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BTW - Correct. Put better than I would have. Bigfoot are not plants, not sedentary. They seem to migrate. Assuming they can only appear in places they can live for long periods is utter foolishness. Seeing a bigfoot in a particular location does not make it "habitat", it merely means it is, at least at the moment, travel corridor or better. So far as them living everywhere, no. So far as them potentially appearing almost everywhere and reports from almost everywhere being legitimate, seems much more likely, at least to me as someone with somewhat of a biology background. The question, then, becomes how far do they comfortably travel? ... because that says something about how far from "habitat" their travels / migrations might take them. Folks can yuck it up about Finding Bigfoot if they wish but I haven't seen them follow up on reports yet that didn't look like at least potential travel corridors if not seasonal habitat. MIB

Some very good posts above. Another thing that most areas in the US have is riparian habitat. The areas along rivers and streams. In most places now logging and new development are limited along these streams. This habitat provides cover, transportation corridors for animals, and food sources for herbivores. Which also become food sources for predators. In a lot of these streams fish and freshwater shellfish are also available. The thing is these same streams also pass through some heavily populated areas while still providing adequate cover even for larger animals.

There is only one threat that could wipe out bigfoot as a species. Disease. Contentions that they are being forced into extinction by habitat loss are not based on either evidence or logic. A spotted owl lives in a very specific habitat niche. Damage that niche, you damage the species. Bigfoot, however, are immensely adaptable. They've been reported in every major terrain, and reported to take advantage of a wide range of food sources. They can also apply intelligence to adapt to changes as neceessary. Other, less intelligent species, both predator and prey, that are adaptive are bounding back and spreading into areas where they had once been hunted out. I found, but have not been able to locate since, an oral history from a Southeastern Native American tribe that stated that bigfoot had once been numerous, but that when smallpox and other European diseases were introduced back in the 1500's the bigfoot population was hit even harder than the Native American population. So hard that for generations the surviving Native Americans believed that the bigfoot had completely died out. If this were the case, it might take centuries for their population to rebuild. It could also result in isolated regional pockets, which could account well for the regional variations in both physical size and behavior. It may be that they are just now, under the same conditions that allow other adaptive species to thrive, once again achieving larger populations. If so, this will work against them, as internal population pressure drives them to expand into more areas, and inevitably into more frequent contact with humans. I believe that there are more of them than most people think, and that their numbers are expanding at an accelerating pace decade by decade. I also believe that they can and will go anywhere they want. I also believe that they will need to occupy more and more habitat as their population expands. They're not being threatened into extinction, they being threatened by their own success and population expansion. Because this is what will likely result in their "discovery".

I think like the three main north south trails in the US? Would be big enough areas for something to migrate along. And Canada is a giant wilderness with 10 percent of the US population. Along with the Alaskan pan handle. (Apalachian, CDT and PCT trails) Small nomadic family groups or individuals that migrate around following seasons are plausible. I dont see where large numbers could remain hidden for long. A very large Ape man's caloric intake alone is going to start showing up on radar if there are too many of them. Plus hair, scat, winter kill, I mean at some point its a numbers game. Somebody is going to stumble upon something tangible. Same goes for a low density population but it could take a lot longer.

I saw a crow flying sideways today. The wind was too strong for him.

One of the basic problems with asking a question like the OP does, is that it assumes a "data or story collection point" like this forum, is somehow the center of the bigfoot universe, and therefore if ANYTHING related to bigfoot has ever happened anywhere, anytime, we'd certainly know about it. THAT just isn't reality. Even in this day and age of connectivity, the real number of people truly involved in "bigfooting" is probably so disproportionate to the number of people who spend time in the woods in North America, or who have EVER had a BF related incident, that it isn't representational of reality. There are MANY people out there involved in research who do NOT actively use the internet or forums like this to do what they do. And there are (rationally guessing) far more people who HAVE had encounters or sightings over the years that will never reveal that to anyone, that again, the numbers are skewed toward 'non-reporting' of encounters. I'm in my 50's and have read up on the phenomenon since I was a kid in school and didn't become "active" until 2003 when a family member had 2 encounters, but my lifespan barely means anything in relation to how long ago Europeans came to N.A. and how much could or may really have happened in centuries of history that we'll never know about. So to reach for conclusions about populations, and why more haven't been shot, can be entertaining, but we simply don't know what we simply don't know. Speculation is fun, but absent of real hardcore data, doesn't usually lead you to real substantive answers. It just usually leads to more questions with more speculation, and then it goes down a spiraling vortex till you burn yourself out thinking the lack of an answer means none of it can possibly be true. Then people usually burn out and give up because it's human nature. So, "Blessed are those who HAVE seen... because they can't go back to not believing." The number that have been shot and killed will probably (in the end) be much higher than you or I would have guessed, because some secrets are best left buried. Time will tell.

I'm a skeptic but I allow for the possibility. In my opinion, if BF does exist they would have to be extremely rare creatures that strictly inhabit remote locations but whose range occasionally overlap with human territory. They would have a small population bordering on extinction, possibly functionally extinct due to small numbers or are indeed already extinct. It's just a matter of numbers. If there only ever was a small population that rarely encountered humans and exist mostly in remote areas, it makes the fact that no physical proof has been found to confirm their existence more acceptable and explainable. Doesn't mean it's true they exist, but a more likely explanation.