In fact, there are no reports of the beast until less than a century ago. The Loch Ness monster first achieved notoriety in 1933 after a story was published in "The Inverness Courier," a local newspaper, describing not a monstrous head or hump but instead a splashing in the water that was described as appearing to be caused "by two ducks fighting." Some suggested a more monstrous explanation; however it wasn't until the following year that Nessie shot to superstardom with the publication of a famous photograph showing a serpentine head and neck. That image, taken by a London surgeon named Kenneth Wilson, was touted for decades as the best evidence for Nessie — until it was admitted as a hoax decades later. [Countdown: Our 10 Favorite Monsters]
Civic pride
In 2010, archives shed some light on how seriously some locals took the monster. William Fraser, the chief constable of Inverness-shire in the 1930s, wrote a letter to a government official noting that a man from London, Peter Kent, "stated that he was having a special harpoon gun made and that he was to return [to Loch Ness] with some 20 experienced men on August 22 for the purpose of hunting the monster down." Fraser added that he warned Kent not to hunt for the creature, and suggested that some official government protection might be established: "That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness seems now beyond doubt, but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful."
Like other reputed lake monsters around the world, those who are convinced that Nessie exists have tried to pass legal measures to protect them. There is of course a strong incentive to protect monsters like Nessie, even if only symbolically: tourism. Loch Ness is by far the main tourist draw in the Scottish highlands. It's a beautiful lake in its own right — as is the town of Inverness on its shores — but tourists come from all over the world hoping for a glimpse of the famous monster.
Though people often speak of Nessie as a solitary animal, if it exists there must, of course, be many of them in the lake — not just one or two but dozens or hundreds. This is because of biological and genetic pressures; there must be a breeding population of them to have survived in the lake.