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Vetting experts? One of the biggest problem with BF research is that we have too many "experts". Some of the biggest names in the field have never seen a BF but have no restraints about speaking with authority on the subject. . We have way more "expert" opinion and supposition than we have hard supportable evidence. I am as guilty of this as anyone. When there are no observed behavior to report; supposition, myth, groupthink, and conjecture kicks in. While pictures or videos may not be proof of anything at least they are evidence if authentic and can be compared one against the other. But we have little to compare. If Patty is real we should be able to compare her to other pictures of mature female BF. But we don't have any so we endlessly argue about costumes. Artists drawings, while better than nothing, are just that, an artist's interpretation of what a witness describes. They are not worth much more than if they were a cartoon drawing of Fred Flinstone that is supposed to represent a Neanderthal. Finally I get the feeling that the truly dedicated field researchers numbers are declining. Dying off one by one or quitting in despair. The instant gratification mentality of the younger generation just cannot deal with years of field work with long periods of time between findings. Not their thing. The only way experts are of any real use is when they have data and evidence to analyze. That comes from the field not conference rooms or internet forums. The best vetting indicator to me is someone that admits they don't know. Someone that speaks with authority on BF behavior is blowing smoke. Beyond that because of the real dearth of data, there is little to work with other than Meldrum's footprints. The answers are in the field waiting to be found by someone willing to invest the sweat equity. It is not easy. The first step is to be able to repeatedly locate BF in the wild. Probably the next step is to get and compare pictures. Is it one species or more? We really do not know. We should at least know that before we secure a body. If there are two or more species we certainly do not want two bodies of the same one. Yesterday when we flew I commented to BTW that there could be thousands of BF in the woods we were flying over. Much of it has no road access. We could see old logging roads, abandoned, and completely grown over with vegetation. When one thinks of the jungle you think of abandoned structures and ruins quickly overgrown by the advancing jungle. The rain forests of the PNW are very similar. Those that have acreage know that you have to keep hacking it back to keep from being quickly overgrown. It does not take long for a volunteer seedling to grown into a 20 foot fir tree that keeps on growing. I have no idea about the numbers of BF in the wild. But with crumbling infrastructure in the forests, and corresponding restrictions to human access, that has to be improving their habitat. As I said yesterday, I have the gut feeling that there are remote locations where tribes of BF live in numbers. They are there for the finding. BTW noticed a remote hanging valley, seemingly untouched by logging, with the nearest ground access many miles away. Who knows what lives in that valley?

BTW and I did an aerial search today. The weather was good and there were light winds at 6000 so was one of the better days as far as turbulence. We could see Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens, Mount Adams, Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, and the Three Sisters pretty much all at the same time for a good portion of the flight. Purpose of the flight was to look at some of the back country areas he wanted to see and get the perspective that seeing them from the air gives you. We saw a lot of very rugged and remote areas with little ground access. In general the area is between Mt St Helens and Mount Adams. After we checked out the areas he wanted to look at, we flew over the Skookum Meadows area, my old research area, and Silverstar Mountain. I was trying to show him the "Indian Pits" on Silver Star but could not find them from the air for some reason today. Probably sun angle or something. Saw lots of hikers on the Silver Star Trail. He took a lot of pictures so not sure what he will want to share with the forum. Both of us spent a lot of time looking but did not see anything moving other than the hikers. He has enough photos of the ground now that it will take him some time to blow them up and look for something he might have missed. Was a way better way to do it having him take the pictures and me able to put more attention into my mountain flying. Taking pictures and flying at the same time is very task saturated and probably not a good idea.