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To me, it doesn't take great numbers. Maybe people are seeing them quite frequently per capita. Of course, since no one believes them, they aren't taken seriously. We've no idea of the distance they travel or are capable of traveling. I look at the distance that cougars, wolves, bears, and wolverines can travel in a season and think that quite possibly, the same BF sighted in Oklahoma could be the same one sighted in Michigan....who knows?

Hey, some of my best Tar Pit friends surely have lemur DNA.

DNA testing doesn't automatically sequence the entire genome. It sequences short segments at a time. With an unknown sample, one has to start with a universal mammalian primer when you have a hair sample. From there, the results steers your investigation further with species specific primers, more tests, further sequencing of the mitochondria for starters. The testing won't suddenly uncover all an animals secrets of it's origin beyond a high similarity to a known, like human, bear, cow etc. Once you have the closest known, then you can compare to that specific data and further sequence the entire mitochondria, provided the scientists haven't called "no joy" and abandoned the project citing contamination when human results arise.

Of course. But see post #95 again. I really don't think anyone is fully understanding what it is saying. There's all this DNA that's supposedly been tested that has Human contamination in it but if those samples are saying Human but the markers are also present that say tapetum lucidum then what else id the sample telling us. Why haven't I ever heard about whether any DNA tests that come back Human show strong Rhodopsin presence of regressed opsin S genes? Perhaps because there has been nothing remarkable to report? Who would one ask about that....DR. Sykes? Dr. Ketchum? Dr. Disotell. If they know would they tell us?

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".

And yet, a statement like that IS a conclusion based on assumption, with no real evidence either. A report by someone is not a declaration of "And he LIVES right here where I saw it." Travel and migration routes easily explain many sightings and encounters in areas where the creatures couldn't easily maintain it's hidden lifestyle.

Ok, show us what you got, how have you succeeded?

Crow, your postulation that there is no way a Yowie could possibly get to Australia makes one really wild assumption: they are the same species as the North American Bigfoot. With all the little people around the world, and on islands, and all the large hairy bipedals reported by almost every culture in every millennia, on every continent - I'm skeptical that they could all be making this up. That flies in the face of the preponderance of evidence. We execute people based on eyewitness testimony. Apparently, there's something to it - except in scientific circles - but then again, they've been so wrong about so many things for so long - it's hilarious.