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Here's the way I see it. The Okapi used to exist. The tracks said it still does and guess what it does. Sasquatch has no pre-existing physical proof that it once existed and tracks say that it still does. It's simply not the same thing as the Okapi caper. Okapi had PROVED physical history- Sasquatch does not. So........ya need a foot in those BF tracks regardless of the pile of reports and regardless of their consistency. Not saying they don't exist mind you, just saying thinking so won't cut it.

QFT

DWA wrote: That is actually wrong. Tracks have long been considered forensic evidence. For only one example (there are, of course, legion), the return of the okapi to Virunga National Park was announced as scientifically confirmed when okapi tracks, with no feet in them, were found. A body don't get more physical than that. ===================================== Its not wrong. Confirming by tracks that a scientifically catalogued species has returned to its native range is NOT the same thing!!!!! Science has the foot that made the track way!! The physical specimen is the KEY! No Okapi physical specimen? No Okapi trackway....no Okapi species.....no Okapi study......... and no Okapi game preserve. Its a skinny lost Kudu looking for water.....or a Hoax. Natives looking for tourism dollars with carved wooden hooves. Your kidding me right!? LOOK AROUND......You have been drinking the Bindernagel kool aid for so long? Your no longer grounded in reality. Some how your confused to think we proponents have the upper hand....it's a joke. Listen closely.....we will be laughing stock along with Bigfoot track casts until we have the physical FOOT that made them. If we have that!? Nobody is laughing anymore.

As a type specimen proponent I do see the ISF mindset folly that since the creature is not proven? It's a myth. Therefore all evidence associated with the myth? Is a hoax. I think unfortunately someday our descendants will have complete control of this planet. Every ant, every blade of grass will probably be counted and inserted with a gps transponder. But until that day comes we as a civilization have not catalogued every living entity on earth. I believe there are things yet to be discovered...some small, some big. We still have undiscovered tribes of humans living as they have for milenia on our last remote places on Earth. And Sasquatch isn't that weird in the larger scheme of things. No where does it violate any laws of nature or evolution, and it could possibly be represented in the fossil record in some parts of the world. It's not a three headed fire breathing Hydra by any means. So boiled down to brass tacks? It's probably never going to stop being a myth, unless people go look for themselves. And if it's all a hoax? Why bother?

But PG, do you think dismissing something that leaves footprints, stacks up dead trees and makes sounds as "mythical" might just be getting in the way of confirmation? (I've deliberately tossed out the sighting reports, because I will agree: Mythical animals get "seen", all the time. I will spare you my position as to why BF sighting reports have the congruency of actual wildlife sightings) So, there is this physical evidence. It is no less physical, or real, because we lack the confirmation of what is causing it. The only point that matters is we have no other satisfactory explanation. No, really, there isn't one. I came to this Forum years ago thinking somebody surely had the theory that would explain all this to me and I could move on to other things. A Unified Theory of Sasquatch Debunking, if you will. Instead, what I saw on display was the opponents' a la carte menu of hackneyed and tread worn half-baked responses that had no one-size-fits-all applicability that you'd think could be applied if this were such an easy problem to solve. I've wracked my brain trying to devise explanations of my own that fit my understanding of the accepted model for the natural world and predicted human nature, and I just have come up empty handed. I'm certainly not the first to arrive at this point either, by a wide margin. Well, so in the end many people here did have a plausible explanation for it, and they were all proponents. The rejoinder to their theory continues to be, only: MYTHICAL!!! That is exactly what I mean by the perniciousness of the false equivalency. It is not serving us well, at all.

Yuchi1, I think you bundled all skeptics into one group, which is incorrect. I'm a skeptic, but agree that the possibility of BF being an extant species is real and there are many who feel the same way. We go out and do field research, create databases to gather and mine data, do some statistical analysis, pay attention to new developments, etc. Yet after doing all of that, come to the conclusion that there is no conclusive evidence. It doesn't mean we've closed the book on BF, just that we don't have enough to conclude it exists yet. I think your antagonism towards skeptics is unhealthy and counterproductive. It reveals insecurity in your position. You should acknowledge that is it reasonable to be skeptical without demonizing members like me. I think we contribute much to the community.

We have to realize that pre-Columbian remains are not really the best thing for a graduate student in North America to get interested in. Mayan or Aztec maybe but not bones found in what is now the US. Immediately you have the Native American repatriation act to fight and the US Government is very interested in following that to the letter. To hang onto a skeleton you probably have to get a court order as was required with the Kennewick man. Primarily because the Government knows that the Manifest Destiny doctrine was a ruse to steal NA lands and promote Westward expansion, and they do not want it to be common knowledge that large civilizations with permanent settlements existed in NA. The big lie is that Native Americans were primarily hunter gatherers. So some researcher who wants grants, looks for more fertile fields of study that do not fight the source of most funding for research, the US Government. I am really surprised that some young ambitious Native American lawyer has not taken the Native American case to UN and argued to get their land back. These giant NA skeletons hidden in the bowels of the Smithsonian are not something you even want to look at if you are looking for research grants. The US Government does not have much a case outside their own Federal Courts. If the UN was not primarily funded by the US Government, I suspect that some sort of World Court finding would be a fairly easy thing to get.