"J. van Baardwijk" wrote: > > At 15:07 16-10-2002 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: > > > > > OK, dumb question here. There have been several sightings; everyone > > > > in that corner of the world must know about Bigbird by now. So why > > > > are there no PICTURES? I would expect that by after the first one or > > > > two sightings, nobody would now leave their house without a camera -- > > > > the first person to come up with pictures of Bigbird could make a > > > > nice sum of money, selling the pics to the media. > > > > > > We ae talking about Alaska here. It's not like there are *that* many > > people > > > up there per square mile! > > > >In that area, if I'm reading the maps I found on-line correctly, it's > >part of a region averaging less than 1 person per square mile > > However, people are not evenly spread around an area; that is why it is > called an average. > > The article mentions two villages (Togiak and Manokotak); according to > http://www.bbedc.com/togiak.html and http://www.bbedc.com/manakot.html, the > population of Togiak is 762 and the population of Manokotak is 387. > Certainly a number of those 1,149 people must own a photo camera or video > camera! > > Togiak has a population density of 16.9 people per square mile (based on > land area; population density is 4.4 people per square mile if you include > the 127 square miles of water). Manokotak has either 11.1 or 10.8 people > per square mile. > > Amazingly, a Google search returned 7,860 results for "Togiak" and 3,100 > results for "Manokotak". Not bad for two specks of dust on the map. :-)
The sightings were actually outside the towns, was the impression I got from the article. One of them was by someone driving a tractor. I don't think very many people take their cameras (especially with good lenses) when they're going to spend the day driving a tractor. :) The pilot who spotted it might not have had any good image-recording equipment, either. > >(and sorry, Alberto, complain to the Bureau of Land Management, it's > >*their* map I'm going off of for that). > > That is no excuse, Julia. You are intelligent enough to be able to make the > conversion from "people per square mile" to "people per square > kilometer"! :-) 1) I don't have the *exact* conversion factor memorized. Unless 120km = 74m is exact enough for these purposes. (And I didn't think of that at the time. Blame sleep-deprivation, OK? I've had a little nap since then, so I'm doing a *bit* better now.) 2) The handy conversion table isn't quite within arm's reach. :) I have to leeeeean to get at it from here. And, well, I just didn't feel like it. And besides, if *I'm* smart enough to make the conversion, there are a bunch of other people around here smart enough to make the conversion. 3) The whole "people per square mile" thing makes more sense the way the densities were scaled on the map I found on-line. http://www.blm.gov/nhp/200/nap/NAP_sections/Alaska/ak_popdens.pdf (And I needed to use another map to figure out where the heck the towns in question were: http://alaskareb.com/images/mapalaska.jpg ) I wonder how a bird as big as some of the larger estimates would do against a wolf? Julia _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
