(I Heart Yeti t-shirt on sale at the NeatoShop)
It used to be common for people in Bhutan to see the yeti--the legendary hairy man-like beast of the Himalayas. But not anymore. In recent years, sightings of yeti have plummeted. Why? It's not because there are fewer yetis. BBC News investigated and found the answer: people little reason to venture high into the mountains anymore.
Yeti sightings used to occur as people foraged for firewood. Now people living in rural Bhutan are more likely to heat their homes with electricity and kerosene, leaving the region's most famous cryptid alone. No one in the village of Chendebji has seen one in 20 years:
The last person in Chendebji to have seen possible evidence of the yeti is a younger famer called Norbu.
The first time was 20 years ago, he says, when he was 18. He was in the mountains with his cattle when he saw a large footprint and the body marks of a yeti in the snow. The mere sight of them made his hair stand on end.
Then, five years later, Norbu says he discovered something very unusual - a lair made out of intricately woven sticks of bamboo.
"The yeti had broken the bamboo trees, folded them into a semi-circular shape, with the two edges of the bamboo in the ground. He had then slept inside the den. I could see the marks left by the yeti inside the nest," he says.
-via Marginal Revolution