Flesh and blood can´t inherit the kingdom of cryptozoology

 

Kirtland´s warbler 

My relationship to cryptozoology has always been somewhat rocky, but at the moment it´s safe to assume that I´m a skeptic – at least if you think cryptids are real flesh and blood animals. You can´t just point to a huge forest and say “hey, large cryptids can hide there”. Well, no, they actually can´t.

Animals don´t just need “to hide”. Above all, they need food, water and mates. Where could a cryptid find food and water? Why, at the same places as other similar animals…or humans! For instance, bears are drawn to rivers with spawning fish, or to places where there are blueberries or honey. *So are humans*. Wolves are drawn to places where deer congregates. All large animals would have to pass springs and ponds to get drinking waters. *Once again, so are humans*. Cryptids simply can´t hide from humans, anymore than bears can. Indeed, we should see sasquatches fight over scant resources with grizzlies or wolf packs (or human hunters), and yet, nobody seems to have observed such a thing.

Note also that even animals that are extremely rare have been discovered by Homo sapiens. The Kermode bear is one example, the miniature passerine known as Kirtland´s warbler is another. In the tropics, we have the Bili ape. If Bigfoot exists all over North America, including in Kansas (which is mostly flat) or Connecticut (which is mostly suburban), and even have a propensity for running out on highways right in front of fast-speeding vehicles, we should have found it long ago, if only in the form of roadkill. It´s also peculiar that Bigfoot and other cryptids seem completely impervious to climate change or environmental destruction. Other animals change their ranges, yet cryptids are still seen in their old hunting grounds (i.e. everywhere)…

But what about the oceans? Surely, a large monstrous and rugous Lovecraftian cryptid should be able to hide there? Well, no, since large portions of the oceans are like desert. There is no food there, i.e. no plankton. In order to survive, a sea-serpent would have to live among the currents where plankton thrives. But that´s the same portions of the oceans as whales or fish, and these are also the parts of the sea to which human ships are drawn. If Cthulhu is real, he would probably have been harpooned by a crazy whaling ship from New England long ago!

Thunderbirds can be questioned on the same grounds. If these oversized raptors are real, how come we never see them at places where game-wardens place dead animals to feed eagles during the winter? We should see the thunderbirds swooping down, chasing off the eagles (not to mention the ravens) and claim the carcasses for themselves. And how is it that no bird-watcher have ever seen a thunderbird, yet bird-watchers habitually spot birds far smaller?

Misidentification is also a thing. Is it really a co-incidence that sasquatches are often seen in the same forests in which bears thrive, given the fact that young bears have a weird “humanoid” appearance? Many fish species are notoriously jumbo-sized, and could easily be mistaken for lake monsters. Owls can definitely be taken for space aliens, and what about even larger birds such as cranes or frigate birds? I´ve seen herons “come out of nowhere” in broad daylight.

Does this mean that cryptids don´t exist at all? No, probably not, since it´s essentially impossible to prove conclusively that something *doesn´t* exist. There is the Patterson-Gimlin film, fossils that may prove that perhaps Australopithecus lived more recently than we assumed, strange footprints suggesting that the thylacine might be tojour vivant in Tasmania… Unknown species of deer have apparently been found at wet markets in Indochina.

In general, however, it´s difficult to believe that the world is still teeming with undiscovered large vertebrate species. Or invertebrate ditto, for that matter. If the monstrous creatures of cryptozoology are in some sense real, they are probably paranormal. But that´s a very, very different proposition…