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Two is one, one is none. I use both topo maps and GPS. Either can fail, each in its own way. Dead batteries ... water damage. For me, both are best used while building ground knowledge ... three is also two. MIB

This is an interesting drone that adds some new wrinkles to both "follow me" modes and obstacle avoidance. Rather than just following and recording the person with the controller, it uses facial recognition algorithms like a camera. If there are people in it's main camera view it highlights them on the screen of the phone being used as a controller, then you tap the one you want it to follow. The other big improvement is in obstacle avoidance; this uses 13 black and white cameras with high speed shutters placed around the frame and can follow a person running through trees at up to 25 MPH. It also has a predictive mode designed to have it lead rather than follow the subject. In its present form it likely wouldn't be useful in finding and following a Sasquatch, but when the design team began working on it in 2014 they knew that the state of the art at the time wouldn't support what they wanted to accomplish. They counted on tech advancements sufficient to allow it down the road and four years later have a market ready product. In the not too distant future, I could see an autonomous drone building on this technology that could be released in an area where activity is occurring, lock on to a subject and track it for a predetermined amount of time, then use GPS to return to point of origin.

Lots of good ideas here from experienced people. Hopefully the casual researcher who is not taking these precautions will examine their own methods and pack contents and make changes. it is also a good idea to do an inventory to periodically know what you have in your pack. I wear a different pack for the fat tire bike than I do for hiking on foot and transfer a few items back and forth. Another word of caution there. One can ride out further on a mountain bike than you can walk out should you have tire or mechanical problems. In a way you are at more risk anytime you rely on some sort of mechanical conveyance. Breakdowns, bike accidents, and getting too far out to walk back are all factors.

If I covered all the various orientation items I carry on my person or in my pack it probably comes to 5 or 6. Always figured it's good to be safe than sorry (interpret as dead or lost). Topo maps, a couple compasses, GPS, tablet or phone with downloaded ariel and topo maps, extra batteries and a small battery pack (for phone charging), and a wrist watch (makes a good solar compass in a pinch). Then I get into the other survival items.

The links below are blog articles by a scientist who was trying to calculate the expected number of bigfoot roadkill per year. The first article estimated the BF roadkill probabilities using US statistics from car accidents with human pedestrians. However, because some issues with this data (for example, car pedestrian accident data is weighted towards urban areas) the author wrote the 2nd paper using larger mammal hit and kill rate statistics. http://thoughtsonscienceandpseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/11/does-bigfoot-exist-statistical-evidence.html http://thoughtsonscienceandpseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-updated-analysis-of-animal-roadkill.html Both papers are interesting and worth the read. I also suggest to read the comment section that points out some of the flaws with the assumptions. While people can disagree on what is the appropriate population statistic for comparison (bear or human or other) and what adjustments to make to the estimates, the bottom line message from the author is that as long as the hit-kill rate probability for a bigfoot vehicular collision is greater than 0.02% of the BF population and if the population of BF in north America is at least 5,000 then there should be at least one bigfoot roadkill per year (or 60 in the last 60 years). This is a low threshold compared to other big mammals in the USA (per the statistics that the author collected). The author found a paper that studied roadkill statistics for wildlife at Yellowstone NP (1989 to 1996) study). The annual roadkill rates per animal population is summarized below: Antelope (1.1%) Bighorn Sheep (0.2% to 0.3%) Bison (0.5%) Black Bear (0.1%) Coyote (0.8 to 1.0%) Elk (0.2%) Grizzly Bear (0.05% to 0.12%) Moose (0.95%) Mule Deer (1.8%) Wolf (1.6%) While the author used a much higher kill rate statistic (1.6%) based on the median from numerous large mammals in the USA, he could have made his point using the Black Bear roadkill estimate from the Yellowstone study (0.1%). Several of the commenters wrote that bigfoot roadkill has happened but that the other bigfoots take the body away for burial. While that is a possibility, it is mainly speculation and an excuse for lack of evidence. I think a better probabilistic model could be built around a smaller region that has better estimates of the bigfoot population (because of more research attention), has known wildlife road-kill rates, and has good road traffic statistics (for example the Olympic Peninsula). But that will be an intellectual exercise that will probably not change the conclusion from the author - that we should have seen roadkill evidence. Another potential exercise is to look at the near miss-statistics (which are more numerous compared to the hit statistics) and to try to understand the circumstances that lead to near misses. Are there any common parameters for cases where there is a near miss with a bigfoot? Type of road, curved vs. straight road, line of sight of road, speed of vehicle, seasonality, light conditions, weather, bf was distracted because it was hunting, or just random?