Last child in the woods

  The title comes from Richard Louv book Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature deficint
desorder. I thought this title was approperate for this article, after suffing in cyperspace I stop by the Center For Fortean Zoology website and came across a article by David Attenborough "I would have never been a naturalist under today's fossil laws". Being a important subject I thought to repost the article here in hopes of reaching more people, and keep the idea fresh in people thoughts.The link for the article can be found here  http://networkedblogs.com/EFYY8 . In the article it addresed one part of the promblem "Part of the reason for that is easy to identify, and that is because it's no longer allowed-no longer legal-to be a collector." Starting and maintaining a Natural history collection is a important part of being a Naturalist.  There is multiple cause for why children spend less time outdoors and why they have less access to nature; our growing addiction to electronic media, the relinquishment of green spaces to development, parent's exaggered fears of natural and human preadors, and the threat of lawsuits and vandalism that has prompted community officals to forbid accers to their land.    
   
    As if there aren't enough real concerns in life, a segment of the media and goverment find it useful to maintain their flow of money and power by keeping everyone as scared as possible and dependent upon them for "protection." This tendency is bad news for wildlife. What are kids supposed to think when being confronted with animals? "Animals are hazardous and should only be dealt with by experts. Don't go into the woods or you might encounter a wild animal and get hurt. Who needs to have places like that around, with dangerous wild creatures lurking in them?" The wildlife shows today are a mixed bleasing. While highlighting the wonders and diversity of the natural world, the "animal jockys" also try hard to amp up viewers adrenaline by constanly uttering phrasses like "deadly","extremly risk" and "death-defying" Psedo-conservation followers love this whole approach, because it fuels their agenda to break direct contact with wildlife. This fits right in with their goals of eliminating Herps and other animals as pets. Why do you think the Humane society of the United States (HSUS), the most anti-herp organization out there, runs commercials during those shows?

 Conservationist John Clare said "I for one would not be a scientist if it weren't for my encounters with amphibians in captivity as a child".

Batutut and the Orang pendix the same cryptid. .

  
                                                                       

There is a well known naturalist named Dr. John Mackinnon who  discovered the Vu Quang ox in 1992 and other new Vietnamese ungulates such as the giant muntjac. Dr. John Mackinon has been working for conservation advisor to the world wide fund for nature and now director of the asian Bureau of conservation. He has also undertaken a major review of china's biodiversity and stablished a program to conserve the rain forest of southwestern Yunnan. As a relable witness goes you cann't get any better than Dr. John Mackinnon who in his book In search of the red ape. Is where we will see why that it is best to lump the Batutut and Orang pendix together as one cryptid.

   " I was travelling alone along a hill ridge on the far side of the river where I had never ventured before. The path was good, though rather muddy, and I haven't had a care in the world. Suddenly I stopped dead, amazed at what I saw. I knelt down to examine the disturbing footprints in the earth, a print so like a man's yet so defintely not a man's that my skin crept and felt a strong desire to head home. The print was roughly triangular in shape, about six inches long by four across. The toes looked quite human, as did the shapely heel, but the sole was both too short and to broad to be that of a man and the big toe was on the oppisite side to what seemed to be the arch of the foot. Farther ahead I saw more tracks and went to examine them. There where imprints of both left and right feet, though which was which I could not tell from their curious distribution. Many of the prints had been obliterated by recent pigs but a few were quite clear and I made drawings of some of these and notes of their relative postions.I found two dozen footprints in all, scattered along some fifty yards of path. Back at camp I showed Bahat my sketches and asked what animal could make such tracks. Without a moment's hesitation he replaid Batutut. When I suggested that perhaps a bear could make such prints, his pride was wonded. ' They are to big for a bear and they have no claws. Morover, bears tracks are diffent shap.' I secured photographs of the feet of sun-bears and inded they were too small and diffently shaped to be responsable for the tracks I seen. Later I saw a plaster cast of even larger footprint from malaya that had definitely been made by the same animal, there known as orang-pendik, or short fellow."  - Dr. John Mackinnon (In search of the red ape - 113 -114)  

 With footprints being the fact of the matter and they can be treated scientifically. We should listen to Dr.John Mackinnon who said that the footprints came from the same animal. So by this a relable witness with scientifc training we should not split the Batutut and Orang pendix but lump them together as the same animal until a holo type (typespecimen) is uptained for classification. Instead of splinting them apart by cryptozoologist and treading them as seprate cryptid do to anatodole reports by witness who can be wrong, we have strong evidence against this argument. Roy P. Mackal said it best "At this stage of our inadequate knowledge I beleive it is best to be a "lumper" rather than a "spliter" and not to pay too much attention to what appear to be minor differences."

                                                                        

For futher information -

In search of Orang pendex - http://www.orangpendex.org

Frontiers Of Zoology  - http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com

Refernces -

1. Dr. John Mackinnon, In search of the red ape. p 113- 114 .

2. Roy P. Mackal, Search for hidden animals: An Inquiry into zoological mysteries p26