There otter be a better explanation

By NEIL HORNER
News Reporter

Aug 21 2007

Is Bloop-Bloop a mysterious creature from the depths, or is it something more mundane?

A Nanoose Bay resident thinks he might have the answer, and he says it didn’t take a degree in crytozoology to figure it out.

Tony Markle expressed frustration with what he sees as a bogus story, one he lumps in with sasquatch and other mythical mysteries.

“I really tire of reading stories about people claiming to have seen mysterious creatures in the water or on land,” he said in a note to The News.

“Then we get the useless, blurred photos that prove absolutely nothing.”

He said people who claim to see creatures such as Ogopogo and sasquatch should question why scientists have found no remains, despite having found fossilized remains of everything from dinosaurs to bacteria. As well, he wonders why such creatures are almost always seen one at a time, rather than in pairs, and why high-quality photographs are never taken of them.

Rather than a new lake monster, he said, the culprit making the strange disturbances in the water of Cameron Lake are more likely river otters.

To bolster this claim, he sent along a photograph of a mysterious sea-serpent in Cordova Bay, which moved quickly through the water with movements like a giant snake, before disappearing.

The creature, he said, was made up of a family of river otters, swimming one behind the other.