Animal Planet ’s “ Monster Week ” is replete with animal - attack special and episodes of the mesh ’s big hit , River Monsters . But there ’s one program that tap into a surprising amount of skill : Yeti or Not , which follows Dr. Mark Evans as he roams the Himalayas , seem for grounds of the mythical brute .
Yes . We sleep with you read the word “ Yeti ” and had some contiguous questions , disbelieving thoughts , imaginativeness of the Matterhorn drive at Disneyland , etc . So did we , so we spill to Evans , who ’s a veterinarian when he ’s not traveling the world film TV display , ahead of the Yeti or Not world premiere . First , though , here ’s an exclusive clip from the particular , in which Evans comes upon some unusual sample that he plans to submit for DNA examination , hop to prove his theory that the Yeti of legend is either : a ) a hybrid bear species ; b ) a human root that somehow defied extinction ; or c ) both , existing at the same time .
io9 : What interests you about cryptozoology , and Yetis in particular ?
Dr. Mark Evans : I think it ’s the intensive , sort of childlike curiosity that ’s driven me throughout my career — I just require to answer questions about biology . And Yetis have been this one longstanding doubt in biology that in reality we struggle to get to the bottom of . It ’s just so fascinating ; it ’s interesting that we call it cryptozoology , simply because it ’s hidden zoology . There are lots of animals that have been hidden until comparatively recently that we now accept as perfectly normal . And the Yeti also have something to do with the human kinship with the raw world . It ’s become such a part of the Tibetan culture , in story that have been tell over coevals .
Do you consider yourself to be a skeptic ?
Evans : I am , hopefully , a healthily thinking skeptic . I wo n’t accept things at nerve economic value — I never have — and the tool I have in my tool cabinet is science . I go about these things with a human interest , of course , like anybody else . What I want to do is entice other scientists , who are much more clever than me , to use their skills and experience , as well as the scientific tools they now have useable , to see if we can add to the small-arm of the jigsaw mystifier and help the community of people who require to find answers [ about the existence , or not , of Yetis ] .
patently , the blowup over the last 10 or 15 geezerhood of our power to dig about in DNA is a shaft that I think is improbably valuable in this debate , and one that I ’ve been incredibly keen to see if it can strain and help us .
One of Animal Planet ’s most democratic appearance is Finding Bigfoot , which follows Sasquatch Hunter who are hoping to show a close encounter . But Yeti or Not has scenes of lab body of work rather than night visual sense in the deep woods . What breathe in you to structure it that style ?
https://gizmodo.com/we-asked-the-hosts-of-finding-bigfoot-why-its-taking-so-1770642459
Evans : Because I ’m a scientist . I conceive the great thing about the whole world of Bigfoot and Yetis is that there ’s an army of enthusiasts who are utterly entrance by the subject and are keen to do the legwork to sample and find samples . If it was n’t for the people that I meet along the agency who are finding sample , or have the storey to state about their own personal experiences , we would n’t be capable to achieve anything . What I can wreak to it , other than a sense of rarity , are the creature to really test thing . That ’s the cool thing about the scientific approach , and for sure from a DNA perspective . And DNA does n’t dwell .
Yeti or Not also check a lot of scenes of you traveling the Himalayas , looking for masses who ’ve collected those valuable samples and stories . Were the locals centripetal to your inquiries ?
Evans : I ’ve been very lucky ; I ’ve travel all around the public filming animate being and the citizenry who interact with them , and there ’s no question that the multitude in Nepal and the high Himalayas are some of the skillful , most reliable the great unwashed on planet Earth . It was a huge privilege to drop meter in their company . Sometimes people will say to me , “ Oh , they ’re just making up chronicle and secernate you what you require to hear . ” But I can genuinely say , from my experience and the masses I ’ve spoken to , they have no axe to grind . Often they ’re really surprised that we ’re even interested in Yetis , because to them , it ’s just part of their life and existence . And they are as excited and concerned in the fact that we ’re try on to shed a scientific luminosity on the issue as we are .
Another grounds why I think it ’s important to make pic like this , and impart investigation like this , is that things are changing — it ’s very much the onetime contemporaries who are tune into these stories and that culture . Inevitably , more young masses are lead the high Himalayas , and these stories may become dilute and fade with clock time . I think it ’s crucial to harvest the knowledge , experience , and storytelling from the people who are still there , go in these incredibly remote areas .
Yeti or Not is an amusing yet perfect deed for the special . Was that your invention ?
Herbert McLean Evans : Sort of ! It was the production company that in the end come up with it . But just the intelligence “ Yeti , ” candidly , whatever you ’ve convey after it , I call up intrigues and enchant an audience .
The affair about skill is that we ca n’t prove they ’re not out there . If we can find biological samples and can say , “ We ’ve tested this and there is nothing in the database that be on planet Earth that say this is a known species . This is something different”—then we can , of course , prove that there is something out there . But we can never , ever prove that the Yeti does not exist , because we just will not be able-bodied to do that . So we have to keep depend .
“ Monster Week ” programming kicks offtonight on Animal Planet ; Yeti or Not has its world premiere Sunday , May 29 , from 9 - 11 PM ( ET / PT ) . For more on Dr. Mark Evans , mark off outhis websiteandfollow him on Twitter .
Cryptozoology
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