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One thing that frustrates me about the Bigfoot community (or I should say a small faction of it) is the folks who make the unwarranted leap from believing in the existence of the animal to professing to know all about it, what it really is, how it behaves, etc. I'm not trying to rile anyone or point fingers, but honestly, you have people writing books and doing publicity saying that they know this creature is mostly human, likes to give gifts, has special powers, etc, etc, and it all seems more than a bit presumptuous to me. I want to say, "well, you may THINK this is true and you are perfectly welcome to say that, but you cannot KNOW it is true because there is precious little at all known about this creature at this point." There is not even a single specimen in capivity or on a forensic lab to glean any real evidence from; all else is total speculation. And that is fine, but just SAY it is speculation, not fact. Again, I strongly believe this creature exists. Thousands of witnesses are not ALL misidentifying, hoaxing or lying. They just...aren't. But beyond that, I have no clue what is going on, for certain. And really, neither does anyone else. We're all just guessing; educated guesses, to be sure in some cases, but guesses nonetheless. I think it's important to be able to dwell in the uncertainty before you leap to conclusions. That way your mind is kept open and isn't stuck defending positions you were 'sure' about, when and if the real truth comes out.

Again, BF is not a carnivore.

If they accept your presence, just be prepared to accept some pranks and horse play. To them a human that neither fears them nor tries to intimidate them with firearms or bright lights when they are around is a novel experience for them, and they use that chance to entertain themselves, especially at night. Just like the one I mentioned above. He was just having a little fun out of the young man; not a bit of aggression. (The group that particular BF is from are clowns; they enjoy doing silly things when peaceful humans are around. Know that for a fact.)

To answer your question though RF, let me ask you one back: Why wouldn't it? But that answer doesn't disguise the reality of it being equally inconclusive, as it is only one report. The evidence is cumulative, and if there is a scratched record being played here by me and some others, that is probably it. Endlessly chasing after the next hoax perpetrator is certainly exhilarating for some of us, but it accomplishes exactly bupkiss for advancing the general knowledge in this field. You won't see any serious researcher spending much time doing it. They are too busy looking at the much bigger picture. Try it, it is pretty fun. Instead, if you want to burn up your time staffing the Hoax Police, by all means go with your flow, but my point was only it serves mostly to keep those from sharing interesting stuff on this site.

You could also ask that same question of a certain Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University.

^Which is exactly why the field is fast becoming a big joke in comparison to the early days- the lack of accountability. Before we had people like Dahinden and Byrne putting everybody to the microscope and weeding out the bad eggs. Now we have the welcome wagon for hundreds of hoaxers as long as it maintains a steady stream of entertainment and makes people feel good about contributing even more potential hoaxes. Of course we won't ever know that they're hoaxes because we don't want to question their stories- let the fantasy override honesty. We might as well call this the Bigfoot RPG forum. You don't even have to look beyond this one thread to see the problem being created. Tell me WSA, do you feel that Gumshoeye's story of encountering a Bigfoot that day has more standing than anyone else, because he was there?

I might disagree with how far you have them ranging, I suspect they are territorial not migratorial. Those territories are quite large however, Meldrum mentions as large as 1000 square miles, I feel that is too large, it seems more like 300 miles or less. If we study other great apes they live within larger troops within a defined territory, the territory size might be based more on food availability than anything else, the more food the smaller the territory needed. These creatures are very well adapted to cold, and are capable do to their shear mass to produce adequate body heat in even the coldest climates. I think we only need look at the other large mammals of North America to know that the largest of creatures endure the greatest cold. So what I am suggesting is that the only relationship that exists in Michigan and Illinois sightings might be a young adult male that is searching for a new troop or to form a troop because he has been forced out of his previous troop due to too many males being present. From the great apes we see that the troops form around several key males and a many more females, I would downsize the troop conception for Sasquatch, but I think it holds true. Of course I am just blabbing what seems to me to be the case and anyone can argue differently, this is just how I see the picture as for now.

What would you guys like to see in a Podcast on Sasquatch that is not being done? I am thinking about trying to start one on the topic of Urban Bigfoot, but more generally speaking about the eastern Sasquatch, Seems like the West Coast gets most of the attention, though with guys like Coonbo, Bob Garrett, Stacy Brown, and too many to mention out East, the vast majority of active researchers live east of the Rockies. If you look at the sighting data, sightings east of the Mississippi outnumber the Left Coast, though not nearly as concentrated as areas of Northern California and Washington. Obviously I would like to see a show focusing on the Midwest, particularly Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana, and Minnesota. Seems like we get the shaft in most discussions, it always goes to Appalachia, or Florida, Texas, or Ohio, surprisingly, maybe even improbably, Illinois has one of the highest sighting counts in the nation, but who even talks about Illinois, I guess I am just a voice crying out in the semi-wilderness...if you add up the 7 states I just mentioned you find 873 sightings, compared to the total of Washington and California of 1020, so if you added the rest of the states out east the number is greatly higher than the left coast. Who would guess that Illinois with 263 sightings surpasses Oregon with 241, but remember the numbers are skewed by population, so we are not talking numbers of Sasquatches, we are talking people seeing them, factor in terrain and cover, well you see my point, Illinois is just an easier place to spot one on the move...even if we have very limited numbers of them State # of Listings Most Recent Report Last Posted Alaska 22 1-2014 1-2013 Alabama 91 1-2015 9-2014 Arkansas 90 1-2015 4-2014 Arizona 80 2-2015 8-2014 California 427 3-2013 1-2013 Colorado 119 2-2015 3-2014 Connecticut 8 7-2009 5-2009 Delaware 5 9-2013 11-2012 Florida 298 2-2015 9-2014 Georgia 121 12-2014 5-2014 Iowa 66 9-2014 4-2014 Idaho 69 6-2013 12-2013 Illinois 263 2-2015 12-2014 Indiana 76 12-2014 11-2013 Kansas 39 9-2014 3-2014 Kentucky 101 12-2014 9-2014 Louisiana 40 4-2011 2-2010 Massachusetts 20 1-2014 4-2013 Maryland 34 1-2015 5-2014 Maine 13 3-2004 2-2004 Michigan 198 2-2015 1-2014 Minnesota 68 1-2015 10-2014 Missouri 118 1-2015 10-2014 Mississippi 22 4-2013 2-2013 State # of Listings Most Recent Report Last Posted Montana 43 12-2013 12-2012 North Carolina 90 1-2015 11-2014 North Dakota 6 12-2010 8-2005 Nebraska 14 6-2011 8-2008 New Hampshire 10 11-2009 6-2009 New Jersey 49 6-2014 2-2013 New Mexico 42 3-2014 10-2013 Nevada 8 4-2009 2-2005 New York 100 7-2011 9-2010 Ohio 254 8-2014 2-2014 Oklahoma 89 10-2014 9-2012 Oregon 241 8-2014 3-2014 Pennsylvania 108 12-2014 8-2014 Rhode Island 5 12-2011 11-2011 South Carolina 52 1-2014 2-2012 South Dakota 17 8-2011 6-2008 Tennessee 96 10-2014 4-2014 Texas 203 2-2015 7-2014 Utah 69 10-2014 12-2008 Virginia 72 12-2014 8-2014 Vermont 6 1-2006 10-2005 Washington 593 2-2015 9-2014 Wisconsin 84 1-2015 6-2014 West Virginia 94 1-2015 11-2014 Wyoming 28 5-2010 3-2010