Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • November 2, 2011 theory” before he examined the photographs. “The plesiosauri had fins in the front and back, and the neck and tail weren’t too terribly long.” “What about the theory that a prehistoric creature, entombed in a glacier during the Ice Age, was melted out and started to float?” a journalist attending the scientific conference asked. “There’s a possibility that it was frozen eons ago in the Antarctic and drifted out after being unfrozen.” His theory was considered far-fetched at the time. Global warming was not the concern in 1977 that it is today. The Japanese submitted tissue samples snipped from one of the fins to a lab. These samples showed concentrations of tyrosine similar to those of a shark or a marine ray. The tyrosine effectively cancelled out the possibility that the New Zealand Monster was a mammal. Most British and American scientists had concluded, pretty much instantaneously, that the New Zealand Monster was a dead whale or seal, but it clearly wasn’t either because both whales and seals are mammals. The Japanese biochemist who did the peer-reviewed test said the creature was not a mammal, but no data for the tyrosine content of reptiles appeared to be available. The other scientists noted that the well-developed spinal column and the size and shape of the fins and long tail were incompatible with a shark or a ray. “Even if the tissue contains the same protein as a shark’s, it is rash to say that the monster is a shark,” one Japanese paleontologist said. “The finding is not enough to refute a speculation that the monster is a plesiosaur.” The New Zealand Monster appears to have been the last sighting of a plesiosaur, but it was by no means the first. During World War I, a British armed trawler and a German U-boat separately reported sightings of what looked like a sea-going, long-necked dinosaur. The British trawler pulled up beside the swimming creature and shot it. The creature screamed and dove presumably with a rather gratuitous mortal wound. No one bothered to snap a photograph. In a separate incident, eight German men on a U-boat saw the marine monster they described as somewhat similar to a crocodile lifted from the water kicking and struggling when a sinking merchant ship blew up, but this one got away. The New Zealand Monster may have been the last of a dying race of sea-going dinosaurs, or at least the last to be discovered by 20th century seamen and the first to be photographed in permanent repose and have tissue samples snipped. There is another, scarier possibility. Scientists who never saw the New Zealand Monster now say that, based on studies connected to global warming, Antarctica was inhabited by a whole population of animals not adapted to polar climates, but to tropical climates millions of years ago. Northern Canada and Alaska are known to have been a rich dinosaur habitat. Fossilized bones and tracks show the Arctic region was rich in medium-sized and small dinosaurs. Some evidence exists that the Antarctic region sheltered similar wildlife. The ice did not begin to form in Antarctica until about 24 million years ago, and really intense cold did not set in until about 14 million years ago. This opens up a possibility that the Japanese journalist with a taste for the melodramatic was right after all. Perhaps there is at least a vague possibility that the long-dead carcass of the New Zealand Monster had been frozen in the developing Antarctic ice since the end of the Dinosaur Age, had broken off during the 20th century at the beginning of the thaw more recently known as global warming, and had decayed for only about a month before the carcass was snagged by the Zuiyo Maru in 1977. The Anglo-American scientists may have ridiculed the Japanese scientists, but the Anglo-Americans failed to hurdle a logical obstacle: The well-defined spinal column of the New Zealand Monster was incompatible with that of a shark. The monster, whatever it was, was dead either for a month or for many millions of years and posed no threat to anyone. However, the fact that the polar caps are melting poses a threat to everyone. A total melt-down of Antarctica, which could happen within the lifetime of my baby granddaughter Kate and my soon-to-be-born grandson John J., could raise the world’s sea level by 150 feet. A loss of 10 percent of Antarctica, which could happen within a decade, could raise the sea level by 19 feet, putting Venice and Brooklyn under water. The fate of the Netherlands, much of which is already below sea level because it was reclaimed through skilled repossession of land from the sea by the intelligent and well-organized construction of dikes, would be a foregone conclusion. The sea would also swallow up some of the most productive farmland in China and Japan, the second and third largest players in the world’s economy. The Chinese or the Japanese, confronted by a disaster worse than the recent tsunami, might actually join hands and ask the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave to stop polluting the atmosphere so we can have zillionwatt illuminations of casinos or 400-horsepower cars with one passenger. If we don’t listen to reason, separately or together, they just might do something about it. That’s a lot scarier than Halloween pumpkins and cheesecloth ghosts any way you look at it. As Halloween recedes, one real-life horror may have been revitalized for reasons nobody understood when it first emerged from the Pacific Ocean. On April 25, 1977, the Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru hauled in its drag nets in the South Pacific off the coast of New Zealand and found the New Zealand Monster. “It’s not a fish, a whale, or any other mammal,” Professor Yoshinori Imaizumi of Japan’s National Science Museum told the press. “It’s a reptile, and the sketch looks very like a plesiosaur. This was a precious and important discovery for human beings. It seems that these animals are not extinct after all.” The discovery touched off a one-day media frenzy in the United States as ugly, grainy, black-and-white photographs appeared in major newspapers. Through the courtesy of my brother-in-law and the translating abilities of my wife, I was able to obtain more detailed newspaper accounts from Japan than any published in America or Britain. There was a lot more to the story than a single bad photo followed by scornful dismissal. British and American scientists asserted that the Japanese had confused the smelly carcass they hauled out of the Pacific with what had actually been a dead whale, a dead turtle, or a dead seal – but when three Japanese scientists convoked an inquest over the five macabre color photographs that a company executive snapped before the carcass was discarded, these arguments from experts who had never seen the carcass became obviated. I remember selling freelance stories about the New Zealand Monster to two major national magazines. I reflect that both of them have gone out of business. I may be the world’s most prominent New Zealand Monster authority who speaks English as a first language. Cyber-bullies have already used this to attack my credibility as having discovered an actual survivor of Custer’s Last Stand. What the Japanese experts said after they examined the photographs in color and talked to the seamen and officers who saw the thing was worth a lot more ink than it got in America. The word “monster” in Latin means “showing” or “omen.” We had all better hope that whatever else it may have been, the New Zealand Monster was not a harbinger of something scarier than having dead creatures turning up in fishing nets, which happens all the time. “It’s not a turtle, nor a whale, nor a dolphin…it’s something we’ve never seen before,” one Japanese scientist said. The body had well-developed vertebrae about 45 centimeters long and 15 centimeters thick, according to Michihiko Yano, the marine biology graduate who took the pictures before the carcass was thrown over the side. The whole creature was six meters long from the distinctly reptilian skull shown in two of the color photographs to the base of the tail – about 18 feet. The carcass had four distinct fins about a yard long and with little difference between the front fins and the back fins. “If it’s a reptile, it looks like a plesiosaur,” said one scientist, who had been skeptical of what he called “the Nessie This horror could survive Halloween Letters to the Editor Urges support for Madigan and Christie cast for the committed team of Tom Madigan and Doug Christie in column two. They deserve our unwavering support on Nov. 8. Robert Desteno Wyckoff Dear Editor: I am writing this letter as a former president of the Ramapo High School Music Parents and a friend in full support of Tom Madigan. No one I know has given more time volunteering and supporting our youth in Wyckoff than Tom Madigan. I have known him personally for 20 years. Together, we have spent many long days and late evening trucking band equipment throughout the county for the Ramapo High School Band. He has never looked for credit, and his only reward was in helping our students in promoting the football program and the marching band at Ramapo High School. Tom’s energy and spirited personality set him apart. He rolls up his sleeves, rallies others to get things done, and is always willing to help out -- whether in the Wyckoff community, church events, or at the high schools where he served as a trustee for 12 years. A devoted father and proud grandfather, Tom’s remarkable faith and positive attitude were there for all of us in Wyckoff to witness during the tragic loss of two of his children. Clearly, this is any parent’s worst nightmare. Those painful and difficult times were a testimony to him, Mary, and his children. Yet, despite these personal tragedies, Tom has continued to give back to the community in all his volunteer and charitable endeavors. This is not the time for political nonsense. This is the time to rally around Tom Madigan. We all need to extend a thank you to him for his loyal commitment tot the Township of Wyckoff and especially helping kids. I have faith in him and so do those who know him and his family. I will be doing the right thing for Wyckoff families and taxpayers come Election Day. My two votes will be gladly Dear Editor: One of the biggest complaints I hear about the changes we have endured in Wyckoff over the years is the increase in traffic. High density housing is either proposed or zoned for in our largest open spaces. Prevention of additional development can prevent still greater escalation of traffic. Renewal of our own local open space trust fund is on the ballot this Nov. 8. It costs each household $40 per year (at the average Wyckoff assessed valuation of $810,000). In its first five years, our open space fund has brought in $338 in confirmed open space land preservation grants per household. The key to open space preservation is to have a local funding mechanism in place because grant-giving agencies do not pay 100 percent of the cost. In the Russell Farms acquisition, which will take place after the soil remediation is complete, Bergen County Open Space gave Wyckoff $1.9 million, which is 60 percent of the purchase price. Added to the $1.2 million in our own open space trust fund, we have enough for the $3.1 million purchase. No matter whom you vote for on Nov. 8, I urge my fellow Wyckoff residents to vote “yes” to renew the Wyckoff Open Space Trust Fund for another five years. With this local funding in place, we will be in a position to preserve the 27-acre Maple Lake site, which has been recommended by the Bergen County Open Space agency for a $1.3 million (continued on next page) Encourages renewal of open space trust