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Given the number of encounters all over the country weighed against the verifiable evidence, in most cases I’d say the human has made an error.

Perfectly capable of seeing the forest for the trees in all the evidence and information out there, plus having a decent number of encounters on my belt, no sighting necessary. This whole notion of "we all know how fallible human perception can be!" is laughably overblown in this field, I can't help but chuckle at the folks saying "I wouldn't believe it even if I saw it right in front of me!" Yeah...... you would. Gimme a break.

Had heard them, smelled them, seen their tracks, seen their trail markers, their prey remains and scat, but as far as "they" were concerned, they didn't exist until I saw the first one. We can strike out "paradigm" #1. That group knows, and has known of their existence for at least two hundred years. Like politics,politicians and the real world of both, it is left up to the people to determine the truth for themselves. Been in the pursuit of that that truth out there in the boonies for nearly fifty years; have yet to see or hear of a scientist still working on it. To them, it's an under-the-table, done deal.

Folks, I don't know about you but this SSR effort is just hands-down a monumental achievement. The concept and subsequent execution of such a task has not been only about classifying the source data- it has also been about working out the bugs in the program and system along the way to which GIGANTOR (and the name SHOULD BE in all caps ) can take the credit as he patiently took in all of the notifications of glitches in the SSR and worked through them in order to have the data perform as desired. BobbyO, who worked diligently in every spare moment he could muster, and RedBone who has been nothing short of a juggernaut who has been unstoppable on getting report after report pigeon holed into the dataset. We owe these people a immense tip of the hat and I personally thank them for what they have done though my thanks falls way short of what they deserve, Thank you guys for staying with your goals when I fell behind, and for doing it all so incredibly well.

Well, in that case we can expect a quick resolution! I will dispatch the scooby doo mobile as backup.

I can't speak for anyone else. I've had the sighting ... x2, decades apart. So ... I can only hypothesize. Considering the body of evidence, I think yes, I could be convinced by that alone. The problem is, as I see it, dismissing ALL evidence requires such an incredible Rube Goldberg mix of excuses .. or sheer ignorance .. that as a logical person with a science background, the existence of an unknown hominid is by far the simplest answer. In short, Occam's Razor, applied to the evidence, says they're clearly and unequivocally real as the simplest and most logical explanation. The only doubt I have about that conclusion is whether I'd have taken time to truly adequately examine the evidence without those two sightings to keep my curiosity engaged. If I did not, I might come to the same ignorant conclusion as the scoftic cadre. MIB

I got out for the day yesterday, to the eastern end of our large research area, to get a look at what damage the forest fires had done there in the last month. I had last been there in June, before the fires started, and was dreading what I might find on this trip. I was very relieved to see that the majority of the valley had been spared, though the far eastern end of the drainage had a fire ignite low in the valley, which had burned over the ridge into the next drainage east, and in fact was still being mopped up by several small fire crews, one of whom I had a chance to talk to for a bit, and to thank for the dangerous work that they do. That fire had reached another, which was much larger, and had started to the SE and climbed the back (east) side of the large mountain at the east end of the valley. I was able to follow the logging roads over to that side of the mountain, and was stunned by the vast burn on that side. There was still wildlife in "our" valley, as I saw a number of deer, some grouse, and a lot of cattle in the 6 hours or so that I was there. Being at the eastern extreme of our research area, this region is on the rain shadow side of the Coast range, so is much drier than the western slopes that we normally visit, and much more at risk for these fires. Here's a few shots from the day: