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Norse, I'm not about to copy and then reply to that huge response - so I'll address your points one by one here. You say that a group wouldn't be able to sustain themselves in one location for very long. I can only imagine the terrain you're referring to, but just where I was - yeah, they could sustain themselves for years - only requiring the hunters of the family to operate within a six or seven mile radius - game was so plentiful - water so plentiful, - terrain so difficult - and vegetation - again, so plentiful. Maybe - just maybe - that's why they tend to hand around specific terrains and areas. After all, when a location is good - it's just good. No reason to go on long migrations. Out of maybe a dozen trips up and down the mountain - three times I found myself in the middle of a herd of deer. I can only imagine what was on the other side in this huge valley - with other pockets and other valleys that fingered off. Your scenario is location specific - as other locations have plenty of all the necessities to thrive. Your premise is very conditional - "until there is nothing left to hunt or gather." That would be true is some, poorly chosen locales - but your assumption of these "apes" following "ape" behavior is where this argument falls apart. Yes, apes would likely eat everything immediately around them and then have to wander around to find another spot. Because they're dumb animals. These are not dumb animals. Next, you take up a position, suggesting that it's NOT easy to hide from humans, suggesting only Latte-sipping millennials would have a problem. Then go off on a tangent about Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, the Apache, and Mohawks. ??? You suggest it's not easy to hide from hunters/outdoorsmen. I'll give you an example. In sniper school, at one point, each sniper must prepare his own ghillie suit, ingress into a field, advance forward well into the field, and fire and hit multiple targets near instructors with binoculars, standing in a truck - very skilled instructors - who know the field, know the points of entry, know how many are present, and know they're approaching - all in advance. They are not just hiding - no - they're stalking forward and shooting - without their location being detected. And they are NOT detected, even as they're shooting. Moving. Shooting. You clearly don't know - what you don't know. The insular island dwarfism - is not a manifestation of existing on an island. Had this occurred on a much larger island - this adaptation wouldn't have been necessary. The operative is a limited amount of available resources - that happens to be limited due to limited resources. You DO understand what a mechanism is? What an operative is? Why? It's not a type of land - it's the volume and resources within that land. The reason your 400-pound gorilla can eat things we can't is these tiny little things called enzymes. We don't have the enzymes to break down cellulose - the gorilla does. You get hung up on numbers - calories. To complicate things, you assume these critters are dumb to boot. I know, you've suggested these things to be like a Gigantopithecus blacki. That's a mighty narrow set you're working with. Dumb, eat themselves out of a home, and have to look for another. There's another mechanism in nature - nature to a degree - limits populations to more or less match sustenance resources. A species eats well, they multiply, but when food is scarce - if affects their reproductive mechanisms, and not as many are born. No magic, no mystical concept. Nature. When I've seen tornados, true, that doesn't make me a meteorologist, as meteorology is the study of weather. But I don't have to be a meteorologist to recognize a tornado, a squall, a cumulus cloud, or fog. I can see and recognize these things - most everyone can recognize and identify what they're looking at. You can recognize fog, can't you? It's not easy to mistake for a cirrus cloud, is it? I can't comment on 800 pound aliens - I've never run across any. Sure like to pick up a phaser, though. And as a rancher - that feeds his livestock - if you turned them loose - some may die, but most would find their own food on their own. The reason you're feeding them is that you have them more or less contained. Artificially restricted. You like to argue - and I like that, because I don't know squat about these things.

Norse said "Well....any primate is more intelligent than a squirrel. Just sayin......" You, my good sir, never met my ex, it would seem..... CM- bone marrow, uncooked, was the kicking off point for our brain development/heightened protein consumption.....

Testify! MIB! That is precisely the point! Ape vs human is just a fine matter of degree....that being said, from what has been described by witnesses and the evidence, it seems pretty clear they sit on the "more human than great ape" side of the bleachers. Just my opinion, mind ya....

You seem to assert that apes are not closely related to us. Biology doesn't agree. Anything with a shared ancestor more recently than our last shared ancestor with chimpanzees is more closely related yet regardless of what they look like. MIB

Lots and lots of research and being uber familiar with a large contiguous woods for 25 years.

I agree with CR. I lean towards the pro kill side in order to get A specimen. I'm fairly confident that when one is obtained it will not be a Neanderthal. I believe as CR stated it'll be some sort of ape, gorilla etc. I sway on this from time to time but that's where I stand currently. To many unknowns about BF to be 100% on anything.

I'm not at all dismissing the issues, merely stating that I think they are far from insurmountable. The point of my post wasn't whether we should or should not shoot as only the individual can weigh that up and decide - it was in answer to the listed problems, none of which were about whether you should shoot or not. The issues above were all postulated after the shooting I believe. As far as potentially shooting a neanderthal, if we are assuming the creature is real then from the best descriptive, photographic and video evidence we currently have the creature would be one that resembled the PGF most probably which is clearly a great ape like a gorilla or a billy ape or a bonobo. We have, as far as I know, no photographic or video evidence of neanderthals living currently, we do have some evidence (though not enough or of high enough quality to convince) of a large bipedal ape.

I did run to the ridge top with four others. Spotted here and there, I'd see something that wasn't quite right with some small clusters of trees. Only when I got there, it was a shelter using native poles and sticks - and at the time I didn't make the connection. After all, I was a non-believer, and had no interest in them, had not read any material on them - nothing. They had a good view of all lines of approach. I was a bit surprised, as the floors inside were as clean as though they'd been swept. My own comparison was "a cow could lay down in here." Multiples of these things. There are two kinds of locals. First is the louder and more boisterous type that would say, "I've been all over everywhere, and I've never seen ****." The other kind is the hard working, more reserved and quiet types who - if asked by another local they knew - would reluctantly say, "Yeah, I see them all the time on the way to work crossing the road." Or, "Yeah, I haven't been up there, but (several miles away) I have seen some a few times over in the XXXX area. They've run my *** out more than a few times." So when I get out a map, it quickly gets obvious that there are multiple families, some separated by five miles or so. Lots of water, lots of concealment, lots of berries, lots of deer, even some cattle on and in those mountains. I may be completely FOS on that assumption about the multiple families. But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck . . . I used to hunt men. Most times, I was given a starting point, and a destination point to find them. That was a complete waste of time. Only after days and days of seeing nothing, I'd be asked if I thought I could find some action. I'd retire with my map, and tell them I could. And every time, I'd find a good sized group within 48 hours. Every time. They never figured out how I could always find these guys - without fail. I think they actually liked the idea that I had some mojo or something. Our little group had the highest number of kills of any unit in country - and they liked that too. Manhunting is much, much different from just hunting. And I learned from some of the best. Yes, I know where some are. Yes, they're still there. They've been there for at least a century - probably a lot longer. Recently, one of my fellow team members had a tree thrown across the "road" right in front of him. Yeah. They're there alright.

TBH I can't really see the insurmountable issues here. You simply don't need a whole body, just a part thereof (such as the foot or the head, hand etc.) and the resultant DNA. This combined with video or photographic evidence of the body and/or the shooting process and you will convince most reasonable people. If these creatures are intelligent, they should do like most intelligent animals do and retreat when a gun sounds. Most intelligent people don't run straight at a shooter after a nearby person has been shot, they take cover as self preservation kicks in or attempt to flee. I think to suggest the MIBs will come in and be all over the case is unsupported by any evidence - nothing like this happened to the PGF footage which most proponents feel is real footage of a genuine creature, I'm sure you could get the body part to (for example) Dr. Meldrum before being subjected to any kind of legal or agency issues - who would know until it went public and then it's in the good doctors hands and you have plausible deniability - it is after all a creature not thought to exist according to science. There could be some small danger from pathogens, but the creatures are probably much more at risk from viruses that we carry and are used to, especially if they live in small, isolated communities. The biggest issue appears to be finding them reliably enough to choose a suitable subject and getting a clean shot - unless you believe the stories about people already shooting one.

You're being too logical...

If you say I'm wrong and that they do not migrate? There would be no "scenario" in which I was on or not on a major migration route. I thought I asked a pretty straight forward question. I'll try again. Its winter here. They live in large groups and do not migrate. Where would I go to find such a large group in the northern Rockies now?

Relative to the direction this thread has taken. I just hope some idiot does not take a Planet of the Apes DVD out in the woods and play it for BF. We don't want to give 8 and 9 foot 800 pound ape men ideas about who should be in charge or who eats what. Human the other white meat?

I have listed problems associated with collecting a body before. My ideas about pending problems in order of priority are: 1: The dead BF relatives or tribe 2: As mentioned contamination with BF pathogens, 3 : Transportation and Storage 4: Who you take it to 5: Which government agency shows up that claims it has more right to possess the body than you do. 6: Legal issues. None of these issues are insignificant and if not carefully thought out will result in loss of the specimen and possibly your life. Personally dealing with more than two of these issues pretty well convinces me that I want no part of it. Watch Dinosaur 13 on Netflicks or Amazon. That is the story of the finders of Sue the TRex that is in the Natural History Museum in Chicago. One of the finders did two years in jail because of butting heads with government agencies.

FA- I enjoy your posts and find them interesting and informative from a different perspective and experience, and isn't that what this whole forum is based on? the sharing of different perspectives, experiences, and interpretations? good stuff, that!