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OK, let me get this straight. This from the parks web site. "Located in southwest Washington State, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest encompasses 1,368,300 acres and includes the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument established by Congress in 1982." All those acres of land, and you expect that IF there is a Sasquatch running around out there that a few camera traps are going to capture an image of one. Also, the statement that in all those acres of land there exists only one Wolverine? See this is the problem I have with skeptics, their postulations are just as fantastical as the ones from the true believers. This will never be settled, and neither side will convince the other of their point, so why all the back and forth on this? I used to argue my point till I was blue in the face on the old forums, but came to realize it was all for naught. One is going to believe what they wish, and most have it so solidly fixed in their minds, both for and against, that argument is futile.

It seems to me that tool usage has its pros and cons. My gal has a tool she uses to open stubborn lids on food containers when I'm not around. I, however, rely on my massively muscled physiology to remove the same lids in the blink of an eye without breaking a sweat. I wouldn't think of using a tool for this purpose. If I ever encounter a lid that defies me, I intend to simply break the container over my head. Now, let's suppose that I take it into my bruised noggin to seek out a mate who, like me, is better suited physiologically to survive in a world rife with stubborn lids on food containers with labels neither of us can read. Both of us, prizing our shared attributes, will be more likely to produce offspring with the same attributes and instill in them the joy of opening lids by means of the robust application of unaided physical force. Successive generations will never have have to rummage through the kitchen drawer that always gets stuck, looking for an infernal tool that's never where it should be anyway. In a thousand years or so you may find my progeny crouching amid brittle vitreous shards licking pet food from their fingers, which will by then have skin thick enough to withstand random insults from sharp, useless objects. Likewise, my current mate, finally disgusted with my triumphant and mocking displays after each successful opening, seeks out a companion who appreciates the subtle wonder of devices that magnify his comparatively puny physical assets, and has a penchant for devising additional diabolical devices that continue to obviate their need to survive by means of innate physical ability. With less need for raw power to survive, successive generations will focus more on the ability to develop and use tools than on physical strength and, as a result, enjoy the advantages of not sporting excess, unnecessary, and biologically expensive muscle mass. Thus blessed, they will be able to survive on less food and, after many, many generations should be able to fit in their own pockets. My point is that reliance on tool use allowed our ancestors to do more with less - to survive with less muscle, less hair, less visual acuity, less overall robustness. Characteristics that were liabilities, such as being smaller and weaker, were offset by tools that magnified the capabilities of the small and weak. Thus the small and weak were more prone to survive and pass on their genes. Over time we diverged into a distinct smaller, weaker species. The only thing that keeps us all from diminishing into hobbits is competition against each other for mates. Physical prowess is still a selection criteria, but the bar is lower for the species overall because the small and weak can successfully provide for their mates and offspring by means of tools. By contrast, if our ancestors had selected instead for robustness, the outcome would have been different. We'd be stronger so we could smack a grizzly upside the head, we'd be faster so we could run down a deer, we'd have thicker skin, more hair and be physically larger (with a lower surface area to body volume ratio) so that we could withstand harsh winters, and we'd be more durable. The downside is we'd have to compete against those pesky homicidal, tool-using, gang up on you and chase you out of the valley cousins of ours. We'd have to develop traits that allowed us to survive in a world they dominate. We'd have to retreat to habitat that they don't use, or at least use the same habitat at night when they are inactive, and perfect other means of avoidance in order to survive. Ultimately we may completely abandon the use of anything that draws the attention of our cousins. Fire makes smoke. Smoke attracts attention. Attention get's you killed. And that brings up another point. Keep in mind that bigfoot may very well be exactly what they are in part because they had to select for characteristics that allowed them to survive in a world they share with us.