Transcript:

The WildmanCelebrating three decades of Pulse of the Planet, here's a program from our archives.There are remote areas of South Central China that are still relatively unexplored. From these regions come persistant reports of a giant ape-like creature called 'the Wildman.' I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Ambience, Golden MonkeyPoirier: The sounds that we're hearing are sounds of the endangered Golden Monkey, which lives in deep mountain regions of China. The Gold en Monkey has, for apparently long periods of time, been mistaken for the Wildman; the reason for this is the Golden Monkey is very, very rare animal." Dr. Frank Poirier is an anthropology professor at Ohio State University. On a visit to China to study the Golden Monkey, he was shown reports by people claiming to have seen the legendary Wildman. Poirier: One of the most consistent stories in China about the Wildman is that this is a creature that stands anywhere between six and seven feet tall. It's usually reported to have long red hair covering most of its body. It's a large creature in terms of body weight: sometimes 700 pounds. It's a creature that walks erect on its hind legs, supposedly it's a creature that does not have a language, a creature that's supposedly afraid of fire, a creature that's supposedly, basically a vegetarian. If the Wildman exists, there are a number of possibilities. One, it's simply a large monkey or a large ape which somehow has escaped detection. A second is that it well be the descendent of Gigantopithecus, a large ape that most people thought became extinct in China about 400,000 years ago. What is a very far out possibility but quite exciting is, what if the Wildman is in fact somehow linked to the human evolutionary lineage. That's something that I only sort of dream about and I can't really fathom what that would do to the ideas that we now have. This archival program is part of our thirtieth anniversary celebration. If you want hear more, check out our podcast.