These three photos have gone viral around Alaska and beyond. I have probably had them emailed to me by 20 different people in the last couple days. The text that goes with the email says....
"Check this out...the caribou was found frozen in place by DEC personnel on a site inspection on the North Slope. That is some cold weather.... temps were down in the -40s F and wind chills to -70 to -80. Caribou froze standing still at -80 with wind chill in Kuparuk AK."
I tend to be Doubting Thomasina about these kinds of emails. I think some guys came across a caribou that had fell over and froze to death and they propped it back up on it's feet and took some photos of it. Hey maybe I'm wrong. KC chime in here. I'm thinking you may have the real scoop by now.
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9 comments:
I found a pair of men's underwear at the bus stop once...Hmmm
global warming in action
Gut reaction: Faker than Michael Jackson's face.
But I'll poke at the records. If this was on the slope, it would have been reported.
I actually tried to check it on Snopes (www.snopes.com) the other day when I first saw it, because I, like you, believe NOTHING like that. If it looks too good, or funny, or odd, (or whatever ... fill in the appropriate word choice) to be true, it usually is. At the time, a couple days ago, Snopes had nothing on it though. If it makes it way around long enough, the real story will end up on there at some point soon.
CD
I'm with KC: FAKED! We all know that these critters (and others like them) easily survive those temps. Hell, the 3 of us (Cathy, KC and me) have all felt actual temps and windchills lower than that.
Fish & Game Caribou Expert said it was faked. A hunter got the caribou then propped it up after it froze. Ya gotta admit it looks cool. Well, cold but why quibble?
No one around here saw anything remotely related to that. And in this case, no records probably means it didn't happen. Barrow office would know, but according to one of the folk in the Vet's lab, `[Stuff] like that? We'd find out right away.`
And even if there wasn't that, (un)common sense tells us that this just doesn't happen. We've all been in colder and windier without any trouble. And you don't `flash freeze;` there's no such thing. I mean, this is AK, not a vat of liquid Nitrogen.
You can do the math on how long it'd take a body of water the volume of the caribou to freeze, and it's just impractically long. And animals that suffer progressive hypothermia bed down, curl up and die. The fake fake and fake.
KC. That's what I thought. I figured someone probably found a dead frozen caribou (or shot one and it froze) and then propped it upright and thought it would be funny to take some photos.
That caribou looks like it had been lying on its side after being shot. the first photo.. My father once shot one and froze it that way and took a photo of my brother sitting on it. fake, fake....... all the way
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