unsuspecting using bigfoot when the opportunity presented itself, and adequate gullible people were available. So… the only “Bigfoot” I know of has been myself. I’ve also convinced people jackalopes exist, and that “chicken of the sea” really is an aquatic avian. Mummified opossums I have also found make great chupacabras to scare people with.
You mean am I still doing the Wildlife Biologist thing? Oh yes. I’ve gone toe-to-toe and head-to-head with the roughest terrain Oregon has to offer in the quest for the Northern Spotted Owl. I’m headed back up there tomorrow to delve into the temperate rainforest searching for it. I’ve sat at the negotiations and discussions of the science for the new Spotted Owl management plan, and I lead the way into investigations of new, and innovative thinking to hopefully help save this threatened bird. When not doing that, I photograph owls, or harass other avian denizens of the forest. Or hunting for deer, bear and elk. Or… well. You get the idea. WILDLIFE ERRYWHERE.
(Do not take this image. It is my intellectual property. And I had to hike my ass off to reach this bird. It is considered a right of passage in the biologist world to get these images of the animal you study after grueling and hard work.)
Greater Basilisk wrote:Ah, Zorse, thanks for more pictures. You definitely are living a dream. How many years of schooling and cracking books did it take to get you there, though?
Thanks, all of you, for sharing your experiences and opinions. There are so many different jobs, so many opportunities that I feel kinda ridiculous that I’m having such trouble making up my mind.
Keep the stories coming; it’s open to all!Always pleased to share pictures of my kick-ass job with y’all.
Five years of full-time schooling and book cracking, and part time working. And I am NOT stopping there. Next stop is Oregon , Wyoming, or Idaho for a Masters, and perhaps a PhD if I am feeling energetic.
In the meantime, I will be getting my ArcGIS certification, my Wildlife Rehab permit, my AA in veterinary medicine, an AA in both Forestry and Fisheries (for potential bachelors in those subjects later) and a couple other things I always wanted to do. Work full time, class part time is a great way to go.
I am *LIVING* the dream. I am a Wildlife Biologist.
When not out chasing Spotted owls, Northern Goshawks, Fishers and Wolverines, I am in training to potentially be groomed for a spot for the massive Land Management Plan re-write among other things. I have a chance to wield a very great deal of influence and power in the world of biology – and you can bet that I am eating up every minute greedily!
I get to work with threatened and endangered species. It does not get much better than that. Period.
Working in Northern California is sweet. (True Norcal!)
Not a fan here. I find it hard to respect someone who dresses like a galactic trash heap, and I find her music to be at best, mediocre. I don’t understand the flap over her. Seems like a lot of flash for no substance.
~DZ
Nirvanacat13 wrote:OHHH!! PRETTY BABY!!! Is he/she a rescue?
Definitely a rescue. He was a very lucky osprey.
He fell into a fish run, and was almost unresponsive and hypothermic when I got him. A few hours of TLC by yours truly, and he flew off just fine.
Remember kids… do NOT try this unless you are trained to handle wildlife.
Oh, I’m still around. I don’t monitor this board frequently. Yet, on occasion I return. Like a bad case of athlete’s foot.
I am out there, still working with Wildlife. However, my repertoire has expanded immensely. I am now working for California Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Forest Service. I am also working cooperatively with California Inland Fisheries Foundations Incorporated, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, Project Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, the California Heritage Trout Program, several different local schools, and a whole bunch of other wildlife organizations.
This summer was spent in the El Dorado National Forest hooting for Spotted Owls, and kekking for Northern Goshawks. This fall, I will be helping host junior duck hunts, womens pheasant hunts, and the duck and pheasant openers. Not to mention freeze-branding thousands of trout, monitoring bald and golden eagles, counting Snow Geese and Canada Geese, and providing valuable bi-monthly reports of my monitoring for Avian Influenza, Avian Botulism, and a whole slew of other nasty avian diseases.
Needless to say, I am one busy Dark Zorse. On top of all that, I have been selected as a top candidate for a career internship with the Forest Service starting hopefully at the beginning of next year. I have some cool pictures to share, but I simply haven’t had time to post them here (You can see them at my journal, or in a few days at DA)
Somewhere in the middle of all that mess, I am going to kill my first deer this year.
I am easier tracked through livejournal and/or DeviantArt. My internet access is decent these days, so sometimes, I have important things to say.
Sadly, the only humane option for wild cats is exactly that – euthanasia. And please, be REALLY careful handling him – even in a cage. Feral cats carry a huge variety of diseases that either you, or your pets could catch!
However, I am of the opinion that feral cat kittens caught early enough make the best barn-cats.
I’ve had to do in a number of feral cats myself. It’s never a fun job. :/
sunhawk wrote:That’s why I’m not in favour of letting just anyone buy and use pesticides with no way to ensure they are doing so properly, I don’t think the risk is justified by the desire for a “weed”-free lawn or the preservation of a crop species so genetically weak that it needs high levels of pesticides to even survive. I think there are so many alternatives that the only reason people stick with pesticides is because, unfortunately due to the huge companies backing them, they are cheap and people percieve them as “easy to use.”
I’m not really sure what the other “extreme” end is from pesticide abuse, other than no pesticide use at all? Is that a bad thought?
Oh, I am in total agreement with you there. There needs to not only be tighter regulations on pesticides, but quite a bit of emphasis placed on proper use. But, like a lot of things, I think pesticides for crops should be looked at as one potential tool among many to deal with crop-demolishing pests. The reason for it’s popularity, is that it is the most straight forward. Spray, bugs die. People for the most part don’t understand other methods (I’ll not go into the other methods here. That’s a whole different can of worms!).
And yes, the other extreme I was referring to was no pesticides at all. Even I am not above carefully setting rat poison and traps to kill off the little buggers, particularly when they contaminate my horse-feed and leave me with a staggering vet bill because my horse got sick from the feed. Grain is easy to keep safe, as I can put it in metal garbage cans. But the hay is a whole different story. With other critters around who may accidentally ingest some of the poison (chickens, horses, cats), you’d better believe I am extra-careful about setting them. It’s all about care and responsibility.
My stance on solar is that it is a god technology, but must be integrated accordingly. Eating up vast acreage with solar panels isn’t my idea of heaven. When integrated properly – that is, perched on a roof, or an otherwise innocuous space that isn’t doing anything, they work and work well. There are solar panels going to be installed on the roof of my stable to help keep the PG&E bills down.
sunhawk wrote:dark_zorse wrote:Example 2. Pesticides. Here’s a biggie most green organizations don’t want you to know. Most pesticides and chemicals – including DDT – (oh! End of the world! DDT!) are safe so long as you use them as they are SUPPOSED to be used. In other words… you do not go out and DUMP millions upon MILLIONS of gallons into fields, lakes, and streams. Few folks know DDT was the sole reason why malaria never became a problem in the United States.
This is true to a degree, but it’s also true that even if people use pesticides to the amounts they are supposed to, they still end up in waterways and they still build up in the fatty tissue of animals. It takes longer if people use less, but it’ll still kill animals, including people on rare occasion. It’s a poison, that’s what it’s meant to do. That’s why it affects birds so badly, because of the exponential leveling up of poisoning amounts due to the insects and other small animals they eat that already have their own dose of poison, as if the prey were little storage boxes of pesticide. So yeah it won’t poison you, the person putting it on your plants, but it’s still dangerous because of how it persists in the natural world. That’s my problem with it, more so than the harm to me personally. I can be aware of the risk and take precautions to protect myself, but animals can’t.
Aha, I was waiting for someone to bring up trophic accumulation.
This I will not deny is true. And it is not the chemical itself causing the problem, it is what the chemical breaks down into over time. That is, a chemical that mimics estrogen. And it does in fact, bioaccumulate in tissues – particularly fats – thus making it a candidate to poison or kill off animals higher up the food chain. The conditions you see in keystone predators – your hawks, eagles, and polar bears – was due to YEARS of gross chemical misuse, and yes, such an act should be avoided. Using pesticides as I said – properly – usually prevents this. Used properly, there wouldn’t be enough of the chemical to bioaccumulate unless said keystone predators lived to be hundreds of years old. But most – not even the larger birds of prey – live for a fraction of that. And we still see the aftereffects of this gross misuse today. I am not speaking in favor of anyone misusing a chemical designed to kill pests – but there is a definite line between proper use, and misuse, and I find both extremes absurd.
Less is definitely more, in this case.
purpledragonclaw wrote:I leaned forward in my seat while I read your post, DZ. Much of that I did not know. I do know electric cars pollute the atmosphere more in their construction than the fuel they save over years! How quickly I forgot that. I also knew that about “organic” farms putting smaller farms out of business.
I already grow my own food. I will go green by passing this knowledge on to others and applying it to my own life. Knowledge is power.
I’ve been told I have a somewhat unorthodox view of the situation. Being a wildlife biologist puts me at the cusp of some very thrilling and new ideas… but it also brings to bare the absolute greed of almost everyone involved. It’s depressing to see things with such promise – like genetically modified foods, nuclear power, etc. – go to the dogs so quickly just because someone wants to make a quick buck, or screwed up so badly everyone simply has a knee jerk reaction to it.
My objection to electric cars isn’t in their production (though, that is a REALLY good point, and one I have stuck in my brain for the future) but rather in that the electricity they run on must still come from somewhere. Given California is prone to energy crises, is this really such a great idea? Hmmm… no, time for the would-be “green” faction to re-think that.
Another one I have a major pick with is wind power. It’s clean, but it has a profound and horrific effect on bat and bird populations, as well as utterly ruining scenic views. Anyone who has seen what becomes of an eagle that got too close to one of these things might sympathize a bit better, and realize that ugly, destructive windmills aren’t an answer.
Knowledge is indeed power. Best not to be a mushroom – that is, fed s*** and kept in the dark!
Me? Go Green? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA- No.
What people don’t realize is that there’s always someone waiting in the wings to make money. These so-called green “organic” farms everyone seems so hot on are in fact bullying and forcing smaller Ma and Pa type farms to go under just for some ridiculous rules. They have done it where I live, and it is the horrible truth behind this movement. They would have you believe they are safer and more environmentally friendly. Couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Example? My chickens get all the clean, fresh grass they could ever eat and want. They get to roam around, and eat bugs because I do not use pesticides, and they get veggie scraps from my own dinners. They only get drugs when they require the attention of a veterinarian for an injury. Sounds pretty cushy, huh? Yet, in spite of this highly natural diet, I may not call my chickens organic because I did not feed them a highly processed food labeled specifically as organic. Excuse me. But my chickens are about as organic as you can get. As are the animals I hunt – a wild animal eating what it eats naturally by their standards isn’t “organic”. Yet, people never seem to get this.
Example 2. Pesticides. Here’s a biggie most green organizations don’t want you to know. Most pesticides and chemicals – including DDT – (oh! End of the world! DDT!) are safe so long as you use them as they are SUPPOSED to be used. In other words… you do not go out and DUMP millions upon MILLIONS of gallons into fields, lakes, and streams. Few folks know DDT was the sole reason why malaria never became a problem in the United States.
Example 3. Nuclear power. Oh, boy. Cue kneejerk reaction. Neverminding that nuclear waste can be recycled (The United States already does so for the rest of the world, as well as holding the worlds waste), it is the only power source that can breed itself. That’s right. Nuclear power can beget more power – it will never run out, and it is one hell of a lot more effective at generating power than anything else on this planet. This includes steam, hydroelectric, wind, solar, coal, gasoline, etc, etc.
I recycle. I grow my own food. I hunt. I try to make my existence as far removed from the general populous as I can because it doesn’t matter who you pay off nowadays, you are throwing money down the gullet of a monster.
Wanna be green? Grow your own food. Hunt. Compost. Forget ridiculous ideas like electric cars. Put a stop to more track housing. Go nuclear.
Get the facts before going green.
Long live the State of Jefferson!
Those are Greater Sandhill Cranes. They aren’t very common here, but every year there are a few pairs that nest out here. Whooping cranes are white and HUGE. I saw them in while in Texas – no way those are Whoopers.
For those wondering, these are all from California! There is a small bit of the Great Basin Desert that occupies the very far north-eastern corner. Well into the State of Jefferson.
And yes, I will be posting pictures of hooters. Northern spotted hooters- I mean, owls. They get nice and close when we mouse them. I can’t wait!
PS… the pronghorn didn’t take my homework. They left nose schmutzes on my car though. I do suspect the pheasants of carrying off my homework though…
Sneaky pheasantses.
