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My conclusion was that the distribution of population density by county gave a totally different picture of the state (because it is highly skewed) and a totally different average than using a state average. While I did not do the work, I would not be surprised if we find the same result for black bear population density by county and total population by county (i.e. skewed distributions). Given that you are using few variables (BFRO reports, population, human population density, and bear population density), if all 4 variables are skewed (when distributed by counties) then it is likely that the correlations to BFRO reports (normalized) will change. Thus, I believe that pursuing the analysis with more granularity will provide more useful information and maybe different results. Notwithstanding the averaging issue, I don't agree with your assumption that high correlation with bear density populations is indicative of mis-identification. Thus, I will have to respectfully disagree with the conclusions. I consider BF and bear habitat to be the very similar, and a positive correlation is what I expect to find for all counties.

Gigantor, thanks for generating and sharing these interesting plots. When I see the spread in elevations for summer (0 to 5,500 ft) and winter (0 to 3,500 ft), it is hard to draw conclusions unless we know that the land area where those reports are coming from is consistent. I know they are all from Washington State, but the range in elevations in WA State is huge per county (see attached map) and the BF reports come from a broad range of counties. For example, BFRO reports from Kitsap County (max elevation of 1,761 ft) and Thurston County (max elevation of 2,922 ft) are not going to show that kind of broad distribution in elevation between summer and winter. Likewise, there are some counties in Eastern WA that have a narrow elevation spread (from min to max). For example, the lowest elevation in Spokane county is 1,538 ft (along the Spokane River) and the highest elevation if 5,883 ft. Attached is a map put together by County Highpointers, showing the five WA counties with the highest standard deviation in elevation over their means. Four of them go from coast to high Cascade peaks and one goes from coast to Olympic peninsula peaks. Taking into account the different distributions of elevation among the WA counties, then it would be interesting to check if we see any difference in the average elevation from BF reports between summer and winter for the following 3 groupings: 1) For those counties that have a narrow elevation distribution (with low elevations and close to coast). 2) For those counties that have a narrow elevation distribution (with higher elevation and away from the coast). 3) For those counties that have a broad elevation distribution (going from coast to high elevation mountains). I think group 3 (which would include the Cascade and Olympic range counties) are the dominant group in the BFRO database and would probably show what you showed in the graphs. However, you might be able to remove the noise from those other 2 groups.

I think sometimes you can trigger a reaction. The forest preserve outside the town I lived, was one I used to take walks in and look around. I have a picture of a foot print and hand print from there. I left 2 jars of peanut butter before, The first one was taken from the hollow of a tree were i left it, which was off trail.. Took me about 1 hour to find the jar. The lid was off and all the peanut butter gone and there was 3 large indents on the jar that looked like fingers pushed into the jar. I never found the other. This forest preserve wasn't well used. As the forestry person i talked to called it the most well hidden forest preserve. Hardly anyone uses it. My sighting was in another forest preserve about 10 miles straight south of us. It actually vocalized twice at me. Both times it was a grunt. But It seemed as though it was communicating. This was maybe 10 minutes before i saw it. I believe it was the same one from the forest preserve by my town and it recognized me and i was by myself. There is enough cover to go from one preserve to the other.

I agree with WV FOOTER, bears and bigfoot require the same habitat. It's not faulty or wrong to assume that. Bigfoot have to eat, there are reports of what they eat and it's not wrong to assume they are omnivores just as bears are. So looking at it logically and from a wildlife biology standpoint, bears and bigfoot would have the same habitat requirements. That definitely is the case in the state of Washington. But I guess that supports the argument that all bigfoot are misidentified black bears. As to the affect of population densities by county, I'm sure you will see a difference in the conclusions. For example, King County in WA has a density of 913 people /sq mi., Skamania County has a density of 7/sq mi. According to the SSR, King County has 40 sightings and Skamania 39. In other words almost identical amount of sightings. That will definitely affect the outcome of the calculations. One other point is in your example of the deer in 20 sq mi. You would get the same results if you had one person and 20 deer. So without knowing bigfoot population densities there is really no way to correctly estimate the frequency of sightings in any given area. Regardless of knowing our population densities. The sightings in counties with lower human population densities would actually support the argument for higher bigfoot densities. Or more hoaxers in those counties, which I think is the opposite of what your numbers are showing.

Idaho, Alberta, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Ontario, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Saskatchewan, Missouri, and Arizona are very interesting. Hoaxing here is only present at the same rate as in the remainder of North America. Misidentification of black bears does not contribute significantly to Bigfoot sighting reports in these states. Nearly all non-hoaxed reports here are likely due to an uncataloged species. --------------------------------- Why does Mis ID of black bears not contribute greatly in Idaho or Colorado vs. Washington or Montana? That does not make any sense.