Pinnacles!

Finally! 

Pinnacles National monument is now part of Pinnacles National Park. Like Yellowstone, it is part of an old volcanic field; although Yellowstone is still very active and Pinnacles seems not to be. There are now about 60 national parks in the US thanks to to addition of Pinnacles. In my humble opinion the US could benefit from even more areas that are protected; it just seems as though things are disappearing at a very high rate.

 Pinnacles National Monument

I have never been to Pinnacles and I'm hoping this summer to change that. I have been learning to rock climb, and hopefully I can get good enough to show off my talents (I'm sure this will go very well...eye roll). I've tried to get more into backpacking and rock climbing simply because of what you can see by doing those things. In National parks there are so many things you can't see unless you hike to them. 

Hopefully more National parks will be founded and protected. Nowhere can have enough of that!

Pinnacles Info:
http://www.nps.gov/pinn/index.htm

Little Bigfoots

I admit I'm a little addicted to Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet. The premise is utterly ridiculous, however it does seem plausible at the same time since there's so many things about our world we don't know. I have to say some of those videos that are out there are very convincing. A few are downright creepy and it does plant that little "what if" in the back of your mind. 

The one last night was a little different and interesting to me. The show went to Indonesia in search of the Orang Pendek which is supposedly a smaller version of the North American Bigfoot. They appear to look similar to an orangutan primate but have silver-blonde hair instead of the orange coloring of the orangutan. They appear to be bipedal and the locals seem to be able to get closer to them than us North Americans can to our Bigfoot. 


When I was watching this, it reminded me of Homo floresiensis; or also known as hobbits (sorry, not the Lord of the Rings kind). Although they lived on the Island of Flores (the Orang Pendek is said to live in Sumatra), I wonder if this could possibly some kind of variation? Either that or it's an evolved variation of the orangutan primate possibly? If they are smaller, perhaps it is easier for them to avoid humans more easily. Also since the locals generally lack the material things we US-ers have, video of the primate is not readily forthcoming. National geographic did pay for an expedition to try to produce photos of the Pendek, but nothing came from it (they have not given up, however). 

There has to be reasons these legends persist, and it can't be "just because". I have to admit I've started to believe these things really are out there, and maybe they really are just this smart to evade us. We know more about outer space than we do about our own ocean; perhaps there are still animals out there that we know next to nothing to. New species are still being discovered, so I hope that there is that possibility.

Information on floresiensis:

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-floresiensis

Information on Orang Pendek:

http://www.orangpendek.org/

The whole purpose of this blog is to discuss and profile anything environmental, animal and nature related. Hopefully things will be on this blog that people haven't seen or had much knowledge about. Who knows if this blog will change anything, but it can't hurt to profile things! This is a work in progress so please be patient! I have a certain way/topics that I want on here, and it will take a little bit to get a flow going.

Hopefully everyone stops and checks back once I get this going!