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More often? Do we know they kill any humans?

Kitakaze, Thanks much for re-introducing this topic in 2014 (for those of us who missed it in 2011). I agree with you that the fact that wildlife monitoring organizations (in US and Canada) that used camera trap tools/methods in areas considered to be BF habitat and found no evidence is of concern to those who believe BF is present there. I had the same concern last year when I realized that BF Research organizations (Project Forest Vigil, Olympic Project, and Bluff Creek Camera Project) had not had any success despite the high number of camera-trap days used. In addition we need to add the thousands of game cameras that are installed by hunters all over North America to look for patterns in their target animal (deer, bear, etc.) that also have not captured any BF photo. This lack of success with game cameras is an issue that needs to be addressed as opposed to dismissed. Camera traps have proven to be ideally suited for detecting rare and cryptic species that an observer may rarely, if ever, encounter. Thus, it is a fair question to ask if BF is real how come camera-trap studies have not captured it. However, failure to detect a species in a camera trap is not proof of its absence. To brainstorm on possible reasons why BF was not detected, I will deconstruct the problem into 2 parts: probability of availability and probability of detection given that it is available. P (D) = P (A) x P(D|A) For detection to be zero, then either of these 2 probabilities has to be zero. Possible reasons for the probability of availability to be zero: 1. BF does not exist 2. BF exist but was not available in the area sampled with camera traps Possible reasons for the probability of detection to be zero given that BF exists and is available in the sample area: 1. The area covered by camera trap cells (or sample sites) was too small relative to the range area of BF. 2. The cameras were placed too close to each other and despite the high camera density, the survey did not cover a large and diverse enough habitat 3. Cameras were placed in a straight line fashion or following a creek/game trail/ridge line instead of covering a grid (does not have to be random distribution). 4. The habitat features that were targeted (based on species of interest in the wildlife study) to place cameras is avoided by BF. 5. BF prefers to move on roads and human trails and not in game trails or wild areas, thus camera-traps placed in wild habitat will miss them. 6. The BF communities have sentries that monitor every hiker that gets close to their home range and when humans install these odd objects, they avoid them. 7. BF (like most primates) is an arboreal species and is hard to detect on ground-based camera traps. (This is a wild claim and I throw it in the pot just as part of the brainstorm. I recall reading in one of Paulides books about NorCal that BF’s were scouting the area from above on the redwood trees). With regard to the 7 possible reasons for lack of detection given availability, items 1 thru 3 are methodological reasons applicable to any species and reasons 4-7 are speculative reasons particular to BF. (BTW, I am not a proponent of those reasons, I am just brainstorming. I am excluding reasons that seem farfetched like conspiracy theories or dimensional portals). I read the Canadian Rockies Carnivore Monitoring Project report (see link below) and it is very impressive. They certainly followed and established best practices on the use of camera-traps for wildlife monitoring. They followed the best methodologies available for establishing the presence of multiple species. Thus, if they did not detect BF and BF is claimed to live in those Canadian National Parks, then the reasons for no detection must be the more speculative ones and not the methodological ones. http://www.cfc.umt.edu/heblab/Projects/Steenweg%20etal%202012%20PC%20Report%20remote%20camera%20occupancy.pdf I also read about the work that Shiloh Halsey and GP Task Force did on modeling the Distribution of Bobcats the Southern Washington Cascades, and believe that he also used the best available methods. Halsey’s dissertation will be available in August 2014 (see link below). I look forward to a more detail review of his methodology. http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/996/ http://www.gptaskforce.org/our-work/conservation/wildlife-tracking/fisher-habitat On the other hand, the Cascades Carnivore Project is not that comprehensive with regard to camera-traps. The report said that they did not have camera-traps in every sample station that collected hair samples from bear and martens. Their focus was on DNA testing of collected hair samples and not on developing occupancy statistics purely on camera-traps. Thus, it is not clear if the camera-trap methodology used by the Cascades Carnivore Project could be used to conclude that lack of detection of BF with camera traps was statistically sound. With regard to the BF organization studies, however, I am not familiar with the details of the methodologies used and thus don’t know if they were designed to the standards of wildlife biologist to increase the probability of detection (of any of the mammals present). I wish Project Forest Vigil had issued an analytical report describing all the animals that were captured in their cameras as a function of camera site and day, and more information on the distribution of the cameras (how far apart, cell distribution, camera density, etc.). This would help in comparing methodologies between them and wildlife monitoring organizations. Jamie Schutmaat from the Bluff Creek Camera Project wrote on his Facebook page (see link below) that he is creating a catalogue of all the animals captured on the BC Project since they started in 2012. I look forward to that report, since it will provide some calibration with bear and cougar population estimates from the CA DFG and that will provide insights into how well the BC camera-trap methodology is representing that habitat. https://www.facebook.com/BluffCreekProject

You mean like Justin Smeja? j/k One of the things I like to think of as a joke is how they can use some of your attempts at pranking them and turn them around and use them as a medley thrown back at you. Ex. I use set bird calls and signals to alert if any are in zones I travel through. Funny how they get thrown together in a medley at 3am some nights back on your turf (esp. diurnal bird song). Communication, pranking, testing, joking? Call it what you like it is acute awareness.