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Quick thumbs-up to ioyza, JKH, and LeafTalker ... absolutely agree on the moniker "long term witness". As you have almost certainly observed, in "habituation" situations, it is more often than not the humans, not the bigfoots, whose behavior is conditioned / changed. We're the habituated, not the habituator. One of you mentioned Enoch ... when Mike overstepped boundaries, he's the one that got pitched in the creek, not the other way around. He was the one whose behavior was being conditioned. I'm ok with the term habituation so long as the irony is recognized, also because when it refers to the setting, it remains accurate no matter who is being habituated. Such people are amazing resources, especially for each other, but I find what they are willing to share, when they are willing to share, very useful myself. When the pieces fit together and match the existing parts of the puzzle ... the pieces fit together and match the existing parts of the puzzle. It just is what it is. MIB

I did. I have. Star Trek has better fan fiction.

The Erickson Matilda hoax?

If someone such as Norse does get lucky and bags a Sasquatch and science acknowledges it, that in no way makes BF easier to hunt. According to reports it already exists in most of N.America where hunters are currently active. Would it still not be just as elusive as it is now? Also, while poaching happens everywhere, comparing the type of poaching going on in Asia or Africa is a little different than here in the US.

^^^ Sad, but very true, Cricket. When there is an apparently almost completely benign species, minding their own business, I'm against killing one or more of them just to satisfy mainstream 'Science' and/or to appease those who only have enough time to deny it.

Its plausible that a real crippled Bigfoot left tracks in Bossburg which gave Marx the idea for the film.

I'm not sure about all that. There are two kinds of "night vision": thermal imaging and light enhancement. I got to play with a high end therm a while back .. vehicle mounted, not hand held. For giggles one of the peeps went out about 20 feet and shined a flashlight at it. The flashlight was visible to our eyes, of course, but through the therm, we saw only his shape, no light from the flashlight at all. A little uncanny IMHO. Working from their avoidance of trail cams, I'm fairly sure bigfoot see in I.R. at least a little farther than we do. Thinking about that, I wonder what the heat of a campfire or gas lantern looks like to them compared to how it looks to us? Could be pretty wild, huh? I'm not sure they see better in the visible spectrum than we do at night. I was really surprised at the level of detail visible through the thermal imager at short to medium distance. I could see enough to identify specific people. I could see the cracks in the pine tree bark by the road. Pine cones hanging from the trees. Up close, I.R. may be enough, no need for more sensitivity than we have in the visible spectrum. They MAY have it, but I just got "schooled" on whether it was necessary or not and I thought I'd share that lesson. At the same time, yeah, they are sensitive to bright light at night. So are we. How do we measure how much more or less so? What responses of theirs are conditioned that we might misunderstand? What responses of our own are "taught" vs how much is truly instinctive? (Do Russian kids cuss in English like I do when I stub my toe? No. So ... some of response IS taught, not pure instinct. Flinching, hands to the face rather than just squinting, etc.) There's a cultural / learned relativity we don't have sufficient basis to measure .. yet. (Tangentially, by the time we do, they may have learned / changed responses just from watching us ... or even vice versa, the old quesiton about who is habituating whom?) Interesting stuff! MIB

Silly person ... of course you can ... and I do. Super stealth does not preclude mistakes, that requires super stealth and incredible diligence. Unintended convergences have happened (example: the PGF) and will continue to. Likewise, super stealth does not preclude **deliberate choice** which appears to happen as well. The fact that they haven't happened to YOU ... bad location, bad timing, ineptitude, or just haven't beaten the odds yet? Don't know. Look at it another way: I'm still waiting for a winning powerball ticket. We know SOMEONE wins sometimes. Me not winning doesn't prove powerball is a hoax. You not seeing bigfoot doesn't prove they're a hoax either. MIB

I don't put any stock in conspiracy theories.

Seconding what JKH and ioyza are saying. Cricket, a great book that will help you understand how people are able to get close to BFs is Chris Noel's "Sasquatch Rising", published in 2013. In that book is lots of testimony from several different long-term witnesses (thanks, JKH) who have been living side by side with the BF for years and years. Armed with the information in that book, you'll get a better sense of what really happens when people (mostly unwittingly, at first) engage in Park-like "observation" of the BF. And once you know all that stuff -- what works and what doesn't, and how it all really goes down, when you're in close proximity to them -- you can better assess what direction makes the best sense for you to take in your own investigations.

Plenty of habituation that, sure, might be better termed 'long-term witnesses' - I'd say Enoch goes well beyond that. I imagine there are other stories that transcend the relationship of 'witness' that we never hear about. The common denominator is their behavior. They treat sasquatch like neighbors or potential friends, not prey or research subjects. There are other threads with pages and pages of the sort of retorts we're about to hear again from the same people, about how absurd and unbelievable that is, stop making excuses, extraordinary claims extraordinary evidence, all that. I suggest you read what the habituators have to say and decide for yourself. They make perfect sense to me. You'll never get a BF to pose for you - quality photos will always be Black Swan events.

Yes, it's officially been done with mixed results, e.g. the Erickson Project. There are unofficial studies that some like to term "habituation". Others describe the humans involved more accurately, IMO, as "long-term witnesses". Their observations over time can be found here and elsewhere, and are great resources.

That is nice, but I have to ask. After all the time you've spent discussing the subject, do you feel that if BF existed, it would have the intellect of a monkey?

The logical answer is of course the camera operator is involved in the hoax.

I could not agree more.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Why don't you come on over to the Rabbit Hole & tell us anything that you don't mind talking about?

Wildlife examples are not relevant to bigfoot. What is relevant is what fate has befallen every kind of primitive culture that has been "found" by western "civilization." We sell them religion, we take their land and shove them on reservations, we give them smallpox. 90%+ mortality rates. Look what our missionaries do to indigenous people in the tropics. Look what us enlightened Americans did to our own indigenous people. Same for Australia. We ram religion down their throats, we shove them on reservations, destroy their cultures, and we give them nice presents like smallpox with a 90%+ mortality rate. What the heck is wrong with you? Can't learn from past genocide, you have to find another primitive people and wipe them out, too? Really? MIB

You still ignore all the traits that are the same as human. It's those that make it hominin for me, because they are hominin exclusive. You can't cherry pick the evidence and claim to have a valid opinion. Humans have flexible feet, we don't know how good their vision is at night, we've never put one on a scale or measured ones height. Unknown ape DNA would have turned up by now, it can't be 800 lbs and 8ft tall and Non-human but never leave the proof. It can however be human and fool you with it's cover.( books and covers.) We don't have Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA , X chromosome DNA, or Y chromosome DNA, but most europeans have Nuclear trace from them. That doesn't mean we were not compatible, it more likely means the maternal AND paternal lineages washed out from natural selection. Neanderthals and hybrid offspring could have had problems socially within our clans and bore progressively fewer children. You know you would choose Bo Derek over that lady you posted above.

Cotter - I don't know, but I did a search for a global map of where monkeys live (and all non-Homo primates for that matter), then examined that with an eye towards the location of the equator and the band of northern and southern deserts that are about 30 degrees N/S of the equator. That gives me an idea ... could be right, could be wrong. I don't think there's much territory non-human primates are adapted to that they aren't using that isn't closed to them by expanses of desert lacking food / water / cover for them. Genus Homo, though? Well, Neanderthals were cold-adapted, they didn't get forced out / killed off by cold in the north, they were already there ... and stayed. Our ancestors overcame conditions through use of tools and gathering food, then carrying it. What's left? Bigfoot, right? If they are what I think they are, so far as ecological niche, I think they're likely the North American equivalent of the Neanderthals in Europe and maybe Asia. No adaptation needed, no return immigration needed, they were already here and doing fine. Leaves a lot painted, or assumed painted , with that "very broad brush", but on a broad brush scale it works. MIB

Do you really think there are that many of those here? Or any, for that matter? If so, what is your litmus test for those folks, how can you tell? And PG, I think the value in sharing the "same old" stuff is twofold: they are data points that at the bare minimum have a time and location associated with them, which helps others know when and where to look; and if you look carefully at the contextual minutiae, you often find details that are NOT the same old stuff. If you'll indulge me in an analogy, I sometimes feel like there's one group of us studying slides under a microscope, and another group watching with beers and arms crossed saying "Yep another piece of glass with some gunk on it, same old."