The Yeti, a severed finger from Nepal, and movie star James Stewart | Daily Mail Online Fearsome: An artist's impression of what the mythical Yeti would look like Set high in a remote Himalayan mountain range stands the Pangboche Buddhist monastery. During heavy snowstorms, it can be found only by travellers who listen for the monks’ ceremonial horns. The walls are lined with traditional Nepalese paintings depicting the treacherous tracks to the monastery. And among them are pictures of the legendary ape-like creature we refer to as the Yeti. This might seem fanciful until you learn that, for many years, a shriveled hand (about the size of an adult human’s, with long, fat fingers and curling nails) was also on display in the monastery — and revered by the monks, who believed it protected them from bad luck. I would know nothing about this story were it not for the fact that while walking around a collection of human and primate skeletons at the Royal College of Surgeons in London three years ago, I came across a withered finger which had only recently been found in the vaults of the College’s Hunterian Museum. It was labelled ‘a Yeti finger from Pangboche hand’.

What was the story behind this finger, I wondered, and how did it end up in London? Where was the rest of the ‘Pangboche hand’? And what truth was there behind the label’s claim that this finger belonged to the Yeti of ancient legend? The myth has it that the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, is a vast creature which inhabits the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet, where tales about Yetis have been passed down through generations. Fossil remains found there from the Pleistocene age (2,500,000 to 11,700 years ago) reveal skeletons of a creature called the Gigantopithecus, or great ape, which became extinct 300,000 years ago. These towering primates reached about 10ft in height and weighed half a ton. It is possible they lived alongside our human ancestors in what are now China, India and Vietnam. Yet the scientific community generally regards this species simply as a large, extinct ape — and the Yeti as nothing more than a legend.

Tales of the Meh-te, or ‘man bear’ as Yetis are known in Nepal, gained popular currency in the West only in the 1830s when the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published British orientalist B. H. Hodgson’s account of a tall, two-legged creature covered with dark hair that he claimed to have seen while trekking in Nepal. The Yeti' finger, pictured that was displayed at London's Royal College of Surgeons Reports became more frequent in the 20th century as Westerners began making attempts to scale the Himalayas, and reported seeing strange footprints or odd creatures. In 1925, a photographer with the Royal Geographical Society reported seeing a creature near the world’s largest glacier, the Zemu, in India. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share N. A. Tombazi wrote that ‘unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes’. He says the creature’s prints were ‘similar in shape to those of a man, but six to seven inches long by four inches wide’.

The Daily Mail sponsored an expedition in 1954 to investigate recent Yeti sightings reported in the paper’s pages. During the trek, mountaineer John Angelo Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints, some of which were large and could not be identified as belonging to any known animal. Actor Jimmy Stewart went along on one of the many expeditions to explore Yetis that were funded by his wealthy American friend Tom Slick The Mail subsequently ran an article which described how expedition teams obtained black and dark brown hair specimens from what was said to be a Yeti scalp in the same Pangboche monastery. In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while climbing Everest, although Hillary remained a confirmed Yeti sceptic. In 1974, reports of a Yeti attack on the wife of a Sherpa reached Britain. Lap Kadoma was supposedly thrown into a river by a large creature which approached her from behind. When she regained consciousness, she found a number of dead yaks lying nearby. Her injuries were not like those inflicted by snow leopards or bears, which tear the carcasses of their prey apart.

Instead, the yaks bore teeth marks and their flesh had been eaten. Then, in 1957, Tom Slick, a wealthy American oilman, funded a series of expeditions to investigate Yetis. He became obsessed after hearing about them on business trips to India. It was a year later, during one of the expeditions funded by Slick, that the Irish-American explorer Peter Byrne heard two Sherpas mention the word ‘Meh-te’. When quizzed, they told him about the ancient Yeti hand preserved in the Pangboche Monastery. Days of trekking through treacherous passes with the ever-constant threat of avalanches followed as Byrne made his way to the magnificent monastery. He remembers walking the halls by candlelight and being led to the room which contained the Pangboche hand. ‘It was covered with crusted black, broken skin,’ Byrne says. He sent a runner over the border to India with a message for Slick about his find. It took three days for the return telegram to arrive with instructions from Slick to obtain the hand and to bring it to London.

But the monks refused to let Byrne take their revered object, explaining that if they let it go, it would bring down a curse on the monastery. Slick was determined, however. He arranged to meet Byrne in London, where they were joined by world-renowned primatologist Professor William Osman Hill. This snow monkey photographed in the Far East bears a striking resemblance to the mythical creature known as the Abominable Snowman or Yeti The venue was the restaurant at Regent’s Park Zoo, where the professor was employed dissecting and embalming dead animals. During the meal, Osman Hill told Byrne that he had to get hold of at least one finger from the hand because he wanted it to be scientifically analysed. The professor — who had links to the Royal College of Surgeons — then reached under the table and brought out a brown paper bag. He tipped a human hand onto the table, and suggested Byrne replace the finger with a human one. Slick could only exclaim: ‘I take it that’s not dessert?’ Byrne returned to the monastery, and although the monks were reluctant, they eventually agreed to part with the finger for £100 — only if Byrne could find a way of disguising the missing digit.

The mountaineer wired the human finger on to the relic, before painting it with iodine to make it look the same colour as the rest of the hand. He now faced a perilous journey home. In the previous year, the Nepalese government — bizarrely — had brought in a law making it illegal for foreigners to kill a Yeti. The Daily Mail backed the Yeti Everest Expedition in 1954, where a team of scientists managed to track several trails of giant footprints on their trek Thus, Byrne took a risk by trekking on foot over the border into India with the digit. The challenge was to smuggle it back to London by plane without the authorities finding it and asking awkward questions. Slick, as ever, had a solution. An old hunting buddy of his was in India and might be able to assist Byrne. The friend turned out to be none other than the movie star Jimmy Stewart. Slick knew that Stewart was on holiday in Calcutta and thought he might be sufficiently intrigued by the Yeti legend to help out. So a meeting was arranged in the Grand Hotel in Calcutta with Byrne, Mr Stewart and his wife Gloria. His instincts were right.

The Stewarts were happy to go along with it. In order to dodge customs, Gloria hid the finger in her lingerie case and they flew out of India with no trouble. Back in London, the finger was handed over to Professor Osman Hill for examination. Chillingly, his tests — which involved comparisons with human hands — concluded that it was not human. Team members of the 1954 expedition take a break. The team was made up of several respected scientists, including zoologist Charles Stonor, Tom Stobart, Dr Biswamoy Biswas, and Gerald Russell, who had assisted in the capture of the first live Panda But there the story goes cold. No more was heard of it for many years, although it is known that Osman Hill eventually bequeathed it to the Hunterian Museum, where it languished until work on this collection brought the finger to light once more. No one knows why, after all the effort to obtain the finger and bring it back to London, it was just handed over to the museum to be neglected and forgotten. My discovery of the finger at the Royal College of Surgeons came quite by chance during a visit, and it kindled my interest in the mystery of this strange artefact.

Having learned the briefest outline of its history, I was able to track down the now 85-year-old Peter Byrne, who was astonished. I took him to see it at the museum. After examining the object, he verified it as the same finger he had taken. The Royal College of Surgeons then granted my request for a tiny sliver of it to be analysed in DNA tests. These were administered by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the results will be revealed in a special BBC Natural History documentary on Radio 4 today. Now, there is a growing movement to have the finger returned to its rightful owners. The Yeti finger was on display several years ago at the Royal College of Surgeons, pictured Mike Allsop, a New Zealand mountaineer, is championing the campaign to help the monastery get it back. He told the monks about the whereabouts of the missing finger on a recent visit, and they have asked for its safe return. The Royal College of Surgeons says it would oblige if asked. Meanwhile, the legend of the Yeti remains as strong as ever. There were 15 reported sightings in Siberia last year alone.

And Kemerovo State University in Russia is even setting up a research institute to look into Yeti reports and sightings. Man’s appetite for the possibility of an undiscovered species of ape will never be sated. It seems unlikely there will ever come a day when the Yeti legend will be fully resolved. But perhaps, like all the best mysteries, that’s the way it should be. For the full result of the DNA analysis, listen to Yeti Finger on BBC Radio 4 today at 11am. Monstrous Science: How the Yeti gets research funded | Vanessa Heggie | Science | The Guardian The H word Monstrous science: how the Yeti gets research funded Struggling to find research funding? Have you considered adding a Yeti hunt to your grant application? Read on to see how it has worked for some scientists, as well as having a rather surprising connection to superspy James Bond and some missing plutonium … A drawing of mountain climbers in the Himalayas spotting an ‘abominable snowman’ or Yeti in the distance c.1950, Nepal.

Photograph: Ed Vebell/Getty Images Friday 31 October 2014 04.00 EDT Last modified on Monday 3 November 2014 03.32 EST Share on Messenger Close The 1960-61 Silver Hut expedition was an extraordinarily ambitious physiology research programme, which provided significant insights into human adaptation to altitude, and kick-started the careers of some of the 20th century’s leading physiologists . It was also expensive, and part of the funding came from a promise by mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary to organise a hunt for the Yeti. Silver Hut was dreamt up by Hillary and the physiologist Griff Pugh – the man responsible for much of the research that allowed Hillary to climb Everest in 1953. Inspired by time spent in the Antarctic as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition , Pugh suggested that a team of explorer-scientists could go to the Himalaya and overwinter in specially designed huts, in order to study the long-term effects of adaptation to high altitude.

By promising a Yeti hunt, and an attempt on one of the nearby high peaks, the team managed to get funding from a publishing company, Marshall Field Enterprises of Chicago. Hillary wrote confidently about the chance of finding the beast, as apparently he thought he’d figured out where all the other Yeti hunters had gone wrong: they looked in the summer, when the Yeti would be hiding from human disruption high in the mountains. Instead, serious hunters should go in the winter months, when the animal would be forced into the lower valleys to search for food. Hillary’s scheme was a complicated affair; in October, a team of 10 men would set up lookout points in the Rolwaling Valley , then in December they’d look in the Hongu Valley , and then in March search in the Hongu and Barun Valleys . High-tech equipment was used, as the lookout posts were connected using radios and the team took automatic trip cameras, long-range needle guns and even a teargas pencil.

This equipment was handled by Marlin Perkins , the director of Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, although few of the team got the hang of all the technology, as climber Peter Mulgrew admitted rather sarcastically : ...all one had to do on coming face to face with a Yeti was to estimate the body weight of the creature, carry out a small mental calculation, enabling one to set the correct amount of drug so as not to kill the beast, load the gun and fire…In any event I found myself quite unable to do the mental sum required and on the one occasion when I did manage it, took a full six minutes Needless to say, the team did not find the Yeti: nothing was seen in the valleys, ‘abominable snowman’ footprints turned out to be melted fox or wolf tracks, and a mysterious animal scalp was identified as probably belonging to a bear. But, as the slightly more sceptical Griff Pugh suggested, the hunt for the Yeti was a valid activity, as it would persuade climbers that such a long expedition was worthwhile and was ‘a valuable means of obtaining financial support for the expedition.’ A still from Hammer Production’s 1957 movie The Abominable Snowman.

Photograph: Cine Text / Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd. / Allstar The Daily Mail and the abominable snowman Western interest in the Yeti, or abominable snowman, really kicked off in 1951, when British climber Eric Shipton published photographs of what were supposed to be Yeti tracks , taken while on an expedition testing routes and equipment for the 1953 Everest attempt. Many climbers, explorers and scientists seriously believed in the possibility of a missing link, or unknown creature (although they were not convinced by the more supernatural explanations for the Yeti). There were plenty of accounts – from European climbers as well as local people and Sherpa guides – of strange noises, strange tracks, and even strange sightings on the mountains. In 1954 the Everest Expedition’s cameraman, Tom Stobart , led a team to find the Yeti, which was funded by the Daily Mail. The ‘Daily Mail Himalayan Expedition’ included journalist Ralph Izzard who sent exclusive stories about the hunt back to the newspaper, which led some people to suggest that it was just a publicity stunt.

In fact, the expedition was a serious affair, including an expert ornithologist, a specialist in animal capture and a senior member of the Indian Zoological Survey, and was intended to survey a range of birds and animals across east Nepal. The team was asked to supply specimens to Kew Gardens, and anything really unusual – say, an Abominable Snowman – was to go was to go direct to the (London) Huntarian Museum ’s honorary curator Prof F Wood Jones , a well known anatomist and anthropologist. While it may not have found a Yeti, the expedition did gather information about other animals, and identified several new bird species . 007 and the lost plutonium Sometimes Yeti hunts were taken too seriously – scientific explorers and mountaineers were often accused of being involved in spying and espionage. The Himalaya are in a politically sensitive area, crossing the borders of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and China, as well as being a site of conflict between Russia and its enemies (including at times both Britain and the USA).

The American Yeti-hunter Tom Slick had some connections to the CIA, and Ralph Izzard is said to have been the major inspiration for the fictional spy James Bond; a tense poker game played against Nazi naval intelligence officers in Brazil was apparently the basis for Casino Royale . So it may be that anything suspicious going on in the Himalayan valleys was more likely to be the work of spies than an undiscovered bigfoot. In 1965 a CIA-organised team of American and Indian climbers attempted to put nuclear-powered surveillance devices on the summit of the mountain Nanda Devi , in order to spy on Chinese weapons tests. The climbers failed to reach the summit and stashed the devices ‘safely’ at 7200m above sea level. When they returned to complete the job in early summer the devices, and their plutonium payload , had vanished without trace. Now that’s scary. But, as we all know, every good 20th century monster is created by exposure to radiation , so perhaps there’s hope for the Yeti still … Vanessa always wanted to be a cryptozoologist when she grew up, and likes to pretend she was named after the famous loch monster.

Tweet your alien big cat sightings to her @hps_vanessa BFRO Media Article 642 MailOnline Set high in a remote Himalayan mountain range stands the Pangboche Buddhist monastery. During heavy snowstorms, it can be found only by travellers who listen for the monksï¿½ ceremonial horns. The walls are lined with traditional Nepalese paintings depicting the treacherous tracks to the monastery. And among them are pictures of the legendary ape-like creature we refer to as the Yeti. This might seem fanciful until you learn that, for many years, a shriveled hand (about the size of an adult humanï¿½s, with long, fat fingers and curling nails) was also on display in the monastery ï¿½ and revered by the monks, who believed it protected them from bad luck. I would know nothing about this story were it not for the fact that while walking around a collection of human and primate skeletons at the Royal College of Surgeons in London three years ago, I came across a withered finger which had only recently been found in the vaults of the Collegeï¿½s Hunterian Museum.

It was labelled ï¿½a Yeti finger from Pangboche handï¿½. What was the story behind this finger, I wondered, and how did it end up in London? Where was the rest of the ï¿½Pangboche handï¿½? And what truth was there behind the labelï¿½s claim that this finger belonged to the Yeti of ancient legend? The myth has it that the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, is a vast creature which inhabits the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet, where tales about Yetis have been passed down through generations. Fossil remains found there from the Pleistocene age (2,500,000 to 11,700 years ago) reveal skeletons of a creature called the Gigantopithecus, or great ape, which became extinct 300,000 years ago. These towering primates reached about 10ft in height and weighed half a ton. It is possible they lived alongside our human ancestors in what are now China, India and Vietnam.

Yet the scientific community generally regards this species simply as a large, extinct ape ï¿½ and the Yeti as nothing more than a legend. Tales of the Meh-te, or ï¿½man bearï¿½ as Yetis are known in Nepal, gained popular currency in the West only in the 1830s when the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published British orientalist B. H. Hodgsonï¿½s account of a tall, two-legged creature covered with dark hair that he claimed to have seen while trekking in Nepal. The Yeti' finger, pictured that was displayed at London's Royal College of Surgeons Reports became more frequent in the 20th century as Westerners began making attempts to scale the Himalayas, and reported seeing strange footprints or odd creatures. In 1925, a photographer with the Royal Geographical Society reported seeing a creature near the worldï¿½s largest glacier, the Zemu, in India. More...Who you calling bird brain? Pigeons can count as well as monkeys, claims study The fastest sprinters are 'built like cheetahs and greyhounds' N. A.

Tombazi wrote that ï¿½unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushesï¿½. He says the creatureï¿½s prints were ï¿½similar in shape to those of a man, but six to seven inches long by four inches wideï¿½. The Daily Mail sponsored an expedition in 1954 to investigate recent Yeti sightings reported in the paperï¿½s pages. During the trek, mountaineer John Angelo Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints, some of which were large and could not be identified as belonging to any known animal. Actor Jimmy Stewart went along on one of the many expeditions to explore Yetis that were funded by his wealthy American friend Tom Slick The Mail subsequently ran an article which described how expedition teams obtained black and dark brown hair specimens from what was said to be a Yeti scalp in the same Pangboche monastery. In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while climbing Everest, although Hillary remained a confirmed Yeti sceptic.

In 1974, reports of a Yeti attack on the wife of a Sherpa reached Britain. Lap Kadoma was supposedly thrown into a river by a large creature which approached her from behind. When she regained consciousness, she found a number of dead yaks lying nearby. Her injuries were not like those inflicted by snow leopards or bears, which tear the carcasses of their prey apart. Instead, the yaks bore teeth marks and their flesh had been eaten. Then, in 1957, Tom Slick, a wealthy American oilman, funded a series of expeditions to investigate Yetis. He became obsessed after hearing about them on business trips to India. It was a year later, during one of the expeditions funded by Slick, that the Irish-American explorer Peter Byrne heard two Sherpas mention the word ï¿½Meh-teï¿½. When quizzed, they told him about the ancient Yeti hand preserved in the Pangboche Monastery. Days of trekking through treacherous passes with the ever-constant threat of avalanches followed as Byrne made his way to the magnificent monastery.

He remembers walking the halls by candlelight and being led to the room which contained the Pangboche hand. ï¿½It was covered with crusted black, broken skin,ï¿½ Byrne says. He sent a runner over the border to India with a message for Slick about his find. It took three days for the return telegram to arrive with instructions from Slick to obtain the hand and to bring it to London. But the monks refused to let Byrne take their revered object, explaining that if they let it go, it would bring down a curse on the monastery. Slick was determined, however. He arranged to meet Byrne in London, where they were joined by world-renowned primatologist Professor William Osman Hill. This snow monkey photographed in the Far East bears a striking resemblance to the mythical creature known as the Abominable Snowman or Yeti The venue was the restaurant at Regentï¿½s Park Zoo, where the professor was employed dissecting and embalming dead animals. During the meal, Osman Hill told Byrne that he had to get hold of at least one finger from the hand because he wanted it to be scientifically analysed.

The professor ï¿½ who had links to the Royal College of Surgeons ï¿½ then reached under the table and brought out a brown paper bag. He tipped a human hand onto the table, and suggested Byrne replace the finger with a human one. Slick could only exclaim: ï¿½I take it thatï¿½s not dessert?ï¿½ Byrne returned to the monastery, and although the monks were reluctant, they eventually agreed to part with the finger for ï¿½100 ï¿½ only if Byrne could find a way of disguising the missing digit. The mountaineer wired the human finger on to the relic, before painting it with iodine to make it look the same colour as the rest of the hand. He now faced a perilous journey home. In the previous year, the Nepalese government ï¿½ bizarrely ï¿½ had brought in a law making it illegal for foreigners to kill a Yeti. The Daily Mail backed the Yeti Everest Expedition in 1954, where a team of scientists managed to track several trails of giant footprints on their trek Thus, Byrne took a risk by trekking on foot over the border into India with the digit.

The challenge was to smuggle it back to London by plane without the authorities finding it and asking awkward questions. Slick, as ever, had a solution. An old hunting buddy of his was in India and might be able to assist Byrne. The friend turned out to be none other than the movie star Jimmy Stewart. Slick knew that Stewart was on holiday in Calcutta and thought he might be sufficiently intrigued by the Yeti legend to help out. So a meeting was arranged in the Grand Hotel in Calcutta with Byrne, Mr Stewart and his wife Gloria. His instincts were right. The Stewarts were happy to go along with it. In order to dodge customs, Gloria hid the finger in her lingerie case and they flew out of India with no trouble. Back in London, the finger was handed over to Professor Osman Hill for examination. Chillingly, his tests ï¿½ which involved comparisons with human hands ï¿½ concluded that it was not human. Team members of the 1954 expedition take a break.

The team was made up of several respected scientists, including zoologist Charles Stonor, Tom Stobart, Dr Biswamoy Biswas, and Gerald Russell, who had assisted in the capture of the first live Panda But there the story goes cold. No more was heard of it for many years, although it is known that Osman Hill eventually bequeathed it to the Hunterian Museum, where it languished until work on this collection brought the finger to light once more. No one knows why, after all the effort to obtain the finger and bring it back to London, it was just handed over to the museum to be neglected and forgotten. My discovery of the finger at the Royal College of Surgeons came quite by chance during a visit, and it kindled my interest in the mystery of this strange artefact. Having learned the briefest outline of its history, I was able to track down the now 85-year-old Peter Byrne, who was astonished. I took him to see it at the museum. After examining the object, he verified it as the same finger he had taken. The Royal College of Surgeons then granted my request for a tiny sliver of it to be analysed in DNA tests.

These were administered by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and the results will be revealed in a special BBC Natural History documentary on Radio 4 today. Now, there is a growing movement to have the finger returned to its rightful owners. The Yeti finger was on display several years ago at the Royal College of Surgeons, pictured Mike Allsop, a New Zealand mountaineer, is championing the campaign to help the monastery get it back. He told the monks about the whereabouts of the missing finger on a recent visit, and they have asked for its safe return. The Royal College of Surgeons says it would oblige if asked. Meanwhile, the legend of the Yeti remains as strong as ever. There were 15 reported sightings in Siberia last year alone. And Kemerovo State University in Russia is even setting up a research institute to look into Yeti reports and sightings. Manï¿½s appetite for the possibility of an undiscovered species of ape will never be sated. It seems unlikely there will ever come a day when the Yeti legend will be fully resolved. But perhaps, like all the best mysteries, thatï¿½s the way it should be.

For the full result of the DNA analysis, listen to Yeti Finger on BBC Radio 4 today at 11am Bibliographical Information: Learn and talk about Himalayan brown bear, Bears, Carnivorans of Asia, Critically endangered biota of Asia, Fauna of Jammu and Kashmir Horsfield , 1826 The Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus), also known as the Himalayan red bear, Isabelline bear or Dzu-Teh, is a subspecies of the brown bear and is known from northern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, northern India, Nepal and Tibet. It is the largest mammal in the region, males reaching up to 2.2 m (7 ft) long while females are a little smaller. These bears are omnivorous and hibernate in a den during the winter. Although present in a number of protected areas, they are becoming increasingly rare because of loss of suitable habitat and persecution by humans, and have become " critically endangered ". This bear (as the Dzu-Teh) is thought to be the source of the legend of the Yeti . [1] [2] Contents Description[ edit ] Himalayan brown bears exhibit sexual dimorphism .

Males range from 1.5m up to 2.2m (5 ft - 7 ft 3in) long, while females are 1.37m to 1.83m (4 ft 6 in - 6 ft) long. They are the largest animals in the Himalayas and are usually sandy or reddish-brown in colour. Distribution[ edit ] The bears are found in Nepal , Tibet , north India , and north Pakistan . They are already speculated to have become extinct in Bhutan. Behaviour and ecology[ edit ] The bears go into hibernation around October and emerge during April and May. Hibernation usually occurs in a den or cave made by the bear. Himalayan brown bear with cubs on the trek from Gangotri to Gaumukh in Uttarakhand, India. Feeding[ edit ] Himalayan brown bears are omnivores and will eat grasses, roots and other plants as well as insects and small mammals; they also like fruits and berries. They will also prey on large mammals, including sheep and goats . Adults will eat before sunrise and later during the afternoon. Status and conservation[ edit ] International trade is prohibited by the Wildlife Protection Act in Pakistan .

Snow Leopard Foundation (SLF) in Pakistan conducts research on the current status of Himalayan brown bears in the Pamir Range in Gilgit-Baltistan, a promising habitat for the bears and a wildlife corridor connecting bear populations in Pakistan to central Asia. The project also intends to investigate the conflicts humans have with the bears, while promoting tolerance for bears in the region through environmental education. SLF received funding from the Prince Bernhard Nature Fund and Alertis. [3] Unlike its American cousin, which is found in good numbers, the Himalayan brown bear is critically endangered. They are poached for their fur and claws for ornamental purposes and internal organs for use in medicines. They are killed by shepherds to protect their livestock and their home is destroyed by human encroachment. In Himachal, their home is the Kugti and Tundah wildlife sanctuaries and the tribal Chamba region. Their estimated population is just 20 in Kugti and 15 in Tundah. The tree bearing the state flower of Himachal — buransh — is the favourite hangout of this bear.

Due to the high value of the buransh tree, it is being commercially cut causing further destruction to the brown bear’s home. [4] The Himalayan brown bear is a critically endangered species in some of its range with a population of only 150-200 in Pakistan. The populations in Pakistan are slow reproducing, small, and declining because of habitat loss, fragmentation, poaching, and bear baiting . [3] Association with the Yeti[ edit ] Skull "Dzu-Teh," a Nepalese term, has also been associated with the legend of the Yeti , or Abominable Snowman, with which it has been sometimes confused or mistaken. During the Daily Mail Abominable Snowman Expedition of 1954, Tom Stobart encountered a "Dzu-Teh". This is recounted by Ralph Izzard, the Daily Mail correspondent on the expedition, in his book The Abominable Snowman Adventure. [5] The report was also printed in the Daily Mail expedition dispatches on May 7, 1954 [1] .

However Tom Stobart was not a native of the region and his identification was merely based on a presumption that he knew an animal that he had never seen before from very ambiguous evidence. Native Tibetans deny that Dzu-Teh refers to any kind of a bear (It means "Cattle raider") and the name is used in areas where bears are not found. George Eberhart in MYSTERIOUS CREATURES, A Guide to Cryptozoology, Clio Books 2002, articles Dzu-Teh p. 151 and Dre-Mo p. 148-149, says that the problem is the result of conflating the Dzu-Teh with a different creature known as the Dre-Mo, and that one definitely is a bear. Eberhart says under the article Dzu-Teh that "there is considerable doubt that the locals made any such claim." (ibid, p. 152) References and further reading[ edit ] "Status and Affinities of the Bears of Northeastern Asia", by Ernst Schwarz Journal of Mammalogy 1940 American Society of Mammalogists. Ogonev, S.I.

1932, "The mammals of eastern Europe and northern Asia", vol. 2, pp. 11–118. Moscow. Pocock R.I, "The Black and Brown Bears of Europe and Asia" Part 1. Journal or Bombay Natural History Society., vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 772–823, figs 1-11. July 15, 1932. Ursus arctos, by Maria Pasitschniak, Published 23 April 1993 by "The American Society of Mammalogists" John A. Jackson, "More than Mountains", Chapter 10 (pp 92) & 11, "Prelude to the Snowman Expedition & The Snowman Expedition", George Harrap & Co, 1954 Ralph Izzard, "The Abominable Snowman Adventure", this is the detailed account by the Daily Mail correspondent on the 1954 expedition to find the "Snowman", Hodder and Staoughton, 1955.

Charles Stonor, "The Sherpa and the Snowman", recounts the 1955 Daily Mail "Abominable Snowman Expedition" by the scientific officer of the expedition, this is a very detailed analysis of not just the "Snowman" but the flora and fauna of the Himalaya and its people. Hollis and Carter, 1955. John A. Jackson, "Adventure Travels in the Himalaya" Chapter 17, "Everest and the Elusive Snowman", 1954 updated material, Indus Publishing Company, 2005. Original courtesy of Wikipedia: — Please support Wikipedia. This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia . A portion of the proceeds from advertising on Digplanet goes to supporting Wikipedia. We're sorry, but there's no news about "Himalayan brown bear" right now. Limit to books that you can completely read online Include partial books (book previews) Oops, we seem to be having trouble contacting Twitter Support Wikipedia A portion of the proceeds from advertising on Digplanet goes to supporting Wikipedia. Please add your support for Wikipedia! Searchlight Group Digplanet also receives support from Searchlight Group.

Visit Searchlight Copyright © 2009-2017 Digparty. All rights reserved. Abominable Snowman - Top 10 Famous Mysterious Monsters - TIME Top 10 Famous Mysterious Monsters By Ishaan TharoorFriday, Aug. 14, 2009 Mary Evans Picture Library / Alamy In 1832, James Prinsep, one of colonial India's most venerable scholars, kept a British trekker's account of his trip through Nepal, where he reportedly saw a tall, hairy, bipedal creature that fled upon being detected. This first recorded modern sighting of a yeti (ancient-Roman historians also told of cave-dwelling "satyrs" in India's mountains) made Bigfoot's Himalayan cousin a household name around the world. The Abominable Snowman moniker came in 1921, when a British army colonel translated the phrase his Sherpa used for a creature that left behind huge footprints in the mountains. Indeed, many mountaineers, including Everest conquerors Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, reported unshod footprints far larger than human feet dotting snowy trails.

Another traveler's tale described a massively muscled, hairy beast clutching a primitive bow. A 1954 expedition commissioned by the British Daily Mail retrieved dark brown hairs from a supposed yeti scalp kept in a secluded Buddhist monastery. The yeti was the subject of a rich vein of mid20th century adventure fiction and still spurs contemporary explorers: a 2008 Japanese expedition turned up more alleged yeti footprints. Bigfoot Movies Bigfoot Movies Review site for bigfoot movies Monday, 6 February 2012 The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas - 1957 Originally billed simply as 'The Abominable Snowman', this movie was produced by Hammer Films and was released on 26th August 1957 in the UK, starring Forest Tucker and Peter Cushing. One of the earliest movies on the subject, the movie coincided with the Daily Mail / Tom Slick funded expedition to find the Yeti, thus ensuring an eager audience when it arrived in British theatres. Plot: Botanist John Rollason studies rare mountain herbs at a remote lhamasery in the Himalays with his wife Helen and associate Peter.

When an American called Tom Friend arrives, Rollason and Friend set out to find the Yeti despite Helen's objections. The pair are accompanied by another American, Shelley and a Scot, McNee who claims to have had a Yeti sighting. When the group find footprints in the snow, McNee seems strangely affected and Friend turns out to want to exploit the creature along with Shelley. The movie then centres around the conflict between scientific discovery and commercialisation. When the Yeti is eventually shot, the party is horrified to find that other Yeti intend to retreive the fallen creature and appear to posses supernatural powers to do so. Trailer: Production: The movie was shot at the famous Pinewood Studios just outside London and the lesser-known Bray studios (Alien, Rocky Horror and almost every Hammer movie you can imagine). Outdoor filming took place in the Pyrénées in France. Stills: Below is a comprehensive list of Bigfoot and Yeti movies. If you are aware of any other movies, please email me.

1954 - The Snow Creature - IMDB 1955 - The Creature (BBC Play) - IMDB 1955 - Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman 1955 - Ju jin yuki otoko (Japan) aka 'Beast Man Snow Man' (USA) - IMDB 1956 - Man Beast - IMDB 1957 - The Abominable Snowman - IMDB 1961 - Ostroznie, Yeti!

(Poland) - IMDB 1972 - The Legend of Boggy Creek - IMDB 1972 - Horror Express - IMDB 1974 - Beauties and the Beast aka 'The Beast and the Vixens' / ' Desperately Seeking Yeti' 1974 - Shriek of the Mutilated aka 'Scream of the Snowbeast' (TV title) - IMDB 1975 - La Maldición de la Bestia – Spain aka 'The Werewolf and the Yeti' / 'Curse of the Howling Beast' - IMDB 1976 - Blood Beast of Monster Mountain aka 'The Legend of McCullough’s Mountain' (re-edit of Demon Hunter with bigfoot suit) - IMDB 1976 - Creature from Black Lake - IMDB 1976 - The Legend of Bigfoot - IMDB 1976 - The Six Million Dollar Man - The Secret of Bigfoot Part 1 (s03e17) - IMDB 1976 - The Six Million Dollar Man - The Secret of Bigfoot Part 2 (s03e18) - IM

DB 1976 - The Six Million Dollar Man - The Return of Bigfoot Part 1 (s04e01) - IMDB 1976 - The Bionic Woman - The Return of Bigfoot Part 2 (s02e01) - IMDB 1977 - The Six Million Dollar Man - Bigfoot V (s05e05) - IMDB 1977 - Bigfoot and Wildboy (TV Series) - IMDB 1977 - Return to Boggy Creek - IMDB 1977 - Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot - IMDB 1977 - Snowbeast (TV) - IMDB 1977 - Yeti: The Giant of the 20th Century – Italy - IMDB 1978 - Curse of Bigfoot (re-edited/extended version of Teenagers Battle the Thing) - IMDB 1979 - Revenge of Bigfoot aka 'Rufus J.

Pickle & the Indian' - IMDB 1979 - Screams of a Winter Night aka 'Howlings of a Winter Night' - IMDB 1979 - The Capture of Bigfoot aka 'The Legend of Bigfoot' - IMDB 1980 - Night of the Demon - IMDB 1985 - Bigfoot - IMDB 1985 - The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II aka 'Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues' - IMDB 1987 - Harry and the Hendersons aka Bigfoot and the Hendersons (UK) - IMDB 1987 - Cry Wilderness - IMDB 1990 - Petrified Beast from the Frozen Zone (re-edit of 'Man Beast') - IMDB 1991- Harry and the Hendersons (TV series) - IMDB 1991 - Ajooba Kudrat Kaa (Hindi movie) 1995 - The Last Chance Detectives: Legend of the Desert Bigfoot - IMDB 1995 - Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter - IMDB 1995 - To Catch a Yet

i - IMDB 1996 - Drawing Flies - IMDB 1996 - The Abominable Snowman - IMDB 1997 - Search for the Beast - IMDB 1997 - The Sasquatch Hunters - IMDB 1997 - Little Bigfoot - IMDB 1997 - Little Bigfoot 2 - IMDB 1998 - Big and Hairy - IMDB 2000 - Yeti: Le Cri de l’Homme des Neiges (French TV movie) - IMDB 2001 - Ein Yeti zum Verlieben/My Friend the Yeti (German TV movie) - IMDB 2002 - Ape Canyon - IMDB 2002 - Sasquatch aka “The Untold” - IMDB 2003 - They Call Him Sasquatch - IMDB 2004 - Yeti Vengeance - IMDB Historical Treasures, Oddities, And Delights Feb.

26 2013 1:27 PM The American Government's Advice for Yeti Hunters, 1959 By Rebecca Onion The Vault is Slate's new history blog. Like us on Facebook ; follow us on Twitter @slatevault ; find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here . This Foreign Service memo treats a science-fictional subject—the existence of the Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman—with utmost bureaucratic seriousness. Titled “Regulations Governing Mountain Climbing Expeditions in Nepal—Relating to Yeti,” it was issued from the American Embassy in Kathmandu on November 30, 1959. The memo came at the end of a decade of strenuous Yeti-hunting. This Outside Magazine timeline of Yeti hunts tells the story in compact form. In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Everest, and reported seeing large tracks. In 1954, the Daily Mail (UK) funded a sixteen-week “Snowman Expedition” to Everest to look for clues.

(The newspaper is still on the case today.) And in the late 1950s, American oil millionaire and cryptozoology enthusiast Tom Slick—whose colorful life, as Badass Digest points out , should definitely be made into a movie—bankrolled a number of Himalayan expeditions in search of the creature. Advertisement Did the U.S. government believe in the Yeti, as some cryptozoologists took the memo to mean? The memo stipulated three rules: Yeti hunters must pay the Nepalese government for a permit; hunters can photograph, but not kill, any Yeti that surfaces, and must turn any photographs or captured Yeti over to Nepali officials; and new findings need to be filtered through Nepalese channels before going public. These regulations were actually first issued by the government of Nepal in 1957. The U.S. established diplomatic relations with Nepal in 1947, and the embassy had just opened in 1959, when the memo was written. The Yeti presence in a State Department document doesn’t prove that the U.S. believed in the Snowmen.

Rather, by reprinting the Nepalese government’s regulations, the embassy could show Nepal that the U.S. respected its sovereignty, even in the matter of hypothetical hairy beasts. Thanks to Mark Murphy of the National Archives. Abominable Snowman Yeti The "abominable snowman" is also known as yeti or mighu (pl. m'ghira,) or miteh, and bongamanche ("man of the forest.") In Mongolia, there is the almas. In Garo, a language of Meghalaya, a small hilly Indian state on the north-eastern border with Bangladesh, it is called "mande burung." July 25, 2008 BBC news item and interview . Renewed interest is due to the fact that British scientists are currently analyzing some hairs, one of which has a root attached providing DNA for comparison with various species. As you may know, several casts have been made of mysterious footprints, neither ape-like nor human, found in the high mountain terrain of Asia and the Americas. In spring of 2001, a mysterious black hair was found in a cedar tree-root den in a bamboo jungle in Bhutan.

Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine, one of the worldï¿½s leading experts on DNA analysis, and the first to extract genetic material from ancient bones said, "We found some DNA in it, but we donï¿½t know what it is. Itï¿½s not a human, not a bear nor anything else we have so far been able to identify. Itï¿½s a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldnï¿½t recognise before." ~ The Times, London April 6/01, Discovery News, "Scientists Claim Yeti DNA Evidence" by Rossella Lorenzi: British scientists in search of the yeti have found the best evidence yet for the existence of the legendary creature ï¿½ a strand of hair, the DNA of which has proved impossible to identify. The tall, nocturnal, hairy creature who many say dwells around the forests and mountains of the Himalayas supposedly inhabits the hollow of a cedar tree in the Kingdom of Bhutan, on the eastern side of the Himalayas.

Working on a documentary for Channel 4, the British expedition team found a long black hair on the tree bark after Sonam Dhendup, the King of Bhutan's official yeti hunter for the past 12 years, led them into a forest where locals claimed to have discovered a piece of a mysterious skin. The results of DNA analysis on the hair follicle have surprised even skeptical researchers. "It's not a human, it's not a bear, nor anything else that we've so far been able to identify," Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford, told New Scientist. In the documentary, one eyewitness ï¿½ a former royal guard called Druk Sherrik ï¿½ described his encounter with the Migyur, as the Buthanese call the yeti. "It was huge. It must have been nine feet tall. The arms were enormous and hairy. The face was red with a nose like a chimpanzee." In the past, traces of hair and footprints believed to be from the yeti were in fact from bears, langur monkeys, himalayan goats and pigs. But the British finding raises the possibility that the sample belongs to an unknown species.

"We have never encountered any DNA that we couldn't recognize before," said Sykes, a pioneer of DNA identification as the first genetist to extract DNA from archaeological bone specimens. Inside the cedar tree, Rob McCall, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Oxford, found scratch marks resembling claw. Nearby, he saw odd footprints just a couple of hours old. They showed a short print with a narrow heel and toe pads. "Yeti was an official protected species in the Kingdom of Nepal until the mid late 1950's, so someone obviously believes in them," says Lama Surya Das, one of the foremost American Lamas in the Buddhist tradition and author of Wisdom Tales from Tibet. "I've also seen scalps at monasteries high in the Himalayas, but I think they belonged to species of Himalayan red bear. I personally believe that the Yeti, like the Native American's legendary Sasquatch [Bigfoot] are mostly figments of the imagination." The Tengboche Incident A report was filed in the valley around Tengboche monastery in Nepal stating that one evening, when a herder came to get the yaks, three were found cruelly slaughtered.

The local people attributed this to a mighu since it has the reputation of getting the animals to thrust their horns to earth, which leaves them vulnerable to disembowelment. The yeti eats "the still living, still warm innards." We ventured to ask if the yeti still existed. Yes, The Abbot thought so, even though rarely seen. Is it a kind of human or animal we enquired further? That received the slightly shocked answer "it's is human of course!" The yeti is not always harmful. One was believed to have helped the realized meditation master Lama Sangwa Dorje and is also mentioned in the autobiography of Thangtong Gyalpo to have helped him carry his luggage. But there are believed to be different kinds: the mhi-te, which is very horrible and dangerous, and the chuk-dre, slightly smaller and less ferocious version that only eats animals. In the 1950s the famous climber Eric Shipton took photographs of yeti footprints which were published in England. Indeed yeti footprints are still occasionally sighted, but most spectacular is the yeti skull still kept in Kumjung Monastery. It looks like a shaggy rugby ball and not much like any known species of animal.

A few years ago there was also a yeti skull and a hand kept in the monastery in Pangboche. It was quite famous and all the tourists would pay a few rupees to have a look. This provided a small income that helped to support a community of nuns who lived there. Unfortunately it was stolen and that precious piece of evidence of the yeti lost forever. ~ Shmitz and Cawley, Tengboche.com According to The Japan Times (Aug. 14, 2003) "The rare specimen, having been stolen once, is now kept under lock and key in a glass container. Reddish-brown in color, the scalp is about 20 cm high with a thick head of hair parted and brushed back from the center. Scientists, however, have questioned its authenticity." Th[is] specimen, known as the Yeti of Khumjung . . . is in the monastery near Namche Bazar in Nepal, [and] was donated by a lama who had found it near Pangboche. In 2003, Yoshiteru Takahashi, a 60-year-old painter from Tokyo, set out with a team of six other climbers.

With support from a Japanese newspaper, for 2 months they staked out the flanks of 8,167-meter Dhaulagiri, which Takahashi had scaled in 1975 and 1982. "I have climbed the Dhaulagiri (White Mountain) massif four times, and every time, I saw footprints of the yeti. In 1971, one of my expedition members saw one of these creatures. "It looked like a gorilla and stood only 15 meters away from him, watching him, for about 40 seconds," Takahashi said. "It was about 150 cm tall and stood on its hind legs, like a man. Its head was covered with long, thick hair and he was certain it was not a bear or a monkey." On another expedition to the same region in 1994, Takahashi discovered what he describes as a "bolt-hole," a natural cave that stretched back 5 meters into a rock face at 5,000 meters above sea level. "Animals had definitely visited the cave and there were more of the footprints in the snow around the mouth of the cavern," he said.

Unfortunately, his camera failed and he couldn't record his find. And An expedition to find the yeti in 1994 was prompted by the earlier discoveries of footprints that he describes as being similar to those of a human child and measuring up to 20 cm long. He also said he could smell the creatures' musty, animal odor. "The footprints that I saw were similar to the one photographed by British explorers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward in 1951," Takahashi said. {see below] And "The ones I found were smaller and thinner, more like a human foot, with an arch between the heel and the toes," Takahashi said. "There are no animals that leave that sort of track." ~< [article no longer available] Sightings Researchers rarely find evidence, unlike local inhabitants who occasionally meet with it while going about their daily routine. In 1925, Greek photographer, N. A. Tombazi, a member of the British geological expedition in the Kachenjungma region, described a creature he saw moving across a Himalayan slope at an altitude of around 15,000 feet. He estimated it was about a thousand feet away.

"Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes," said Tombazi, "It showed up dark against the snow and, as far as I could make out wore no clothes." But before he could take a photograph, it disappeared. When Tombazi left the team to check out the terrain, in the snow he found 15 footprints from one and a half to two feet apart, ". . . similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide at the broadest part of the foot. The marks of five distinct toes and the instep were perfectly clear, but the trace of the heel was indistinct . . . ." Later, the local people said it was a "Kanchenjunga demon." In 1938 Captain d'Auvergue, curator of Calcutta's Victoria Memorial, was traveling alone in the Himalayas when he became snow blind. He related that, when he was almost dead from exposure, a nine-foot tall Yeti saved his life.

In 1951, in the Gauri Shankar pocket on the Menlung Glacier at an altitude of 20,000 feet, tracks were photographed by British mountaineers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward. The prints were fresh when discovered, and the men followed the trail for a mile before it disappeared onto the ice. Each footprint was thirteen inches wide and up to eighteen inches long. Scientists who viewed the photographs could not positively identify the tracks, noting that depressions in snow get bigger as the snow melts in the sun. Some felt the trail was that of a langur or a red bear, but neither animal is bipedal. In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay found giant foot prints on their way to their record Everest ascent. The London Daily Mail sent an expedition in 1954, and American oilmen, Tom Slick and F. Kirk Johnson, financed trips in 1957, '58, and '59. In 1960, sponsored by World Book Encyclopedia, there was an expedition lead by Sir Edmund Hillary in association with Desmond Doig.

Well equipped with the finest photographic technology of the day and despite a ten-month stay, the group found nothing but a couple of blue bear skins and the scalp of a serow. Doig concluded that the size and activity of the group had precluded any chance of a yeti encounter, since neither did they see a snow leopard. Besides the 1971 sighting by a Takahashi climbing team member, British searchers reported a sighting in 1974. After thirty years in the Himalayas, Desmond Doig believes reports of the mysterious creature refer to three distinct animals: First, what Sherpas call "dzu teh," the one that attacks cattle and which is probably the Tibetan blue bear -- a creature known in the West only through a few skins, bones and a skull; the second is probably a type of gibbon that may live as far north as Nepal despite the fact its usual range is south of the Brahmaputra. The third, known as "mih teh," is the mysterious hairy creature living as high up as 20,000 feet.

Question: A 1954 expedition funded by the Daily Mail set out to find what?
Answer: Yeti