Recently a hunter from the Kemerovo region of Russia saved a Bigfoot who was drowning in a river.

Countess reports like this leave practically no doubt about the existence of these creatures. Earlier we wrote about a Bigfoot and his descendants living in Abkhazia, and suggested it was the oldest human-like creature.

Russia Today: Bigfoot saved from drowning in icy Siberian river

According to another theory, Bigfoot is a product of crossing apes with humans. The theory originated in Abkhazia in the apery of the city of Sukhumi.

The place used to be popular but is empty now. In its best years the apery had over 70,000 apes and monkeys running around, now there are only a few hundred of them left. The bloody Georgian-Abkhazian war affected not only people but the apes as well.

Zurab Mikvabia, the director of the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Abkhazia (the official name of the apery) is trying to be optimistic:

“We are now becoming interesting again for the Russian science. The Institute is in preliminary talks with Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy about preparing monkeys for a simulated Mars mission. “

Zurab Mikvabia is skeptical about my suggestion that the apery was created specifically for experiments in crossing apes and humans: “It is not quite correct. There are more myths than facts about these experiments.”

The director, however, satisfied my request to see the archives from the 1920s and invited his deputy Vladimir Barkai to join the conversation.

“From the first stages of my scientific research I tried to arrange experiments in crossing humans and apes. I assume that the Soviet government could help me in the interests of science and propaganda of natural historic worldview.” This is an excerpt from a letter from Professor Ilya Ivanov to Anatoly Lunacharsky, People’s Commissar in education, where he asked for $15,000 for an expedition to Africa, an insane amount of money for those times.

Ilya Ivanov had good reasons to refer to his pre-revolutionary experience. An outstanding zoologist, he worked as a researcher in the Askania-Nova natural reserve , where he artificially inseminated animals crossing bulls with deer or gazelles. There were draft experiments on the way to the most important one, a human-ape hybrid.

Vladimir Rosanov, a famous surgeon who extracted SS bullets out of Lenin’s body, requested 50 apes for experiments in transplantation of vascular glands to the aging leaders of the revolution (first of all, Stalin). Rozanov hoped to repeat the success of his colleague Sergei Voronov, who immigrated to France in the 19th century where in a luxurious palace on French Riviera nicknamed The Simian castle he transplanted apes’ genital glands to wealthy patients. He had 90% success rate in body rejuvenation. Rozanov required gorillas, baboons and chimpanzees that were only available in Africa. Ilya Ivanov was the man to get them.

The archives of the Sukhumi institute contain a protocol of the meeting of the Presidium of the Academy of Science dedicated to Ivanov’s African expedition. His coworkers warned him that Guinea women should not be used for insemination with gorilla sperm. Things that are now obvious were a topic of heated discussions 90 years ago.

At any rate, $15,000 was allocated for the expedition (20,000 according to other sources) and in February of 1926 Professor Ivanov and his son Ilya, a senior at Physics and Mathematics department of the MSU, went to Paris.
They sailed to French Guinea and settled at its experimental primate station in Kindia. It was difficult to catch clever, strong and aggressive chimpanzees. Bullets with sleeping aids have not been yet invented, and apes usually won in fights with hunters. Guinea locals used barbarian methods for catching apes. They hunted them down with dogs, made them climb trees and then made bonfires around those trees. The apes that could not stand the smoke were forced to jump down to the ground. The ground fights often left the hunters injured.

Ivanov’s son was one of those who suffered from a furious ape that tore his chest. The young man was hospitalized.

Another part of the experiment, insemination of local women with apes’ sperm, was complicated as well. Local women adamantly refused to participate in the experiment. Ivanov heard plenty of stories about women raped by gorillas, some of them were told to bear children. Women who were raped by gorillas were considered impure, and they were killed with a silent approval of the leaders.

http://english.pravda.ru/society/anomal/26-05-2010/113512-bigfoot-0Posted byG L Wilsonat08:58

The 500 freshwater pearl mussels — now found only in a few isolated sites in Europe — live in a small stretch of the River Nore, along the route of the new M7/M8 Dublin to Cork/Limerick motorway.

The shellfish, which can live for 100 years and are protected under law, faced the threat of extinction in Ireland due to excavation work on a bridge across the river as part of the new M7/M8 project.

Upstream
However, the National Roads Authority (NRA) has funded a €400,000 project to save the mussels, which are found in a 6km stretch of the river upstream of Poormansbridge.

The shellfish were removed from the river and placed in a purpose-built captive breeding facility, where their condition is being monitored. It is planned to re-introduce the mussels back into the river over the next few months at the appropriate time of their life cycle.

Since the 1990s the population of pearl mussels has declined, with only 500 remaining in Ireland. It is the only species of mussel in Ireland listed for protection under the Habitats Regulations.

Pearl mussels are the oldest living creatures in Ireland and they have virtually disappeared from the rest of Europe over the past century due to climate change and pearl harvesting.

NRA spokesman Sean O’Neill said the cost of the project was estimated at about €400,000.

“These environmental measures are required when constructing any new motorway and there are significant costs associated with them,” he said.

“But the benefits for a native species in Ireland will offer more than a pearl of wisdom for generations to come,” Mr O’Neill told the Irish Independent.

The project was carried out by Arup Consulting on behalf of the NRA along with specialist consultant Dr Evelyn Moorkens.

Treacy Hogan
Irish Independent
Monday May 31 2010Posted byCorinnaat11:49

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PATNA: Almost after a gap of six months, a tiger was sighted in Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) on Thursday morning. The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) assistant manager, Samir Sinha, sighted the big cat near the rest house in the Govardhana range of the reserve. Sinha is looking after the camera trap work of the ongoing tiger census work in the reserve.

“Around 5 am, while moving on the Govardhana-Manguraha forest road for collecting certain census-related data, I sighted the tiger,” Sinha told TOI, adding: “I have been working in VTR for the last seven years but didn’t have the chance to sight a tiger earlier.”

VTR director J P Gupta, who was the first one to be informed about the tiger sighting and who had himself sighted a leopard in the Govardhana range itself a few months back, said: “Such things indicate that the efforts put into making the reserve a safe place for the felines are showing good results.”

Prior to this, one tiger was sighted by forest guards in the Someshwar block of the reserve in November last year. A tigress with two cubs was sighted in August in the Manpur area located near the eastern boundary of the reserve last year as well.

The news of tiger sighting from Bihar’s only tiger reserve must be music to the ears of wildlife lovers, as VTR, in the past two months, witnessed the killing of a tiger and a leopard.

While the tiger was poisoned to death in the Madanpur range of the reserve in March after it killed one buffalo belonging to locals, a leopard was killed by villagers at Shahpur Parsauni village four days ago after it strayed into the village and killed a villager and injured five others.

The Thursday sighting apart, wildlife lovers can also take solace from the fact that the ongoing tiger census has given some very encouraging signs. “Camera trap data collected from Raghia, Manguraha and Govardhana ranges is very encouraging with movement of tigers being trapped in these cameras on a regular basis,” Sinha said.

Refusing to draw conclusions about the exact number of tigers on the basis of these findings, he, however, claimed that such things could be done only after comprehensive analysis of data collected in different stages of the census.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Patna/Tiger-sighted-in-Valmiki-reserve-after-six-months/articleshow/5928797.cms