Champ, the famed "monster" of Lake Champlain, might be for real after all. Researchers working in the Button Bay area of the lake last month say highly sensitive sonar equipment on their boat captured underwater sounds similar to those emitted by a Beluga whale or dolphin. "What we got was a biological creature creating biosonar at a level that only a few underwater species can do," said Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, president of Fauna Communications Research, a Hillsborough, N.C., firm that studies how animals communicate. Von Muggenthaler said her team was on the lake at the behest of the Discovery Channel, which was doing a television show about Champ. She said the TV crew departed a day prior to the first biosonar readings detected by her team. Von Muggenthaler declined to speculate on the size, nature or physical characteristics of the creature her equipment monitored. She acknowledged there is no evidence the lake is home to a freshwater whale or dolphin. The biosonar noises picked up by the equipment sound like a rapid series of ticks and are emitted by underwater creatures in their search for food. What is unusual about the sonar heard in this case was its volume: Ten times louder than any known fish species in the lake. She said the irregular sequence of tick sounds also ruled out any chance the noises were produced by a mechanical device or fish finder.
View: Full Article | Source: Burlington Free Press
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