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Scientists Find New Species In Remote New Guinea
An anonymous reader writes "A team of scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces said they discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere. The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during their rapid assessment survey of the Foja Mountains, which has more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest."
I don't understand the dangerous comment? I was there in 1994 when I was in the Marines and it didn't seem dangerous to me at all. The people were actually very friendly and the diving is awesome.
They did warn us not to go anywhere alone but there was some kind of civil war going on at the time. That was nowhere near Papua though.
Overall, I thought it was a pretty cool place!
If you read the article you may have notice the passing reference to the giant cassowary. It's basically a four foot chicken with a bad temper and a crazy look in its eye who can use its razor-sharp talons to disembowel a man where he stands. That's right, this is one of the last remaining birds that can easily kill a person and while it's not a man-eater, I'm sure there are plenty of other animals in the jungle that would be happy to let the cassowary play the butcher and carve you up like a holiday ham for their culinary delight. So before you start wondering about what kind of wine to server with tree kangaroo, you might first stop to ask yourself, how do you taste.
How ironic, I happen to be reading the Lost World now. I did read years ago that remote parts of Papua New Guinea are considered among the last unexplored regions outside of Antartica (parts of Mongolia being the other). I'm all for exploration but I hope the Indonesian authorities make every effort to preserve this 4,000 sq mile habitat.
any idea when pictures are going to show up? magazines? tv specials?
It's finds like this which make me wonder: are there still what we consider to be "dinosaurs" - and what were considered "dragons" prior to 1850 or so - roaming the remote places of the earth? There seems to be quite a few first-hand accounts of such sightings, but no hard evidence.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Hopefully this might provide more public incentive in terms of supporting conservation efforts.
This raises some interesting possibilities. According to some of the local tribes, Thylacines supposedly still exist in some of the high mountain valleys of New Guinea. It would be really nice if a viable population was found and this sounds like just the place where that might happen. If that was the case the I bet the Australians will be interested.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
PNG does have a reputation for being dangerous. However, it is possible to visit. As a child I used to live in Goroka, although crime was apparent I don't remember it being more of a menace than where I live now, Manchester UK.
/. article isn't clear as to whether this is PNG (East side of the island) or Irian Jaya (The Indonesian province). My understanding of Irian Jaya is that it is dangerous, whereas I have every intention of visiting PNG again I would draw the line at Irian Jaya.
Of course, the
As with everywhere; if you want to visit, take precausions and read about it first.
Hmm, I was born in PNG, it is true that Port Moresby is one of the most dangerous cities in the world and there is a lot of unrest going on in the country (Bougainville etc.). However the Indonesian part (I also lived there for a few years) is relatively safe, basically the Indonesians (Javanese) took over the role of the Dutch as colonizers and (at the time) there was military everywhere.
The biggest threat to wildlife in west papua comes from the mining companies (like Freeport and logging.
Haven't any of you seen Le Valle (The Valley - Obscured by Clouds)?
Pink Floyd was there in 1973...