Thoughts on cryptozoology

As I've said before, I like cryptozoologists, although I don't count myself as one.  Their resolute optimism can be contagious.  I wish those hunting sasquatch or Nessia all the luck in the world.  I also wish, though, that they did things a little differently. 

Something that should be discussed in cryptozoology is how much background or work someone needs to be credible. (This may apply in other fields - Philip Klass once complained that people thought a few evenings of reading made a UFO expert - but cryptozoology is my favorite oddity, so that's where I'm going.) I ruminate on this this because a lot of people write/post on cryptozoology who are smart and curious but don't know things like ecology and evolutionary biology. Lack of classes in such things has obviously not stopped a lot of people, including me, from writing on the topic. I've written on other topics, like microsatelltie design and Martian soil, where I have no degrees or recent classes, either.  So I'm not saying, "Only write if you're a zoologist."
 My suggestion is that, if you are planning to write on cryptozoology, you owe it to all those interested in the topic to do some reading or talk to some scientists or take some relevant science classes - in short, to do some research outside cryptozoological books and websites and be able to address why a species is likely to exist, where it might plausibly exist, etc. Otherwise, don't waste your time or readers' time. 

The other thing that strikes me about cryptozoology is: Is there any field of endeavor in which people spend so much time re-debating old claims/evidence? P-G film, McNab’s Nessie photo, on and on.... there ARE old things that still puzzle some people. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take the Valhalla sea creature out of the “Unexplained ” file. But you reach a point where everything that could reasonably be relevant has already been said. Log it as a data point and move on to what’s new. Maybe someone will discover something that explains this old sighting or that old photo (the sea creature nicknamed "Trunko," a longtime discussion topic laid to rest by recent discovery of old newspaper accounts, is a great example). If that happens, great,  but well-discussed evidence fifty or a hundred years old is not, by itself, going to yield new insights. Many smart, capable people get caught up in re-debating old stuff forever. 

There ARE plenty of undiscovered animals out there. New birds, sharks, and even mammals are described every year. So let's search for new worlds.