Sasquach; Where Legend Meets Science

[Dabo]

Has anybody seen this serious documentary by serious, scientists??

[TheBigDog]

Has anybody seen this serious documentary by serious, scientists??

Which one? The one in the title? Any other details to go on here?

 

Bill

[Dabo]

The title of the post is the title of the documentary. You should check it out. Also check out BFRO.net That's Bigfoot Field Research Organization.... Excellent site....

[rockytriton]

The leading authority on Bigfoot died a few years back and on his death bed, he said that he made everything up and doctored all of his evidence.

[Dabo]

With all due respect, what's your authority? I'm not being intentionally confrontational, but who specifically are you talking about? Indeed, the most authoritative people concerning the creature are alive and well. Are you saying, one person "doctored" thousands of footprint casts taken from all over N. America by hundreds of people for over 30 years, showing dermal ridge patterns that have been compared by primate finger/footprint experts to known dermal ridge patterns of all known primate species and found not to match any of them with respect to overall pattern? Not possible. I'm personally well versed on the issue, and I say it kindly, but you give no evidence that you know what you are talking about. Please, No offense intended. If you are a true student of science, you owe it to yourself to get your hands on a copy of said DVD and judge for yourself. That's what reputable (even skeptical) scientists in human anthropology, human palientology, human anatomy, kinesiology... who are ON the DVD itself, DID in examining the evidence. I hope you do this. If you don't, then you are no less blinded by your own beliefs than you may acuse, say... creationists of being. Or maybe you are just not interested. But that's Ok too... Again, no offense intended, sir. I just simply challenge you to check it out....

[TheBigDog]

The biggest strike against Sasquatch is the fact that no dead one has ever been found. If they live then they die. For an animal that size to have never been found dead is beyond improbable. In Colorado a few years ago they released 20 or so Lynx into an EXTREMELY remote area of the mountains. Within a fairly short time 14 of them had turned up dead. Now a Lynx weighs about 25 pounds and blends fairly well with the background. A Sasquatch is rumored to be 6 to 8 feet tall, and weighing 300 to 500 pounds. An animal that size is going to leave remains. It is going to leave far more than just footprints. It has an impact on the environment. It needs to eat and it needs to expell. I can only conclude that Sasquatch is either a hopeful delusion, or it is beyond our current comprehension of life.

 

I believe that I have seen the program you are referring to. It had about half a dozen different investigations. A couple of them concluded that they could not disprove the evidence. I would love to see how easily the experts can be hoaxed. A Measurement System Evaluation on these techniques that they use is often missing.

 

Bill

[learnin to learn]

I belive it is a posibilty that bigfoot walks the earth. But there is no logical evidence. Like you said Big Dog, where are the bodies? (unless they also bury there dead...:D )

[InfiniteNow]

Where's the Big Foot beef? Oh dear. :D

[Dabo]

Well said, gentlemen. However these are typical responses you present. I present for your consideration (a la Rod Serling) :D , several points. First, while you site inconclusive opinions from this particular film, you do not address the scientists who not only state that their opinion is that the creature exists, but that at least one (the "forensic" primate expert on dermal ridges (prints)), stakes his professional reputation on that very fact. Also, you do not address the opinions of the primate/human anthropological experts who examined various casts and come to the same conclusion. These are not professors from junior colleges, but established scientists from major institutions, including the Smithsonian.

 

Please allow me to present to you the following text from the foremost scientific website on the subject, BFRO.net … Bigfoot Field Research Organization.

 

I personally have interviewed several credible people who have had credible sightings of such a creature. Like you, I am skeptical, but maybe unlike you, I bare an open mind about the issue…. Check the following info from the mentioned site….

 

Where is the physical evidence?

The short answer: Yes, there is quite a bit of physical evidence. Tracks, hairs, scat, and tree damage are all "physical evidence." People tend to misuse this phrase when they really mean "physical remains."

 

Evidence vs. Remains

 

The assertion that there is absolutely no physical evidence is absolutely false. There is more physical evidence than most people realize. Physical evidence is found every month in various areas across the country. Distinct tracks that do not match other animal tracks, hairs that match each other but no known wild animals, and large scats that could not be made by any known species, are all "physical evidence."

 

The presence or absence of "physical remains" is a wholly different matter. "Physical remains" means body parts, or fossils of body parts. Though mammals may leave tracks, scats and hairs behind, they do not leave body parts behind very often. Body parts of mammals are only available when they die. Thus availability of physical remains is initially determined by population size and lifespan. A rare species with a long lifespan will leave very little physical remains, collectively, for humans to find. The probability of humans actually finding and collecting and identifying those remains before they are completely reabsorbed into the biomass complicates the "physical remains as evidence" equation dramatically.

 

The sections below address scenarios such as natural deaths, road kills, and hunter kills.

 

Nobody Looks for Bigfoot Remains

 

No serious work has ever been done to look for remains of surviving wood apes in areas where they are rumored to reside. No one should expect remains of such an elusive species to be found, collected and identified without some effort.

 

Very few remains of ancient wood apes have ever been found in Asia, where they were much more abundant. Millions of gigantos (a branch of the wood ape line) lived and died in Asia over the ages. All the remaining physical evidence we have of them could fit into a few shoe boxes. Fossils of any land animal are very rare.

 

Remains do not become fossilized very often, but unless that happens, all the remains will, in time, become completely reabsorbed into the ecosystem. There would be remains of animals everywhere if remains were not naturally recycled, including bones and teeth.

 

Fossils or preserved bones of wood apes may exist in the Americas, but they will be exceedingly rare, because these animals are rare to begin with, and only a tiny fraction of that population will die in locations and soils that will preserve bones somehow. Odds are slim at best that any bones (which are normally fragmentary) will be found, collected and identified unless a focused effort is made to look for them. Until efforts are made in many places, over a long period of time, no one should be scratching their head wondering why "we" don't have any physical remains.

 

The short answer: Bigfoots are extremely rare and extremely cautious--so much so that the odds of a roadkill have not caught up with any yet.

 

The Roadkill Potential

 

Only a very small fraction of the thousands of credible sighting reports describe near-misses with vehicles. No substantiated reports describe a collision with a bigfoot.

 

Every other large mammal in North America is far more abundant than bigfoots. Hundreds of near-misses happen with other animals before an animal is hit. Some species are hit more often than others. Deer often get "dazzled in the headlights" and stand paralyzed in the paths of trucks. Bigfoots seem to be far more intelligent than that.

 

Those who have gotten closest to bigfoots say an analogy of "intelligent ape" is not as accurate as "hair-covered aboriginal man." Around humans their typical behavior is to flee or hide. They try to stay out of view or at least in the shadows when near people or moving vehicles.

 

Many roadside sightings describe them hanging back in the shadows of a tree line and waiting for a vehicle to pass before crossing the road. In almost all of those sightings a passenger spotted the figure first. Because of that, it's reasonable to extrapolate that a whole lot more lone drivers never notice when this behavior occurs, because a driver's attention is usually on the road ahead.

 

Waiting for a vehicle to pass before stepping out of the shadows to cross, merely demonstrates the same pattern of cautious behavior they exhibit in other encounters with humans.

 

Hunters finding Bigfoot?

The short answer: Because hunters don't hunt for these animals.

 

Hunter Behavior

 

The counter to the short answer is often:

 

"The woods are full of hunters who'll shoot at anything. If something like a bigfoot were really out there, a hunter would have definitely shot one by now."

 

That line is intended to conclude the discussion, and usually does so in most urban conversations. The argument usually goes unrebutted, because most urban folks aren't very familiar with hunting patterns in North America. If you were to go out and examine: a) how hunters hunt, :D where hunters hunt, c) what laws they have to observe, d) the actual statistics on poaching, and e) all the factors making it unlikely that a hunter will ever see a bigfoot, you'd discover the basic erroneousness of that argument.

 

Most non-hunters believe that hunters will shoot any animal they come across while hunting. This is one of the more glaring misperceptions about rural behavior. In reality most hunters focus their efforts and carry the proper equipment for only one type of animal on a given day. A hunter's choice of game animals is always restricted by law to particular animals at particular times of year. Thus the season usually determines the type of animal a hunter can fire upon. Between the equipment limitations and legal restrictions, a hunter is limited to only a handful of choices most of the year, and only a few more at other times of the year.

 

Most non-hunters also have a very skewed perception regarding the degree of saturation of hunters in rural areas. A majority of Americans who own guns do not hunt at all. Another way to look at that equation is to say a minority of gun owners ever hunt. Of that minority describing themselves as hunters, the majority of those men hunt no more than two weekends per year. Hunters, who hunt often and year round, are hard to find these days. Unless you head out into public hunting areas in October or November you'll probably never come across a hunter. If you stay away from maintained trails in national and state parks you probably won't see anybody at all. In almost every state and province from coast to coast there are thousands and thousands of acres of forest, some more remote than others, that never see any human traffic at any time of year. To say "the woods are full of hunters" is to confess one's inexperience with North American forests.

 

Poaching is hunting in disregard of hunting laws. Poaching is more common in some states than in others, but it's always the exception rather than the rule. Most poaching incidents are roadside occurrences involving opportunistic motorists who'll shoot deer from vehicles at night. Even poachers are selective about what they shoot. Arrests of professional poachers tend to make headlines whenever they happen. This has the effect of magnifying its perceived frequency compared to lawful hunting. The vast majority of people who hunt do so for relaxation and recreation. They obey state hunting laws and observe local hunting regulations.

 

In most states a hunter can be arrested and prosecuted for poaching merely for being equipped to hunt animals not specifically permitted in that season. They can't always carry the largest caliber rifles with them. A hunter will pass on shooting a large dangerous looking animal if the hunter feels inadequately armed. Those few who hunt bear or mountain lion want to feel safe themselves, and adequately armed when shooting an animal that could turn and attack. In most circumstances the only time a hunter will be carrying a very large caliber rifle will be in deer-gun or elk-gun season. Deer-gun season lasts only a few weeks in fall, and elk-gun season lasts only a few weeks in winter. In most areas high caliber rifles are restricted to shooting ranges at all other times of year. In states like Ohio hunting with high caliber rifles is completely forbidden. Hunters may only use short range firearms such as shotguns to hunt deer.

 

There are a few factors actually making it less likely for a deer/elk hunter, as opposed to a hiker or a camper, to see or encounter a bigfoot. A sighting or encounter is more likely to happen when the person sees a bigfoot before the bigfoot sees the person. A bigfoot is more likely to see the person first when the person is wearing a bright fluorescent orange ("hunter orange") hat and jacket. These extremely conspicuous garments are worn by deer/elk hunters to make them more visible to other hunters. They are invisible to deer because of the eyesight physiology of deer. One could assume that the eyesight physiology of a bigfoot would be closer to primates than deer, so bigfoots would probably see hunter orange as distinctly as humans can. Also, for safety reasons deer/elk hunters cannot legally hunt deer at night (except by special permission for crop damage control purposes, and then only in open fields). Coon hunters can hunt in forests at night (when bigfoots are believed to be most active) but they are required to carry lit lamps with them, for the same reason deer/elk hunters must wear hunter orange -- to prevent hunting accidents. With or without lit lamps, coon hunters are even more noticeable than deer/elk hunters because of the loud hounds they employ to sniff out coons. Even in the thickest forests coon hunters and their dogs can be heard, literally, a mile away. This gives bigfoots plenty of warning to leave the area before a confrontation can occur.

 

Another widespread presumption is that coon dogs and bloodhounds can be used to hunt anything and everything. The fact is, hunting dogs have to be rigorously trained to follow a particular scent and ignore all others. The typical training involves exposing them to body parts of the particular game species from the time they're puppies. It would be difficult to train a pack of dogs to all consistently follow the scent of a bigfoot if the dogs have never smelled a bigfoot before. Bloodhounds can follow the scent of a human that they've never smelled before, but it's always the same species they're after -- humans. ***

 

If you were to try to put some faces on the term "bigfoot hunters" you'd steadily discover that there aren't many people who regularly, or even occasionally hunt for bigfoots with the intent to kill one. I've asked around for many years now trying to find people who actually hunt for bigfoots. I've met several people who have large enough rifles to do the job, and who are not philosophically opposed to it, but they meet only the most basic requirements. I have yet to meet anyone who consistently pursues sighting reports in order to hunt and kill a bigfoot. There were situations in the 70's where car loads of rural hunters would patrol a vicinity following a flap of sightings, but those were always localized situations and they never lasted more than a week or two. The occasional solo commando bigfoot hunter usually doesn't get very far on his own. Those who are lured by the fantasy of slaying the great monster for the sake of science ... tend to get frustrated after a while and throw in the towel. The few weekend profiteers who stick with it eventually switch from rifles to camcorders. There are a few reasons for this eventual change of equipment and goals.

 

Anyone who actually carries a high caliber rifle while looking for a bigfoot gradually realizes how unlawful it is to merely carry a rifle in most forests during most seasons of the year. Even patrolling backcountry roads with a rifle in a vehicle can lead to some stiff fines and/or jail time. The fantasies of an aspiring bigfoot assassin will eventually mature from visions of scientific glory to visions of big money. Once that transition is made the fantasizer gradually comes to realize that a quantity of stunning, clear, close-range video footage could be worth as much, if not more, than a carcass. After all, unlike video footage, the body of bigfoot does not have an established market value. It might actually be worth less than nothing if confiscated by the government as part of a criminal investigation. A body would certainly be much more difficult to transport, store and preserve than a videotape. And no government authority would ever challenge someone's right to sell the footage or collect continuing royalties from it. A videotape would not be worth as much to science, but a body may, in the end, only advance the careers of the scientists who study it, and not bring anything to the hunter other than some dubious notoriety. The hunter's notoriety might only generate a relatively paltry amount of cash from interviews immediately after the incident, but intriguing video footage would bring notoriety as well as commercial licensing fees and royalties for use of the footage. These are the realities that help diehard bigfoot field researchers to favor cameras over guns.

 

The diehards are probably correct in assuming that the hearts and minds of the general public can be won over with compelling video footage. When that happens one can expect that the scientific community will not at first admit any embarrassment, but will probably be more inclined to investigate recent eyewitness reports for themselves. Some will probably obtain the funding and support to conduct systematic searches of remote North American caves to look specifically for giganto bones. Most caves and deep overhangs in Canada and the United States are not marked on any maps. There may be thousands of "undiscovered" caves and deep overhangs in our remote forests and mountain ranges. These mini-frontiers could be suddenly appreciated as fertile ground for biological and archeological exploration. At the moment, the idea of searching for "bigfoot bones" is still politically risky in academic institutions. But an earthshaking videotape could change that quickly. A clear close range video with good audio would capture the public's imagination in an unprecedented way. Sudden popular interest and political pressure would inevitably "enlighten" institutional attitudes. The media and legal community will begin to ask more pertinent questions and demand better answers from the scientific community and the government. Unlike the U.F.O. phenomenon, the "bigfoot phenomena" will be seen as something native, and within our reach, and therefore more practical to study.

 

Some suggest that the credibility of any video footage would be questionable because of the capabilities of high-tech Hollywood special effects. This is a rather naive argument because even the best computerized special effects, when used to create living creatures, can be immediately distinguished from reality by the trained eye, and by the untrained eye in most cases. Real footage of real animals has qualities that still cannot be duplicated by computers. Real footage of a bigfoot up close in daylight would be extraordinarily powerful and captivating to most people, and therein lies its power and commercial value. The owner of the footage does not have to convince every last stubborn skeptic before he can market his tape for public consumption or create media interest. A good tape would create a lot of public interest, even if it did not provide immediate "scientific proof."

 

Let's examine hunting laws in the United States. Most states have hunting laws beginning with blanket prohibitions against killing any member of a few classes of animals, including any "fur bearing animal." Then the hunting laws go on to spell out the exceptions to the blanket rule. These exceptions form the bulk of a state's hunting laws. They specify which type of animals can be considered "game" animals at specific times of year (e.g. deer in deer season, squirrels in squirrel season, etc.). It is important to understand that general hunting laws do not specify which animals cannot be hunted. They specify which animals can be hunted.

 

No state provides an exception for an "undiscovered" fur bearing animal. Therefore a successful bigfoot hunter would be, by definition, a poacher. A bigfoot poacher and his transferees would face several legal and societal risks: Confiscation and prosecution by the government, and villainization by the public and the media, regardless of the "discovery" factor.

 

Among the factors making a discovery by a hunter unlikely, the importance of a more common obstacle shouldn't be underestimated. That obstacle is the average hunter's basic decency and civility toward other humans, and things that might appear to be humans when viewed from a distance. The few casual hunters who've reported random encounters with bigfoots typically claim they didn't know what the things were at first and they didn't want to shoot them because they seemed so humanlike. A good example is a 1970 incident involving three hunters in Routt County, Colorado. A more recent report from Pike County, Kentucky demonstrates the natural shock and uncertainty following a sighting by a truck-load of rural hunters. An article in "Alabama Fish and Game Magazine" documents how well-armed rural hunters will abandon a sighting area, and be disinclined from even discussing their encounters, rather pursue these animals. A third report from Jefferson County, Washington, shows a hunter's reaction of surprise and wonder when observing a bigfoot -- a reaction that supplants any thoughts of shooting or pursuing the specimen. You'd have to picture these situations and appreciate that a bigfoot / sasquatch looks a lot like a primitive man. Without even considering the influence of hunter safety courses (which everyone must take before getting a hunting license), it is simply not realistic to expect that a hunter's natural reaction will be to shoot a primitive manlike figure in the back as it runs away.

 

The understandably 'human' reactions of surprised hunters, and the other above mentioned factors, tend to decrease the likelihood that a hunter will kill a bigfoot, yet these factors do not even touch upon the geographic and legal restrictions related to where hunters can go hunting. The geographic restrictions alone reduce the odds substantially.

 

Other odds-reducing factors are related to bigfoot behavior: Nomadism, nocturnal feeding, nocturnal migration, intelligent strategic behavior (see the article "Deer Kills and Bigfoots"), dense forest habitats, a tendency to avoid areas where humans are afoot, the absence of predatory behavior toward humans in all cases, the lack of aggressive or territorial behavior toward humans in almost all confrontation cases, and the apparent habit of at least temporarily abandoning a habitation area when there is some degree of human intrusion.

 

The rarity of these animals combined with their own elusive habits make the odds of a random sighting drastically lower than the odds of sighting any other type of large mammal with a comparable geographic range. On top of the poor odds of a sighting there is a whole series of events that would have to precede a "discovery" by a hunter. Each one of these events has its own debatable odds, which have to be compounded mathematically in a string to evaluate the overall odds of a discovery by a random hunter. The odds are not very good to start with that a hunter will ever see a bigfoot, especially in daylight hours. If the opportunity arises a surprised hunter must then 1) overcome his immediate shock, fear and awe in order to have the presence of mind to quickly deliberate and assure himself with absolute certainty that this hairy manlike figure is not a man in a costume, 2) be absolutely certain that his unprecedented decision to kill this non-human, seemingly intelligent, powerfully built whatever-it-is will have no negative legal, moral, or supernatural consequences for him and his family either now or in the future, 3) have enough time to get a clear shot before the figure dashes back into the treeline, and 4) hit the figure in a vital organ so it falls down quickly. If these events fall into place then the location of the kill will have to be close enough to a road or vehicle to make retrieval of the body feasible and inconspicuous. The body will then have to remain with, or end up in the hands of, an individual or institution willing to display the body to the public and the media. The individual or institution must then manage to hang on to it so it can be examined and reexamined to the satisfaction of the scientific community.

 

The bottom line is that there are plenty of unique and unusual factors to consider when evaluating the likelihood of a bigfoot "discovery" by a hunter.

 

Dabo again, here.... So anyway, either check out BFRO.net and then do your own further research on cryptozoology and form an opinion afterwards, or don't speak authoritatively on the issue.... Not being ugly... just matter of fact.... I teach high school Biology. and I teach my students, EXAMINE ALL THE EVIDENCE BEFORE YOU FORM A CONCLUSION!!!

[learnin to learn]

scientists who not only state that their opinion is that the creature exists, but that at least one (the "forensic" primate expert on dermal ridges (prints)), stakes his professional reputation on that very fact.

 

But still it is there opinion! Show me conclusive evidence and I will consider the possibility. But you give me evidence based on someones opinion or "professional reputation" well then I have nothing to consider but one mans word against the other.

[Dabo]

... you mean their opinion... If you choose not to consider all the evidence yourself, then you are not a true "scientist". I'm not going to spoon feed you. Check BFRO.net and other legit folks, and go from there. Otherwise, you have no authority to speak of it, other than your limited exposure, and closed minded approach.... I say it kindly....

[learnin to learn]

I respect your beliefs and I have done my research on the subject matter. I just do not believe the same as you. as INOW said" where is the big foot beef?". He was joking but it is a good statement. Where is the proof? Where is the hard evidence. Pictures of what look like men in an ape suite? Giant foot prints? the jaw of a giganto compared to a humans? If these things are actually roaming forests all over North America why are their hardly any eye witnesses. What happens to the bodies when they die? they should be alot easier to find than a live one. In my own personal opinion I think we need more hard evidence before we conclude the existence of "Big Foot"

[Dabo]

Hey Learn to Learn... Have you searched the net on evidence? Have you checked into BFRO.net to see that scientific site? If you do, click on the map on the left, and click on your own state.... check out the sightings there... A sighting is not just some dude saying, "I saw sumpm", but is documented with interviews by investigators with said sighters to confirm their potential as a hoax or a legit sighting. Before they put any sighting on their website, they have researchers interview the subjects in certain fashion to make sure they are not hoaxers. Anyway.... You can't speak with any authority until you are WELL versed on the issue....

Kind Regards....

[Turtle]

But still it is there opinion! Show me conclusive evidence and I will consider the possibility. But you give me evidence based on someones opinion or "professional reputation" well then I have nothing to consider but one mans word against the other.

 

Well, I had to pick someone to quote and you were it L2L. I am at this very moment listening to a radio interview with two researchers, one of whom wrote the book with the same title as this thread. Seems there is conclusive evidence if anyone cares to seriously consider it.

Two links to the research:

http://www.bigfootbiologist.org/

Amazon.com: Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science: Explore similar items http://www.amazon.com/gp/explorer/0765312166/2/ref=pd_lpo_ase/002-3822633-7134406?

A link to my reports on my own investigation here at Hypography:

http://hypography.com/forums/strange-claims-forum/5627-sasquatch-new-expedition.html

 

If you have no comments other than flippant ones, please do me the favor of keeping them to yourself or posting them in my thread on Sasquatch in the Strange Claims forum.:) Let's keep this scientifical , shall we?

[Dabo]

Turtle; Honestly, I'm glad to see somebody on this site with something other than blind faith; someone who is willing to look at REAL EVIDENCE rather than hearsay. I'm no being ugly here, but I doubt seriously if these naysayers have taken a hard, open minded look at the evidence. Physical evidence is NOT one man's opinion. It is physical evidence. I'v already explained on the first page of this thread why there's no "beef" (dead body or bones), but that doesn't seem to be enough. I encourage everybody to try to get their hands on the DVD and watch the renowned SCIENTISTS in the fields of physical anthropology, comparative chordate morphology, dermal ridges... examine real physical evidence.... Also check out BFRO.net ..... the WHOLE site...

[TheBigDog]

Dabo, the BFRO.net site seems to be very well maintained by very enthusiastic people. But dilligence is not a substitute for facts. I would like to take a systematic approach to examining the evidence with everyone.

 

I personally have interviewed several credible people who have had credible sightings of such a creature.

I have no way of refuting people's eyewitness testimony other than to try and erode their credibility, which I will not do. The best thing that Sasquatch has going for him is eyewitness testimony.

Where is the physical evidence?

The short answer: Yes, there is quite a bit of physical evidence. Tracks, hairs, scat, and tree damage are all "physical evidence." People tend to misuse this phrase when they really mean "physical remains."

There are plenty of tracks. But they all seem to end. There are very skilled trackers in this world who can follow animals of all kinds through all sorts of terrains and environments. And we have managed to track and find every known animal in the world at some point in time. Yet nobody has managed to follow the track of a Sasquatch to the animal - ever.

The assertion that there is absolutely no physical evidence is absolutely false. There is more physical evidence than most people realize. Physical evidence is found every month in various areas across the country. Distinct tracks that do not match other animal tracks, hairs that match each other but no known wild animals, and large scats that could not be made by any known species, are all "physical evidence."

Distinct tracks, yes. There was a fellow who's family claimed after his death that he had faked footprints for years. While much of what the family claimed is inconsistant, it is a fact that the man did in fact fake some foot print evidence. It is not plausible that he did this in all cases, and does not account for footprint sightings prior to 1958. However, like crop circles, footprints need to be taken with a grain of salt. Does this poison all footprints? Absolutly not. But it means that we need to be more diligent in accepting footprints at face value.

 

Hairs is something that I find particularly interesting, since we can use science to precisly find their source. It hairs have been gathered, then how come I hear about the hairs, but not the identificaiton of the hairs? And the same goes for scat. If there is scat, we can examine it to find the animal that it came from. Sasquatch scat, if it is so distinct, should be easily identifiable scientifically to the source. It is not enough to say that they are unknown or could not belong to other animals. The samples of hair and scat must be collected and certified by labs in blind tests as to their origins. I have not seen this happen. And if they are so common it should not be a problem to make this happen.

Nobody Looks for Bigfoot Remains

This is not the case. Searches for remains happen all the time. Usually for humans that are missing in the wilderness. When looking for remains there are signs that you look for, like circling vultures. And with the literally thousands of searches that happen for missing people in the wilderness nobody has ever come across a bigfoot body. Also, millions of acres of their habitat burns every year in wild fires. These fires are fought by people who document the process. Never has a sasquatch been seen fleeing a fire. Never has a sasquatch body been found as a victim to a fire.

Very few remains of ancient wood apes have ever been found in Asia, where they were much more abundant. Millions of gigantos (a branch of the wood ape line) lived and died in Asia over the ages. All the remaining physical evidence we have of them could fit into a few shoe boxes. Fossils of any land animal are very rare.

The first problem here is that they are catagorizing an ancient species of ape in Asia with an unproven species of ??? in the Americas. It is by admission comparing something with no physical evidence with something that fits in a couple of shoe boxes, but was eight feet tall. But the remains we are talking about are not fossils. We are not looking for fossil evidence of Sasquatch, we are looking for fresh evidence of Sasquatch. When the Asian countryside was crawling with "gigantos" I doubt you would have had trouble finding evidence of them(dead bodies), even when the population was low.

Hunters finding Bigfoot?

The short answer: Because hunters don't hunt for these animals.

 

Hunter Behavior

 

The counter to the short answer is often:

 

"The woods are full of hunters who'll shoot at anything. If something like a bigfoot were really out there, a hunter would have definitely shot one by now."

 

That line is intended to conclude the discussion, and usually does so in most urban conversations. The argument usually goes unrebutted, because most urban folks aren't very familiar with hunting patterns in North America. If you were to go out and examine: a) how hunters hunt, :eek: where hunters hunt, c) what laws they have to observe, d) the actual statistics on poaching, and e) all the factors making it unlikely that a hunter will ever see a bigfoot, you'd discover the basic erroneousness of that argument.

After a while it makes the point that nobody is hunting for Sasquatch, which is true. Most hunters do it for food. Others do it for sport to mount what they have hunted. But they all have someting im common: they spend time in nature looking stealthily for animals. They look for signs of animals and get to know areas to foster successful hunting. The article is correct in stating that nobody is hunting for Sasquatch (at least not enough to be significant). But hunters are keen observers of nature, and they hunt everywhere they have the opportunity. If there is any slice of society that will see Sasquatch in the wild it is hunters. Not because they are looking for Sasquatch, but because they are looking for all animal life, if they are hunting for it or not.

Another widespread presumption is that coon dogs and bloodhounds can be used to hunt anything and everything. The fact is, hunting dogs have to be rigorously trained to follow a particular scent and ignore all others. The typical training involves exposing them to body parts of the particular game species from the time they're puppies. It would be difficult to train a pack of dogs to all consistently follow the scent of a bigfoot if the dogs have never smelled a bigfoot before. Bloodhounds can follow the scent of a human that they've never smelled before, but it's always the same species they're after -- humans. ***

The dogs are trained, but they are not perfect. And they will tend to follow all sorts of trails. This also discounts the hair and scat mentioned above as plausible for training dogs to track a Sasquatch. It seems to me that if you believe the evidence is real you could use it to train dogs, not for killing Sasquatch, but for finding further evidence.

The understandably 'human' reactions of surprised hunters, and the other above mentioned factors, tend to decrease the likelihood that a hunter will kill a bigfoot, yet these factors do not even touch upon the geographic and legal restrictions related to where hunters can go hunting. The geographic restrictions alone reduce the odds substantially.

This seems like pure denial. In most places hunters are required to wear a large amount of orange to prevent them from being mistaken for prey. Yet every season there are numerous incidents of accidental shootings because of misidentificaiton. Not just of people, but of animals, where the hunter shoots first and identifies afterword. Yet despite frequency of sightings, nobody has ever shot a Sasquatch, intentionally or otherwise.

Other odds-reducing factors are related to bigfoot behavior: Nomadism, nocturnal feeding, nocturnal migration, intelligent strategic behavior (see the article "Deer Kills and Bigfoots"), dense forest habitats, a tendency to avoid areas where humans are afoot, the absence of predatory behavior toward humans in all cases, the lack of aggressive or territorial behavior toward humans in almost all confrontation cases, and the apparent habit of at least temporarily abandoning a habitation area when there is some degree of human intrusion.

All of this is speculation presented as fact. How do we know they are nomadic? How do we know they feed at night if we cannot prove that they have eaten anything? Why are they said to be nocturnal migrators when they are spotted both day and night? Absence of predatory behavior... aggressiveness... territorial behavior... except for the rock throwing that is detailed on the site? Apparent habit of temporarily abandoning a habitat when people are around?

 

Aside from none ever turning up dead I cannot get past what the capabilities of a Sasquatch would need to be in order to have remained so elusive for all of these years. Lets examine for a moment what the capabilities would need to be.

 

Hyper-sensitivity. More than any other animal on the planet the Sasquatch must be aware of its surroundings. So much so that none can be found intentionally. They can only be found by accident. And only when you have no easy means of documenting what you have seen. If they need to be this hypersensitive all the time, how do they ever relax enough to accomplish anything at all?

 

Mating. Sasquatch would need to have enough numbers to meet and mate. This means that they would need to be found by each other, but by nobody else. And they would need to be successful enough at this to have eluded all attempts of discovery while maintaining a big enough population to remain viable. Unless they are very long lived and dying off.

 

Rearing young. The adult sasquatch is credited with incredible skills for evasion and survival and the ability to adapt to the constant change of their envoronment. These skill need to be taught to young who will make mistakes. With any skill there is a variation in capability. We are essentially crediting all sasquatch as being mistake free for most of the past 50 years.

 

Consumtion of food. An animal that weighs 500 plus pounds and is warm blooded has a big appetite. There should be more than scattered evidence of their passage. They would need to spend a considerable amount of their day gathering and eating. And that takes focus, focus that makes it easier for them to make a mistake and not see something in their surroundings that may catch them off guard.

 

Shedding. Animals in climates associated with the Sasquatch go through seasonal shedding and regrowth of hair/fur. If the sasquatch is so warm blooded that it doesn't need its fur for warmth then it would need to consume food almost constantly which would take away from its ability to be a master of evasion. If it uses its fur then it would need to shed considerably in the summer time to prevent overheating. An animal the size of a bear leaves great amounts of fur behind when it sheds. And at some point we would see absolute evidence of this fur someplace in nature in more than just little tufts.

 

And finally, why is the sasquatch so shy? There is no record of one ever being killed by a human. Yet they are fearful of people to the point that they will not show themselves. They are intelligent, but not curious enough to be seen being curious. Why do they not leave evidence of themselves? Do they have natural preditors? If so, why is there no evidence of their remains? They are big enough that they would seem to have no need for being shy. Quite the opposite, it being shy is so critical for their survival, why the massive size and strength? Why would they have developed into huge hulking beasts? It just doesn't add up.

 

I spent most of my life believing in sasquatch. Waiting for the scientific breakthrough to come that give incontavertible evidence of their existance. But the longer I have waited, the more I have examined the evidence I see, the more I learn about life in general, the more I have come to believe that this is simply another myth that we have yet to let go of. I want to believe, but I can't based upon what I am shown and what I know.

 

Bill

[Dabo]

Stand by.....:cup: