Out of Place

Year Ends With Zoos in News

Goodbye to Nonja. The final days of December seem an appropriate time to talk about death, a metaphor for an internal feeling of the artificial human construction of a year ending. Death drives the mainstream news. How can we extract something useful out of all of this? This year thoughts of death have occupied many due to the assassination of Bhutto in Pakistan, of course, and also because of the deaths of two unfortunate victims, Carl Sousa Jr. and the Siberian tiger Tatiana, both at the San Francisco Zoo on December 25, 2007. Zoos are in the news. Zoos are [...]

Mystery Birds in Annual Christmas Counts

This is the time of year throughout North America when birders take their annual “Christmas counts.” This involves identifying and counting what bird species birders and casual observers have seen in their area. Besides the various extremely large avian cryptids that avoid detention by having small numbers, being ignored, flying too high, hiding, and remaining in remote locations, mystery birds do turn up. You have to read Christmas counts closely to find them, but they are there. Most are eventually seen as identified species that have turned up in out-of-place sites. For example, on December 29, 2007, Mike Jacobs of [...]

Dead Tiger Found in Texas

How often are such discoveries made, but never reported? Without the incident in San Francisco, would this one have ever been published? Sanitation crews in Dallas [Texas] made a shocking discovery after they received a call about a dead animal on Christmas Eve. An adult tiger was found dead when the crews searched a wooded area near Interstate 35E and Overton Road. A city spokesperson said the tiger has been shot several times. The animal, which was declawed and wearing a collar, was taken to the Dallas Zoo. The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the United States Department of [...]

What Was The Coatesville Creature?

Coatesville, Pa. – (AP) – A mysterious animal – described by witnesses as having a small head, a neck a foot long, the jumping ability of a deer and a scream like that of two cats – was reported prowling through Chester county woods today. There were some who received the reports with skepticism, but Sylvester Scott, 31-year-old farmer, vowed he saw the what-is-it and three times had heard its eerie wail echoing over the countryside. Others said they had been “gunning” for it. Scott declared the creature appeared one day in a field where he was spreading fertilizer. “It [...]

First Thai Tomistoma Since 1970

Some unique crocs have been seen in Thailand. But as opposed to merely “out-of-place” or escaped reptiles, it might signal a recovery of a locally “extinct” species. Loosely using the term “gavial,” some form of a gavial or gharial is the source of this attention. Either it is the true gharial, Gavialis gangeticus, identified as such by the local Thai media, or the false gharial Tomistoma schlegelii, the preferred choice, I read after I first saw this news item, of cryptozoologist Chad Arment. Since I respect Arment’s opinion on this, as he knows his herps rather well, his insights over [...]

Kangaroo Kryptid Too?

If the reportedly casual appearance of a reddish orangutan seen in trees in Baker County (see more on the first reports and the update) wasn’t enough excitement in Florida, now there are reports of another kind of cryptid: a kangaroo. Actually, technically, due to the size stated, it seems to be a wallaby is on the loose in Brandon, Hillsborough County, Florida. Several residents spied it, especially near the intersection of Bloomingdale and Watson roads, just after 5:00 PM, on Wednesday, November 14, 2007. No one could catch it. Authorities said they don’t know from whence the animal came, but [...]