Hunting Utah’s Giant Beavers and Loch Ness Otters
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 2nd, 2008
Okay, you can’t watch wall-to-wall pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl, can you? You shouldn’t take in too many replays of every debate spark that flew last week, should you? Tired of the nonstop football and election articles, internet highlights, and television analysis ~ not to mention what’s up with Britney lately?
Take some time to revisit the lake monsters, folks. They miss you.
There is a brand new review of The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (NY: Tarcher/Penguin, 2003) published by epinions.
It is always encouraging to read intelligent critiques written by someone that actually reads the entire book and then takes some time to think about what the authors were trying to do in, for example, this field guide. That makes the effort worth it all.
Please find the whole review here. The following are the last two paragraphs.
[The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep] goes through the sea serpents, waterhorses, mystery whales, monster sharks, unknown manta rays, giant “sea centipedes” (possibly some kind of armored prehistoric whale), titanic turtles, colossal octopi, dinosaurs, and other fauna reported from nearly every corner of the globe. Instead of trying to throw in every sighting committed to paper, the authors zero in on a few of the more convincing and remarkable cases that have crossed their radar (with helpful maps that show exactly where each occurred). Strange carcasses and beached globs are also addressed, as is the “ridicule factor” that you’re likely to experience should you run to the nearest newsman with tales of your own monster sighting. For those determined to encounter these creatures, there are also lists of the places where you’re most likely to encounter sea serpents and lake monsters (try Cadboro Bay in Canada and just about any lake in northern Europe, respectively), not to mention an awesome collection of lakes and rivers around the world that boast some kind of beastie or another. I’d be willing to bet that most of you live within two hundred miles of a supposed water monster lair, and probably didn’t even know it.
If you’re into the kind of weirdness that attracts the attention of this demented reviewer, then you should snap up The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep. There’s not a lot in here that devoted readers of the field haven’t seen before (that said, I’d never heard of the giant beavers, possibly man-eating ones, that are alleged to inhabit the lakes of Utah), but that doesn’t prevent one from getting that creepy feeling when reading about encounters with prehistoric sharks off the coast of Australia or run-ins with horse-headed serpentine forms in the fjords of Scandinavia. Coleman and Huyghe came up with a sensible, highly readable, and well-organized overview of what is admittedly a difficult subject to take seriously. ~ Bryan Shultz, epinions.com, February 1, 2008.
The Giant Beaver or perhaps the Great Bear Lake Monster of Utah, an illustration by Harry Trumbore from The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (NY: Tarcher/Penguin, 2003).
I also appreciate it when a news service actually follows through on their promise to show a cover of one of my books, as CNN did last summer. Beavers didn’t come up in the conversation, but, well, otters did:
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Thanks, I am definitely going to check that book out. I recognize all the cryptids listed except for the sea centipede. It would be fascinating to discover an animal like that.
Well, that explains it. Cute little otters are all these lake monsters. Who’d a thunk it! I guess we can just ignore all the evidence that doesn’t fit the “cute little otter theory” or maybe those are just beavers which may or may not be cute since Joe didn’t say. By the way, just how many cute little otter skeletons have we found in these lakes to support his theory, anyway?
The fact is, it is rare to find bones of any animals, terrestrial or aquatic in nature. They are quickly dispersed, gnawed away by rodents and other animals and decompose rapidly. In my 40+ years wandering in the woods, I think I’ve found two, maybe three deer skeletons (none of them pristine). Can’t say that I’ve ever found beaver, otter, or muskrat remains even though I’ve physically seen them or abundant signs in an area. I found a dead mink laying on the riverbank, once. Just curled up and evidently died a few hours before. But that is the only one I’ve found like that.
That’s my point, Alligator. I’ve spent about the same amount of time wandering through the woods and very few times have I seen an animal skeleton. In something like Loch Ness we might expect the carcas to never wash up on the shore. No doubt in some lakes the legend of a creature is just that–a legend, but in others they, as is said in the song about lake Superior, may never give up their dead. A huge creature with a great deal of weight and body mass might just sink after bloating and, for all we know, maybe SOME of the reports of humps that rise and then sink might be dead lake monsters settling back down to the bottom.
It’s very true that animal skeletons are a rare find. We have abundant wildlife on our property and live on a saltwater river, and if remains were the measure of local animal life, most would think our area devoid of living creatures. The elements and both wild and domestic animals do have a way of making remains disappear rather quickly, so I don’t buy into the “no remains = no monster” theory. How many people are lost at sea never to be found again, even when being actively searched for? People who drown in lakes and rivers are usually found, but those on the hunt usually know when they went missing. If we knew when a lake monster appeared and died, it would be much easier to find the corpse.
The thing is, I know there are coyote, deer, raccoons, bald eagles, hawks, turkey vultures and other animals in the area because I’ve clearly seen them more than once, as have many others, with no question as to what they were. Failing to find the remains of a lake monster or any other cryptid wouldn’t matter much if live specimens were seen with more frequency by more people on a daily, or at least weekly, basis. Giant squid are elusive, yet they’ve been seen, filmed, photographed, caught, and their remains have been frequently found, thus removing them from mythic status and cementing them as real creatures.