Confusion still reigns, in part because equipment installed by other research groups near Horodyskyj’s cameras remains intact, including a weather station from the World Wildlife Fund. Horodyskyj admits that she may have been part of the problem. She did not apply to the Nepalese government for permission to install the cameras—although she was not aware of any permit process in place at the time. Nevertheless, Horodyskyj, 26, realizes she should have given park officials more details about what she was doing and tried harder to see if some sort of permit was required. “I’m still learning,” she says.
Not all was lost due to the theft. “They missed one camera,” Horodyskyj says, and its video shows the same big draining phenomenon. “But I need another year of data.” Horodyskyj is filing an application to climb back to the peaks in the spring, when she hopes to erect new cameras that can take video during the summer and fall. “Then I can put it all altogether,” she says.
Given the drama, one question had to be asked: “So, for the record, are you a spy?”
“No,” Horodyskyj said.
“So why the accusation?”
“I don’t know.” Her cameras point down from the peak to the lakes below, but there is also a clear line of sight to the next set of glacial peaks, which are 18 to 20 kilometers away. “China is on the other side” of those peaks, she explains. “The Chinese military is along the border of Tibet and Nepal—but it’s behind” those peaks.
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3 Comments
Add CommentI hope she gets her camera equipment & data back. Must be unbearably frustrating after so much effort to be stymied by ignorance. Of course you do not have to go to remote area in Nepal to suffer from ignorant destruction of scientific data. The Greens have repeatedly vandalised experimental GM crops. How many unnecessary deaths have they caused by their actions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor avoinding some kind of confiscation of objects, there's nothing like the Decoy Bird approach. An easy to discover analog, and a second more hidden backup object. The technique is used by drug traffickers: they contact somebody to transport, even a quite big amount of drug, for example in a boat, they warn the police about the shipment, and in the meanwhile, they pass a higher batch thru a different place or mean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know quite a few greens and they have never vandalized anything. Please indicate that you mean extremist greens. Greens cover a pretty wide spectrum of ideologies. The greens around here are usually hunters and fishermen and never sabotage anything. I've heard more than a few of them say that spiking trees is terrorism and should be treated accordingly.
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