Ogopogo: The Species
Ogopogo, if she exists (they), is unquestionably an animal unknown to science. Those who make her out to be a type stergeon or "exceptionally large beaver" are either terribly misguided or are simply wishing to play the devil's advocate. New species are being found all the time. Journalist Ivan Sanderson estimated in a National Geographic Society report that each year scientists discover and classify 15 new reptiles or amphibians, 50 new mammals, 100 new fish, 15 new birds, and at least 5,000 new insects. For more in depth information, see The Ocean: A World of Mystery.
It is extremely interesting to note that so many witnesses who claim to have seen strange lake creatures, many years apart and in widely separated parts of the world, agree so closely as to the shape, the color, the movements, and the speed of the unidentified creatures. Unlike the monsters of medieval times that took a variety of forms over time, the marine animals described in a more recent period of history are of only two or three shapes.
The modern sea monster is likely to belong to a type with a slender, snake-like body, a large wide-jawed head, and perhaps multiple fins. Another animal often described has an extremely small head, a curving swan-like neck, a bulky body like a barrel, two pairs of flippers, and a heavy tail which all paints the clear picture of a "pre-historic plesiosaur," as people so enjoy to call it.
Ogopogo, from the reports, best fits into the first category. However, this is far from en exact description, as the frequent mention of humped coils would discount this. Regardless, unlike Nessie of the Loch Ness, Ogopogo has been described in a much more snake-like fashion. The closest resemblance to the Okanagan USO is one that Kondrad von Gesner of Zurish, Switzerland, published in his Historia Animalium in 1558. Both he and Olaus Magnus spoke of gigantic snakes 300 feet long which wrapped their immense coils around small vessels and destroyed the ships and their crews. How ironic. Any mention of this today would leave a person as the laughing-stock of society, and yet these two highly respected men of the scientific community devoted an entire section to these amazing creatures. It only goes to prove that, given enough time, knowledge of our past can easily be lost . . . and the same is true for the dinosaurs of whom people knew as 'dragons.'
None of the modern witnesses who have encountered sea serpents thought of the creatures as real snakes. The serpents differed in several ways from real snakes, the most significant difference being in the way the serpents traveled through the water. Any sea-serpent resembling a snake moved with vertical undulations so that the creatures revealed a series of humps above the surface of the water as they swam (as Ogopogo). This, amazingly, was how Gesner described the giant sea snakes of his time. The report goes on to say: "True snakes must swim with horizontal wiggling of their bodies. Also, the sea serpents seemed to be propelled by flippers or fins which were concealed from the observers. True snakes do not, of course, have flippers."
An affidavit by a ship's captain of Gloucester, Massachusetts, signed before a Justice of the Peace in 1817 helps shed light on the speciation of Ogopogo.
"I, Solomon Allen II, of Gloucester, in the County of Essex, Shipmaster, dispose and say: that I have seen a strange marine animal, that I believe to be a sea serpent, in the harbor of Gloucester.
"I should judge him to be in length between 80 and 90 feet and about the size of a half barrel, apparently having joints from his head to his tail. I was about 150 years from him when I judged him to be of the size of a half barrel.
"His head was formed something like the head of a rattlesnake but nearly as large as the head of a horse. (This fits the frequent description of the Ogopogo head and this account was given in 1817.) When he moved on the surface of the water, his motion was slow, at times playing about in circles, and sometimes moving nearly straight forward. When he disappeared, he sunk apparently directly down, and would appear at 200 years from where he disappeared, in two minutes (identically similar to the submerging and resurfacing of the Okanagan USO). His color was dark brown and I did not see spots upon him."
Numerous other historical accounts give almost identical descriptions to an Ogopogo-like "sea monster." The creature that inhabits Okanagan Lake possesses many characteristics of the sea serpents described by Gesner, Allen, and of the Loch Ness Monster, but no one description fits the Okanagan USO exactly.
Frank Lillquist of the Kelowna Corrier staff years ago provided a satisfactory and well-put summary of the famed Ogopogo:
"Outside of the spike-backed dragon whose effigies appear from one end of the lake to the other, the most common description of Ogo is sort of a long, slithery creature, with serpentine neck and vaguely bullet-shaped body.
"That sounds like it could be some kind of plesiosaurus, which first appeared in the Rhaetic and 'last seen' in the Upper Cretaceous - last seen that is except maybe for one inspired member of the dying tribe who found refuge in a deep cavern in our lake.
"If this is the case, than Ogopogo is hardly a tourist attraction - modern-day alligators and boa constrictors are terrible enough, but their prehistoric ancestors make them look tame.
"Suppose Ogopogo was a Kronosaurus, the giant of his plesiosaur family. Then he would have a head about eight feet long, a body about 30 feet long, and be capable of running down a slow motorboat.
"Of course Kronosaurus was mostly found in Australia and if some of his kin are in Okanagan Lake they are most likely the typical long-necked version which fed mainly on fish and small prey.
"These creatures had necks 19 feet long and caught their dinner by lightning-like strikes rather than sheer speed.
"As mentioned, this breed ate mostly fish, but with kokanee dying by the hundreds of thousands and pollution reportedly cutting into all fish populations, perhaps there isn't enough seafood left to sustain the brute.
"If that's the case he probably wouldn't be adverse to changing diets; for instance, crocodiles have been known to eat and digest garbage can lids smeared with beef blood.
"But if a plesiosaurus doesn't fit your mental image of Ogo, then how about Giganthopis?
"He was a constrictor-type snake that lived some 50 million years ago and attained a length of about 60 feet.
"Of course there are many varieties of shark which grew upwards of 70 feet long and would fit the bill for a sea monster any time. There is a picture which periodically appears in magazines of a full-grown man sitting inside the jaws of one of these sharks.
"He could probably swallow the RCMP launch whole.
"Now everyone knows dinosaurs of any type were not the impregnable beasts portrayed tromping through bombs and cannon fire in Hollywood thrillers.
"A welter-weight Tyrannosaurus Rex wouldn't last two rounds with a Sherman tank currently in retirement at the armories.
"But a beast, any beast, about 30 to 50 feet long is capable of a fair amount of havoc, and even if he was hesitant about eating DDT-ridden human beings he might step on you in passing.
"By no stretch of the imagination am I an expert on prehistoric monsters, but I know enough not to want to come face to face with the Oknagan's greatest tourist attraction - at least not without the B.C. Dragoons along for company."
http://www.trueauthority.com/cryptozoology/ogopogo.htm