Film the Ropen

Plan / Cost Breakdown
Project Plan / cost breakdown: http://www.towelsnapper.com/data/rex_umboi_plan.pdf

Description
The Ropen / Indava / Wawanar of Papua New Guinea is believed to be a species of animal not acknowledged by science.  Because it lives in a remote area of the world, it eludes scientific evidence.

If confirmed, its formal discovery has the potential to turn standard biological models on their head as it is believed to be a long-tailed rhamphorhyncoid pterosaur, something museum plaques and PBS programs lecture us has been extinct some 65 million years.

Strategy
A native Papuan with family on Umboi Island and intimate knowledge of the same is willing to make a trek up, and this GoFundMe is to fund that expedition.  The money will be used to supply him with some basic food and equipment, to hire porters, and to offset the loss of income during the two months he expects to be gone.

All the people of this island know where the animal lives.  It is nocturnal, leaving its cave at dusk and returning at dawn.

Why This is Important
Science is about the discovery of truth.  The notion of universal extinction of creatures like pterosaurs is taught with religious fervor as dogma rivaling that of the Catholic Church against Galileo.  The video footage we hope will result from this expedition can turn that dogma on its head and inform the world of the truth.

To that end, the work product of this expedition will be video footage at dusk or dawn of the creature, released to the public for the first time ever in a place with no electricty and inaccessible to the first world.

Time is of the essence as logging of Umboi Island is under way.

For more detailed information, look at Jonathan Whitcomb's book Searching for Ropens.  This is a real animal known by all Papuans in the area and in need of formal discovery.