Wildest Land Linking Protected Areas

[BobbyO]

This looks like a decent recently released paper and subsequent map for all field researchers.

I'll be reading it over the weekend but though I'd share before I did.

https://wilderness.org/blog/map-shows-wildest-land-linking-protected-areas-us

[BigTreeWalker]

Thanks for posting that BobbyO. I was just looking at it. Very interesting about the travel corridors. Just thinking about posting it myself.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

Thanks for putting that up, I had heard about it on NPR recently and it sounded like an excellent and achievable goal.

 

The remaining  forests are rapidly being decimated so this is a timely idea.

People just don't realize how quick it goes once money decides it's time to move in wholesale.

 

My area has been decimated and is being decimated currently by logging, summer homes for the rich, mining, gravel extraction, unregulated development, energy development,  and shacks, shacks everywhere by the poor exurban masses yearning to be free.

 

All wild land is basically for sale if not protected and all those natural landscapes that look so pretty have a for sale sign that most don't see and end of life date certain.

 

Up here there are plenty of cryptids and some developments are directly threatening them. It is a prime area for this approach but I don't think it is included, currently. I have tried to feel out land trusts indirectly, but telling them you want to protect a cryptid would be socially awkward. They seem more interested in protecting the landscapes of wealthy rural retirement and college communities.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[JKH]

Super cool. I came across some article about tiger habitat in Asia saying as much, don't remember if I posted it here, will look. I'm at work locally trying to save habitats from the bulldozers, uphill battle forever. I will say that this article is focused on the macro data and the same holds true on much smaller scales.

[norseman]

Very cool map

[Kiwakwe]

I crudely applied the ME section to a previously plotted sighting map I made up for the state. Interesting, but not surprisingly, the majority of sightings are outside the corridors. No people, no sightings.

Thanks for the info BobbyO

Edited May 29, 2016 by Kiwakwe

[BobbyO]

Thanks for sharing that kiwakwe, how did you do the overlay ?

[Kiwakwe]

 

Thanks for sharing that kiwakwe, how did you do the overlay ?

 

That's the crude part. Select, cut, paste, adjust opacity/size in Affinity Photo.

[BobbyO]

Cool i'll have a bash. Thank you.

[SWWASAS]

Kiwakwe's comment "no people no sightings" for some reason jumped out at me.  I started looking for research locations based on sighting reports which is diametrically opposite to conventional wisdom for a reclusive creature.  .  Had some success with that but should I really be looking for places that no one ever goes?   No people no skittish BF who hide day and night.   I just have the gut feeling there are hard to get to drainage patterns where no humans ever go that might have large BF populations who live pretty much in the open.      I think I mentioned finding a waterfall from the air that does not seem to be on any map.   Could that mythological once a year conclave location be real?      I know one place I would like to get into but the thought of unexploded ordinance sort of puts a damper on that.     A no longer used Army training area in SW WA.    With the Army gone BF, might feel very safe there.   

[norseman]

I dont like human traffic areas because Im attempting to shoot one. Lots of things could go wrong with something wounded. Or being hoaxed, etc, etc.

[Kiwakwe]

That's my MO SWWASP. Go where the humans aren't. That means a lot of bushwhacking through dense and often boggy balsam and alder thicket where one is almost perpetually in contact with brush and climbing over blow downs.

ME has 5,500sq miles of private timber land, the North Maine Woods(about 50% of the NW corridor area shaded in blue) which is now being considered for national park. On top of that there is Baxter Sate Park, another 330sq miles(black rectangle center map) and ME public Reserve land, easily totaling over 6000sq miles where people are very few and far between. There are no trails per se in the NMW just the logging roads in varying degrees of reclamation by ma nature. It is a "sportsman's" paradise but they rarely venture further than a mile off of a logging road, really no need. In Baxter most folks stick to the trails but it is a wilderness park, so plenty of trailless areas.

I was up in the NMW for 3 nights just before the bug onslaught 2 weeks ago, I saw 2 other vehicles in over 100 miles of logging rd during that time.

Any marginally intelligent critter with a proclivity for solitude should have no problem at all finding it up there. And maybe they will feel a little less wary on turf not frequented by hairless bi-peds.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Kiwakwe

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

Kiwakwe's comment "no people no sightings" for some reason jumped out at me.  I started looking for research locations based on sighting reports which is diametrically opposite to conventional wisdom for a reclusive creature.  .  Had some success with that but should I really be looking for places that no one ever goes?   No people no skittish BF who hide day and night.   I just have the gut feeling there are hard to get to drainage patterns where no humans ever go that might have large BF populations who live pretty much in the open.      I think I mentioned finding a waterfall from the air that does not seem to be on any map.   Could that mythological once a year conclave location be real?      I know one place I would like to get into but the thought of unexploded ordinance sort of puts a damper on that.     A no longer used Army training area in SW WA.    With the Army gone BF, might feel very safe there.   

Find extensive range systems with multiple high altitude canyons converging on remote peaks with no easy hiking access.

Look for fresh water sources, deep water with rocky bottom, spring fed ponds. At least a two day hike in and no logging. look to where the canyons converge at peaks near the treelines, and alternately at the base of the canyons where there are access to large rivers and drainage systems.

 

Then identify also those systems that have lots of nut grasses, russian olives, grubs, fish, nuts, and berries and small game.

Then parachute or helicopter to the center of said wilderness or pack in with mules and stay from June through mid October.

Make friends with a Sasquatch.

 

There are large areas of very remote wilderness in WA, OR, and northern CA.

Personally I like the look of a lots of remote areas in northern CA.

The rainforest in WA an OR is pretty dense and would make seeing anything problematic.

That is why I would set up at tree line or along the river valleys or near remote ponds.

 

Where I really am thinking of going myself is back to Yellowstone.

Have a promising area picked out at about 10,000 feet with no trails and so remote there is not even one person per 100 square miles, nothing but canyons, high altitude valleys, and high and remote peaks.

 

I saw something there, at the time I thought it was a Griz or Elk, Maybe it was a Bison way out of it's normal range.

Did have a very big butt like two round basketballs set on stilts and the night was the darkest I have ever seen it at night.

Whatever it was just stood in front of my lights on a talus slope for several minutes and I just could not figure out what it was and did not want to pass and see as it was big enough to trash a car.

 

Walked of the road and straight down a 70 degree talus slope.

Was right in the area of reported sasquatch sightings, though.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna