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Enough to know that their senior leadership operates on a for profit motive and is involved in entertainment concerns (finding bigfoot specifically). Beyond that you look for the most likely culprit for a find like with without bias. Greatest likelihood, it's elk. As for the profit motive and entertainment involvement; it taints motives. Misidentifications dont amount to ratings or dollars, in my opinion.

I think one of my closer encounters had to do with a juvenile. This is just an interpretation of the events of course, but it does make sense. I was coming down the trail at a section with a steep cliff on the other side of a small ravine when I heard a "woo!" from further down the trail. I went "woo!" back and received an immediate response from just up the cliff to my right that sounded basically like a chimp screech/squawking racket. I kind of smiled and sat down on the trail to see what would happen. Pretty soon I heard a soft panting that I thought at first was a dog coming up the trail towards me, but as the panting got louder and no dog appeared, I realized that was not the case. It got louder, and louder, until I could picture the massive size of the chest of the breather. It was unnerving and a little tense, but I remember having the conscious thought "I know what this is and what it's trying to tell me, I should take the hint." I got up and started walking down the trail, and the huffing stopped immediately. I think this was just a case of a young one getting a little too surprised or excited by my response woo, and mom or dad had to give me a little strong encouragement to move along. It's interesting to me how controlled that encouragement was; mom or dad could've easily issued a low, menacing growl, and I would've got on my feet a lot quicker. The way the huffing increased gradually gave me a chance to get the message with the minimum amount of force or aggression. In other words, they quickly found my lowest threshold for saying "ok, got it, leaving."

The females take turns baby sitting for each other. They have safe places where they can kind of turn them loose & not have to watch them too closely, such as in habituators' back yards. Sometimes, some of the older kids watch the younger ones, too, but they aren't very reliable & mischief happens. When untrusted humans are around, they know how to hide & be quiet, the same as the young of any other wild thing.

Just let me say, if you're near some young ones, they WILL persuade you to vacate the area.

In reference to Norseman's comments: One of the techniques I often use when taking people up the hill is to show them a deer track. Doe, buck, yearling? But most importantly, if we are not in snow, I ask them to show me the other three tracks that match the one observed. And, after that, to show me not the next set of tracks made by the four hooves, but the third set in succession. It is rare that a new observer can make it that far along a track line. I'm just mentioning this in regards to the discussion of track rarity and repetitiveness in regards to hooved animals. With luck we'll find a bear track. In our area of interest, depending on the population cycle, in the Cascades there is about one bear per two square miles during population peaks and one bear per four - five square miles at the bottom of the cycle. So, the idea is to tell people that bears are fairly common and that we should "easily" find a track in three-four hours of wandering. Often, if there is no snow, no bear track is found, mainly because new people don't go near water much, they like to stay "up high" where they can see things and not fight brush. Then, the exercise in finding succeeding bear tracks in the track line proves much more difficult than with hooved animals. Now, let me go "wild" and estimate one Bigfoot per 10-20 square miles depending on habitat. How many track finds and how often? I feel successful if I'm up 20 plus days a year, spend a lot of time afoot and find one unmistakable Bigfoot track. Two or three in a line is a very rare treat. So, I'm just saying that a "researcher" must persevere and not go up the hill to find Bigfoot tracks. You better have something else on your alleged mind. When I had the film crew from Missouri up for several days and they stumbled on their first track -- which was obviously left as a marker of some kind -- they were astounded. It was in mud beside a creek next to a game trail crossing. I was over a little ridge so by the time I got there the fellow carrying their "black" box had slipped and ruined it, but fortunately they had photographed it. Well, enough rambling for now except for one more "thing." The story behind the photo: Managed to stay dry that night with only a tarp, but I was alone so that made it easier. This point is about 15 miles {no exaggeration} from the nearest often used road, and by often, since I often camp near it, I mean 1 truck per hour per summer day, maybe 1-2 during the night. That night, after the rain, one came around and walked around camp leaving several tracks. So the moral of the story is to go to where they are and let them come to you.