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As a child hunting I learned real quick that as night became day, deer would appear all over place, and you would strain to see movement. Your eyes trying to tease a deer out of the forest. But as the sun rose higher each deer would turn into a bush, a stump or a rock. Movement was key in revealing a living animal. At some point they move.

From my talk with the powers that be, the Forest Service and other agencies are in panic mode. They apparently found a bat with WNS in Washington State and the fungus is spreading throughout the country. They don't know how and are taking zero chances. Caving on public lands has practically been shut down on the entire East Coast except for private properties, and even then, there is a liability threat to land owners because several species have been declared endangered. So private land owners are also not taking any chances. They are not playing around, we're talking jail time. The equivalent of interfering with Bald Eagle nests. The NSS has now taken the position that since the fungus has spread despite years of blanket cave closures, there must be another contamination path besides humans and they may be correct. But the feds ain't buying it. It's gonna be a lobbying battle... until they find the culprit. From a BF perspective, I don't think it's a big deal. If BF were using the caves, we would've known about it decades ago.

Anytime we have had any sort of "interaction" there hasn't been any particular action that triggered it that we can find. If we could narrow down something that would positively get results on a repeatable basis we would have the proof that everyone is looking for by now.

Everyone has a role they can play. Some people will never be able to pull the trigger. But they can man radios, read maps, reports, crunch data, gather water, make pickups, etc. There should be nothing shameful about helping to procure a specimen for science. 99.999999% of the people who got us to space never donned a space suit. Food for thought.

So, the picture I posted ... yes, both stumps / log ends. The wood stays damp, thus charcoal-gray instead of white, because of the spray coming off the little rapids. Parts are covered with almost black bark which creates the appearance of spots that could be face features. Finally, the sun broken by the mixed shadow of overhead trees really adds to the appearance they are something more than they are. I did not see those "shapes" when I was taking the pictures. I only saw them when I was reviewing pictures later. They were interesting enough that I had to go back despite it being about a 5 hour round trip drive. Pareidolia is not an inherently bad thing, it's how our brains work to process images comparing the inputs from the environment to "saved keys". It's how we knew the thing behind a bush was a tiger without seeing the whole thing, we see enough to reconstruct the pattern and run for our lives. From my perspective as a computer geek, the image processing our brain does is fascinating. Unfortunately, as I age I slow down ... I can actually see the processes occurring that used to be so fast they seemed sub-instinctual. That dang tiger might get me yet. MIB

There is nothing in that picture that would indicate to me a living creature is in the frame. It looks like a typical Eastern deciduous forest scene if you ask me.

What triggered my "encounter" was simply stopping my truck in plain view of one that was 150 yards away, downhill across a clearcut, by the side of a large creek. That action caused him/her to stand up from a crouch at the opposite creek bank, turning away from my truck, and hauling hairy butt up the other side of the creek across the clearcut on that side up to timberline and cover. I got the feeling that I had interrupted a pleasant afternoon's cool drink break, or maybe a productive crawfish feed. No "look backs", no pauses, just up the hillside and gone.