The Future Of Cryptozoology

[stu neville]

Who does this?

Poachers and weed farmers / moonshiners in the main, though there are those that claim Bigfeet damage them.

Edit - Max got there first

 

[titch]

The thought struck me last night that why don't cryptozoological expeditions make greater use of motion-activated trail cameras?
These inexpensive devices (from around £50 on Amazon) have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, with adjustable sensitivity, automatic night-vision modes and an autonomy of up to 8 weeks with batteries or some are solar powered.
So, instead of mounting expensive and potentially dangerous expeditions involving a team hacking its laborious way through Papua New Guinea's rain forests, why not invest in a dozen trail cams and hire a helicopter for a day or so to position them at likely locations, then retire to a nice hotel in Port Moresby for G & Ts and to monitor the results on laptops and smartphones?

It may not be as much fun as role-playing the intrepid white hunter, but surely a high-tech approach is more likely to determine the existence or otherwise of a mokele m'bembe, migo, or devil pig?

View attachment 49115

But what about gathering DNA evidence? A small party staying in a likely location for as long as possible AND trail cams all over the place seem a better option, but we would all need to donate 3 kidneys each to pay for the expedition.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Poachers and weed farmers / moonshiners in the main, though there are those that claim Bigfeet damage them.

Edit - Max got there first

Bigfoot moonshiners! The most secretive of all.

 

[stu neville]

Bigfoot moonshiners! The most secretive of all.

There's a even-more-than-usual baffling episode of Finding Bigfoot called "Moonshine and Bigfoot", in which they visit a homestead in a valley that purportedly gets almost nightly 'squatch visits, they try the shine, play banjos, whoop a bit, but - and this is the baffling thing - they don't stay there for their night vigil. Oh no. They go to a spot thirty miles away where someone saw one twenty five years ago.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

But what about gathering DNA evidence? A small party staying in a likely location for as long as possible AND trail cams all over the place seem a better option, but we would all need to donate 3 kidneys each to pay for the expedition.

If one of the trail cams spotted something animate and anomalous, then would be the time to get boots on the ground to cover the trail forensically, seeking spoor, droppings, tufts of fur and hopefully something more.

 

[ramonmercado]

l would guess:

a) The kind of pond life who’d vandalise anything.

b) Anti-hunters.

c) Rival hunters.

d) Poachers/trespassers fearing that their image might have been captured.

d) General, not necessarily game-related, crims concerned that their faces/car number plates might have been recorded, e.g. fly tippers.

maximus otter

e) Bears.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Talking of camera traps:

"Brook gives the thylacine about a one-in-10 probability of still surviving. With camera traps increasingly used by scientists (Brook uses a fleet of 500 to monitor how mammal populations respond to land-use changes and climate change) and groups such as the Thylacine Research Unit (TRU), he says it’s almost now or never for this species." [my bold emphasis]].

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/study-suggests-tasmanian-tiger-survived-into-the-21st-century/

It's worth a read:

Study suggests the Tasmanian tiger survived into the 21st century​

 

[Sharon Hill]

Today I see a viral video of a guy "gifting" to what he thinks is Bigfoot. And the supposed creature hiding behind a tree. It's popular because it's on TikTok. TikTokers may be too easily impressed. https://www.tiktok.com/@fowl_mitten_outdoors

More young people get their information from TikTok (and Instagram) than any other social media platform (or traditional media). If you don't know how TikTok works and why it's changing cryptozoology, I wrote a bit on Modern Cryptozoology.

The power of CryptidTok: https://moderncryptozoology.wordpress.com/2022/07/30/the-power-of-cryptidtok/

 

[Bigphoot2]

Who does this?

I was chatting to a friend in America about game cameras being vandalised and he reckoned the non-human culprit was most likely bears. He suggested that bears associate the smell of plastic with food containers and think some kind human has strapped a packed lunch to a tree.

 

[Kondoru]

I can just see that happening

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Today I see a viral video of a guy "gifting" to what he thinks is Bigfoot. And the supposed creature hiding behind a tree. It's popular because it's on TikTok. TikTokers may be too easily impressed. https://www.tiktok.com/@fowl_mitten_outdoors

More young people get their information from TikTok (and Instagram) than any other social media platform (or traditional media). If you don't know how TikTok works and why it's changing cryptozoology, I wrote a bit on Modern Cryptozoology.

The power of CryptidTok: https://moderncryptozoology.wordpress.com/2022/07/30/the-power-of-cryptidtok/

"The Tik-Tok" sounds like a cryptid.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

I was chatting to a friend in America about game cameras being vandalised and he reckoned the non-human culprit was most likely bears. He suggested that bears associate the smell of plastic with food containers and think some kind human has strapped a packed lunch to a tree.

Especially if they are smarter than the average bear...

 

[Sharon Hill]

Cryptozoology is not a quest for animals but for monsters: Peter Dendle​

Professor of English and expert on folklore at Penn State Mont Alto tells Down To Earth that cryptozoology is not going anywhere as there is a deep-seated need for unknown sentient creatures to inhabit the liminal spaces around us

(Not really the point of the interview, though.)
Typically, the interviewer doesn't seem to have gotten the main points.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/inte...r-animals-but-for-monsters-peter-dendle-91379

 

[Sharon Hill]

As I've previously discussed, traditional cryptozoology as a "search to identify mysterious animals" is dead as we knew it (though many refuse to agree with that) because the view of cryptids has moved into a much broader definition of "anything strange, apparently sentient, known almost entirely through stories and witness claims". Thus, creatures like dogman, Flatwoods monster, Fresno nightcrawler, skinwalkers and the wendigo are some of the most popular cryptids these days.

Here is more evidence to show that the future of cryptozoology is really post-cryptid cryptozoology. It's a social science, not zoological.

https://nowthisnews.com/news/the-importance-of-cryptids-to-indigenous-cultures

The Importance of Cryptids to Indigenous Cultures​

In honor of November’s Native American Heritage Month, NowThis spoke to Matthew Gilliam, an Indigenous folklore expert and reconnecting Hopi man.​

By Chelsea Frisbie
Smithsonian Institute via Bureau of Ethnology
For a lot of us, cryptids like the sasquatch or skinwalkers might be a laughable concept. But for many Indigenous people, tales of cryptids aren’t a novelty; they’re important parts of their cultures.
In honor of November’s Native American Heritage Month, NowThis spoke to Matthew Gilliam, an Indigenous folklore expert and reconnecting Hopi man.
He said many creatures from Indigenous folklore, like the sasquatch, were introduced into the fabric of pop culture through a white lens in movies or reality TV series — and typically as something unusual, rare, or meant to be hunted.
“Cryptozoology has always started with white men. It's very, very weird,” said Gilliam.
“For starters, cryptozoology should be about monsters,” he continued. “A lot of the creatures that are famously cryptids were never monsters in the first place. They were people who ended up as monsters. That doesn't technically fit what we consider cryptozoology, because a cryptid has to be an animal that we don't have a scientific explanation for.”
Gillam recognized that the term “cryptid” and “cryptozoology” have become so synonymous with the creatures we discussed, however, that he was comfortable using the terms.
He cited the Wendigo, one of the most notable cryptids from an Indigenous culture, as an example. It’s a humanoid creature that stalks and eats humans and recognized by many Algonquin-speaking tribes.
“That was never a cryptid. It was a man who fell to greed and became a monster,” explained Gilliam.
Gilliam explained that many of these stories are meant to teach people things and help guide them through life, not to be taken literally. They’re not supposed to encourage people to go out and “hunt” them.

[more at link]