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You may note I never proposed guiding anyone. I'm not using mine for guiding. I'm not shooting griz. I'm not shooting buffalo, bobcats, sloths, or gerbils. Folks who use a guide are normally occasional trophy hunters who fly in, ride in, or boat in to a location, led by their guide, and take their shot. That backup gun? Why would that even be necessary if the XXXX rifle is the end-all great perfect, reliable rifle? It's because there is no such thing as an end-all, guaranteed, first-shot animal stopper. One other thing. If most guides consider the .338 WM the minimum they feel comfortable with - it's been impossible to have a semi in that caliber until now. Then, there's the other factor. Cost. Some folks simply can't afford a $6000 rifle. Third, it's about five pounds heavier than most bolt action rifles or even the guide gun. Some people are unable to hump a rifle that heavy, or they're unwilling. And finally, different folks have different limitations. Different abilities. Folks with lots of limitations need to stick to simple equipment - as they're not up to things when it gets real fast, real quick. I know. I've seen it scores of times. Most of my experience has been a manhunter, hunting and killing them where I found them. I'm skewed in that direction - in this instance, especially since I think these critters are hybrids of an older form of man. Men and animals are different in many ways, and a dumb animal is really easy to take. Man isn't. I don't give a good ******* what bones you can break. Two of us opened up on two dozen armed opponents in a stream, and we finished it. Try that with a bolt action. Or a four-shot lever action. You're dead. No - firepower has its advantages - and you won't need it - right up till the moment you need it. Key being, you never know when that moment will come. It's much better to have it and never need it, than to need it just once - and not have it. 1. My opponent will be of a group. Three for sure, likely a few others. If anyone knowingly walks into that situation with a four-shot magazine - they probably won't walk out. These things can throw large - very large rocks great distances - very accurately. Lodge pine poles like a javelin. 2. I'll be doing my work at night. Where they normally have all the advantages. And they have one advantage I've never seen anyone ever mention anywhere - coincidentally - the very reason everyone has failed to bring one in. I must circumvent that ability, and can. 3. These things are clever, have tactical excellence, and use deception like pros. While they grab your attention with noise from one direction, a 20-pound rock may be flying at the back of your head from another direction. So I don't give a flying rat's *** about using a very limited weapon. You guys use limited weapons on dumb animals. That's not what I'm going after. And for the record, the pray and spray relates to full auto weapons. Not a medium bore semi-automatic. browning had a 338 winmag semi-auto out years ago the more you talk, the more you show that you don't know much about hunting dangerous game That is fine, continue to make all the claims you want Unless you back them up, then they are just claims and we all know what they are worth

Going back to the OP, the original question was "Are Bigfoot animals, like any other animal, including humans?" But the discussion indicates that it also matters whether or not Bigfoot are intelligent, and beyond that, whether or not Bigfoot are "human", with respect to their ability to think, reason, develop a strategy, and then "choose" to do one thing or another. From personal experience, they behave more like people than animals. And having looked one in the eyes for 45 seconds as we each waited to see what the other was going to do, I can tell you that I did not perceive it to be any less intelligent than human, and that I believed it to be human, though freakish in aspect (I had never heard of bigfoot prior to the encounter). I can also tell you that they do very much appear to think, reason, strategize, and choose their actions. Our behavior, with respect to sheltering in caves, or surreptitiously scratching our posterior when no one is looking, is situational, because we think, reason, strategize, and choose what to do and when to do it. We do something because it is advantageous under a given set of circumstances, and may not do it under another set of circumstances. As someone earlier stated, they may do one thing one time and another under a different set of circumstances. Their behavior is situational, and this aspect of their behavior should not be taken lightly. What other creature in the world manages to consistently befuddle us and get the better of us? This is because they modify their behavior in accordance to ours and in response to the relative levels of risk and threat. Where they do correspond to animals more generally, is that they are predators, but so are we. And if you think about it, a human that exhibited the same lurking behaviors that they do would be considered a threat. They are, in a very real sense, boogey men - boogers, as some call them. If they weren't so human, not just in aspect, but in behavior, they wouldn't creep us out so much.

Their behavior may be situational with regard to most things but not their apparent prime directive to avoid human contact. That directive is suspiciously universal to me and does not seem to be totally related to their survival with regard to conflict with humans. . Even before the human use of fire arms in North America when humans were at a significant disadvantage with respect to the strength and speed of BF, BF apparently were as reclusive as they are now. Why? With Native Americans armed with bows, arrows, and spears, humans were really not that big a threat to BF. Even today with our weapons, the larger bears: grizzlies, Alaskan Brown, and Polar bears have been known to hunt armed humans. Why would a male BF at the same size, seem determined to hide at all cost from an unarmed human when I really does not need to for survival. Something else is going on here that is significant. The question is what?

It has been noted many times on these pages, by me and others, that in order for BF to survive the rise of H. sapiens, it had to evolve better strategies to meet the threat. We excel at killing stuff not "us." If BF did not adapt to use weapons as we did (and obviously they did not...why? Good question) they only had two choices: Go extinct or go covert. They obviously adapted and survived. Only a genetic predisposition to be furtive around humans would have allowed them to survive as long as they have. Presuming their existence, this observation seems irrefutable.

FanArcher.......fully armed ready to shoot something at night? Lemme know when & where you do this, so I can stay the hell out of those woods please. I don't think we need soldiers hunting BF in our American woods, a recipe for disaster IMO.

If you ever have an encounter, Hiflier, please, by all means, take a realistic approach to it. Don't take the approach that your actual experience dictates you take. Always defer to the opinions of people who have never been in your situation. They are much freer to imagine all kinds of things that you, being the experiencer, and having real information, don't have the freedom to imagine.

Branco and WSA are dead on. I will only add that, when you've become a "person of interest" to them -- that is, a friend -- you will encounter them at all times of day.

Strikingly similar to ghosts and UFO's...

You pretty well nailed'em WSA. Deliberately exposing themselves even for a few seconds to humans during the day is extremely rare. If they do it, it shows they have seen and watched you over time and concluded you mean them no harm. (Leaving a few snacks in their home range over time will help them decide.) To them, the night is THEIR time, and they have no fear of intruding onto human's home range. For reasons unknown to us, their prime "witching" hours are from about 2 am (varying with the season) until dawn. I'll bet that a close review of night time reports from campers and residents will show that to be true.) I think they realize that most folks are soundly asleep at those hours.

I like to use the descriptor "furtive." The picture painted by all the accounts, including those who claim a level of habituation, is this animal wants interaction on their terms, and their terms only. "Shadowing" is not inconsistent with that presumed intent. When one is surprised by the unexpected human presence, there does not seem to be any panicked reaction, only a measured and deliberate retreat to a position of comfort. Aggression and intimidation come into play where there is no avenue of retreat, or the need to protect a territory or (presumed) progeny is acute.

Hey slowstepper! Good to see you posting. I hope you will keep your eye on this in case this independent lab does produce something that Melba attempts to latch onto. We need informed opinions.

I'll apologize upfront, I do not know how to properly quote bits and pieces of a post so I did the best I could to make it clear. Likelihood and education. What if that same neighbor took a trip to Yuma, AZ, and told you that a moose crossed on the highway in front of him as he drove south toward San Luis Rio Colorado? Or if he had seen an alligator cross the road in front of him in Maine? I suspect you would either disbelieve him, or you'd think that they were animals brought there and released/escaped. Somewhat different situation, BF are reported to be in all parts of the contiguous United State and Canada. Moose are not. With sasquatch, we know that bipedal apes or primitive hominids existed in Earth's past, and as recently as 24,000 years ago (and, in the case of Homo floresiensis, even much more recently). Why not now (for the last of the dying population) or in the most recent past? Bipedal apes, and hominids in the past are in no way proof or evidence that something as such may exist today. For myself, if nothing else, the fact that most evidence for a bipedal primate that could have been in NA, AKA, Giganto @ 100,000 years ago works against this idea. Why such a gap in the "records" Homo floresiensis is believed to be smaller than modern man, proof that a hominid can be smaller than modern man is not evidence or proof that one currently exist that is 50% larger, only that variance is possible, not guaranteed. How long for each search? (wildlife managers call those hunter-days) How many animals are available to discover? (Nobody knows). Were searches conducted when they hibernated? (Nobody knows). A scientific search does not have to be looking for BF to find proof, so overall, there have been NUMEROUS searches that could have turned up evidence of a BF. Settlers came to this land and settled it and never came up with proof of a massive bipedal ape, but we found, beaver, fox, coyote, woodchucks etc. We do not have to "search" for something to find it. If it is out there it usually "pops" up eventually. If we are to accept "anecdotal" evidence for this creature we cannot cherry pick it, therefore, if reports show it exists in the contiguous US, given the animal observations and research done we should have....something..... Indeed, nobody even knows the answers to the above questions I posed because the entire effort has been relegated to amateurs, no comprehensive database has been compiled on either testimony and reports, but even of search effort/search locations/ etc. The appropriate people aren't in the game. Period. My take is the search has not been left up to amateurs. A researcher in the woods, who is set up to photograph and record observations of a Ivory billed Woodpecker (thought extinct), a wolverine (around 300 known in the lower 48), or a Grizzly Bear (around 1500 known in the lower 48) would or could observe a BF in similar habitat. Just because you look for one animal does not make you blind to others around you. I would think if a scientist had irrefutable evidence of a bipedal primate they would come forward. Ridicule or not, HD proof would stand on its own.