Fly Less Says Lonely Planet Founder

by Erik Olsen on

You expect the publishers and writers of your favorite
guidebooks to practice what they preach…but what if they get too preachy? I guess that’s my question in the matter of
Tony Wheeler and Mark Ellingham, two names behind the Lonely Planet Empire and behemoths in the world of guidebook
publishing, who
say we all fly too much, too often, and are causing permanent damage to the planet as a result. The planet is not
just lonely, they are telling us, it is getting too warm.

Strange to hear such a thing from publishing
magnates who have made their fortunes beseeching us to fly more. But it makes a bit of sense. At least part of the
equation does. The campaign, such as it is, is urging travelers to "fly less and stay longer" as well as to
donate money to carbon offsetting schemes. I’m all for the stay longer part. IMHO too many people go somewhere distant
and then stay for a day or two and jet set out having seen a monument or two. All travelers should favor the
“longer in fewer places” scheme over the “more places shorter” one.

But back to the
Wheeler entreaty. Is this a good thing or the knee-jerk pleas of folks who have made their dough and now want to tell
the rest of us what to do with our vacations? And what’s with the owner of a company that manufactures six
million copies of 600 different Lonely Planet guidebooks a year, the pulp from entire forests of trees, doing telling
us we should be more environmentally concerned? Well, despite the value of asking such questions, I still believe
Wheeler and company’s hearts are in the right place. I practice the quality over quality method of travel anyway,
so I won’t be making any methodology changes soon. But I admit I find the whole matter rather interesting.
 

"Salma Hayek" Lobster Discovered

by Erik Olsen on

You always have to smile when a new
species is discovered. It just doesn’t happen that often…or at least it’s not publicized that often. I
mean, remember the early Victorian days when new species were being found, like, every day. And the folks that
discovered them were usually amateur naturalists…just rich guys who liked to spend time outdoors with a notebook. I
miss those days. Now, you gotta go to school for 25 years before you can find and name a new species.

So
this new creature looks rather cool, kind of like a hippie crab. And the fact is, it is unusual to find such a
creature. Sure, they discover new kinds of bacteria or bugs; but not big animals, and especially not big weird ones
like this furry lobster that was recently discovered by a French research team in waters some 7,500 feet deep near
Easter Island.

The team from the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER), after
much deliberation, decided to call the crustacean Kiwa hirsuta. Kiwa
comes from the name of the goddess of crustaceans in Polynesian mythology, and hirsuata after the Latin world for "hairy."

So the
lobster is called "Hairy Goddess", which, coincidentally, was Salma Hayek’s high school nickname.

Naming a Species

by Erik Olsen on

I wanted to follow up on my post about the furry "Salma Hayek" lobster with an article
I discovered over at Outside Magazine. The lobster discovery and the naming of the new animal raises some interesting
questions about how species get their names.

Well, turns out there is a method to
the madness…and the method is madness. First of all, the whole species discovery thing is
much more robust than I thought. I was under the false impression that the discovery of new species had largely dwindled
since, say, the 19th century, when amateur naturalists trundled about the countryside discovering new species with each
turn of the head. Well, yes, there were lots of animals to be discovered then, but it turns out some 17,000 new animal
species, both extant and extinct, were added to the zoological record last year. An amazing number. And when it comes
to naming them, well, as one scientist put it, "it’s almost a complete free-for-all." Which means that people
are free to name new species after any whimsical notion they have, any hero or fetish, including Han Solo, characters in
the Muppets, and John Cleese. However odd that may sound, though, I love it. It shows scientists have a sense of humor.

Too Much Fun in Tuvalu

by Erik Olsen on

Some filmmakers have all the fun.

In this article in the
Sydney Morning Herald, filmmaker Antony Balmain heads to the island nation of Tuvalu to film a documentary about
the nation and its troubles. Expecting a Polynesian paradise (as well as morbidly obese people with a thrifty gene), he
discovered a friendly, inviting nation surprisingly bereft of fast-food outlets and in a state of self-denial about the
threats of global warming.

But as this article points out, life is both complex and simple in these distant
islands, and while the filmmaker finds himself taken by them, he also discovers that, like most places so far off, the
travails of travel require that you check your expectations at the door.

Rattlesnake Round-up in Sweetwater

by Erik Olsen on

Well, we missed it. If only I had spotted this earlier,
I could have flagged it for you. Well, someone needs to go and do this next year and then send us a post about it.

I’m talking about the World’s
Largest Rattlesnake Round-up in Sweetwater, Texas. The contest draws people from as far away as Australia (of
course…what’d you think we were gonna say? France?) who all come together to share the experience of ferreting out
poisonous serpents from the region’s many holes and bushes.

But there’s more than merely snake hunting.
You can’t miss the Miss Snake Charmer Scholarship Pageant, which brings together legions of lovely teens to smile, pose
and hack off rattlesnake heads before skinning their bodies. Tell me that doesn’t sound fun?! One fact is certain:
Sweetwater is hard-core about rattlers. And the audience gets to learn a thing or two about snakes…probably more than
you ever wanted to know.  During the course of the weekend, trained experts will milk venom from the fangs of live
pit vipers, and the culinarily adventuresome can sample juicy chunks of deep-fried diamondback meat. Then there will be
the award for the Longest Snake. Last year the record was 77 inches. Sorry, you can go ahead and pick that one up.