Is the Northwest Octopus Becoming Extinct?

No, it isn't. In fact, this creature doesn't exist. What does exist, however, is a hilarious internet hoax created by a man named Lyle Zapato.

At first glance, the site entitled "Help Save the Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus From Extinction" seems legitimate. It is divided into sections including: an about section, why it's endangered, how you can help, frequently asked questions, sightings and media.

After reading through the site, I realized that it was a joke but young children may not catch on so quickly. Here are some steps that I took that could be used to verify the credibility of other, less obvious, sites.

First I noticed that the website was a .net site which lessened its credibility. In the corner of the site, there was a logo that read "site monitored by NSA". When I clicked on this logo, it took me to another webpage with comics. I noticed that these logos changed to appear as ads that said things like, "Are you infected with black helicopters?"

The site mentions that it is supported by greenpeas.org which I, after googling it, realized doesn't exist. The bottom of the site says to address concerns to Lyle Zapato. When I googled his name, I got a range of results that led me to believe that he has written books. This may seem credible at first. I then googled "Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" and found a wikipedia page that informed me that this creature was an internet hoax created by Lyle Zapato. This google search also yielded results from websites such as museumofhoaxes.com.