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Science has spoken, it needs physical evidence. THIS IS THE 800LBS GORILLA IN THE ROOM. A single tooth or pinky bone is more valuable than 10,000 foot casts or 10,000 PGF’s. The evidence doesn’t get heavier and heavier to science as the numbers grow. There IS a line in the sand. If your evidence doesn’t cross that line? It goes into the giant carnival bin. It lays next to Pixie and Gnome “evidence”. Someone brought up the point that Sasquatch numbers are not healthy enough to harvest a specimen. If they are truly going extinct? One specimen is not going to matter. Better to document what’s left of the unknown species than to let it slip off quietly into the night. Are there other methods than shooting one? Yes. Dr. Disotell in the million dollar Bigfoot bounty showed researchers how to collect evidence. Everything from hair to scat to collecting mosquitos for their blood in their stomachs. Archeological digs could unearth bones. Even walking around in the forest may produce bones to collect. EDNA may hold promise in the future by simply sampling waterways for a complete map of the local fauna. But running samples does cost $$$$. But so does gas, food, dental resin and hi tech video and audio equipment. And none of those produce physical evidence. If your a squatcher that just likes to go out and have “experiences” in the woods. Hey! It’s a free country, right? But if your invested in science? Research LEADS to a discovery! A discovery that must be confirmed by a panel of your peers. Self reflection isn’t an easy task. And it’s easy to loose sight of the goal. Here is my list of things we as a community can improve on. 1) Physical Evidence #1 priority A) Actively hunting the creature B) Collecting trace evidence for DNA samples (Hair, Scat, Blood, etc) C) Noting footprints or tree breaks or screams in the night are fine and dandy. So long as they don’t become the focus of the pursuit. Elk hunters don’t record Bull Elk bugles and call it a day. You follow the sign to the animal itself. You don’t document sign and go home. 2) Share knowledge!!! A) Science requires peer review. Hiding locations of activity? So your the sole “experience” storyteller makes you look like a quack. If your a biologist discovering a new species? Your gonna try to come out with a type specimen. Short of that your going to document the area so that follow on researchers can easily find what you observed. Maybe they will finish what you started. Which IS science. Humans building knowledge in a collective effort. B) Its not about you, your organization or your TV show. It’s about an unknown species. It’s about conservation. 3) Be prepared! A) A 800 lbs omnivore primate is not your friend. Study early hominids and cannibalism. Cannibalism still exists in our own species. Look at Indian legends. Just because your not actively hunting it doesn’t give you a free pass. You could be attacked for the same reasons as a Bear. Territorial dispute, offspring, mating, startled, etc. Or maybe it just hates humans. B) Your knowledge should range from correct bullet calibers to map and compass reading to tracking to survival and first aid. Knowledge is power. But power needs to be applied. So practice, practice, practice. 4) Strength in numbers A) It’s rare and elusive. The best way to combat that is by increasing our numbers in the woods and be ready to collect physical evidence. It’s number 1 strength is that it can hide from us. But it cannot hide all traces of itself. Spread out until the net makes contact and then close in. B) Dont avoid the steep and deep. Because it will not. Think about where humans don’t tread in wilderness. Swamp bogs, mountain peaks, steep canyons, brush, deadfall, etc. Please feel free to add onto the list. Its my observation that the pro kill mindset is more prevalent than it was 10 years ago. Why? Probably because the conventional wisdom of the Finding Bigfoot crowd has failed. The secrecy, the whooping, tree banging, foot casts, the blurry videos. With that said they are a well organized group with a wealth of sightings reports. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to get it rolling down the road. I understand. But it gets tiresome repeating oneself over and over and over again.

OK, bear with me. Crazy theory, short version. Doodler's Grand Unified Bigfoot Theory. Stop me if this has been covered here before, it sounds oddly familiar. Bigfoot is a people inhabiting the Western Hemisphere (and all other areas, but dominating here in NA) for hundreds of thousands of years whose society was completely destroyed by the Younger Dryas impact event, then were nearly entirely wiped out by disease carried by the first modern humans to cross the Pacific thousands of years later. They're the megafauna version of modern human, then what the first Spaniards to hit South America did to the South Americans, thus the South Americans did to the bigfoot who predated them. You all probably know this, the Younger Dryas is a period in our geologic past prior to the last ice age and there is credible, and more accepted every year, evidence of a global catastrophe, more specifically a comet or meteor impact, possibly in Greenland but also with secondary impacts all over the Northern hemisphere causing an extinction level event. There are regular discoveries of evidence appearing as far as Antarctica in the layer around 12,800 years ago, where exotic material levels spike like carbon materials that don't exist in other layers, like micro diamonds, and char as well as radical differences in other materials like platinum. This evidence is well documented, published in journals such as Nature and peer reviewed papers world wide. This is becoming more and more mainstream, and I believe as evidence mounts, it'll be commonly accepted fact that this was the trigger that killed off most megafauna and possibly triggered the ice age, but also wiped out nearly all human civilization on the planet at the time. The rapid rise in sea level is thought to give rise to the nearly global biblical flood myth. On top of this, there is more and more evidence every year of habitation in North America being discovered in older and older layers, long before the last ice age, for example, sites dated 25k years ago, and sites dated as early as 130k years ago. These locations are habitation sites like earthworks featuring geometric shapes, cave habitats and more. Even limits in otherwise thought of as inhospitable areas are being broken, the Amazon for example, long presumed to have been populated a mere thousand years ago is being explored with LIDAR and mounds are being discovered all over the place, mounds that predate modern concepts of initial habitation dates there. Further, there's an almost conspiratorial denial of this in many science communities, and a false limit placed on human habitation, the "Clovis Limit", where archeologists AND Native American activists deny human habitation prior to the last ice age. For example, if you attempt to test DNA for pre-clovis samples, expect huge barriers to be thrown up from lawsuits to intimidation and funding loss. I remember one such fight, of remains found where they weren't even allowed to be dated, let alone DNA tested. But so much pre-Clovis habitation evidence exists and has been published that archeologists who deny it with the "Clovis Limit" are starting to look like kooks. The script has flipped, so to speak. I believe this also will be considered fact before too long, like the meteor impact. Finally, connecting the dots, I propose that bigfoot are a people who co-evolved, breaking off a long while back, spread out well in advance of modern man to occupy the Americas and build a society, were wiped out in the direct impact event of the Younger Dryas, and subsequent climate change caused by the catastrophe, and while modern man in other parts of the world bounced back and accelerated, they did not. Modern governments actually know this, all of it, and refuse to acknowledge it because of the other evidence of earlier societies, and earlier advanced non-human societies, would disrupt modern man's primacy mentality. Additionally, the fact that bigfoot was wide spread throughout the world prior to this even has lead to a natural world wide genetic memory of the big hairy creature in the woods as well as a real tribal memory passed down for tens of thousands of years of the same. And that's my grand unified bigfoot theory. How crazy is it? At the very least, it's a great plot for a thriller where in the end, the great explorer is brought into the circle of trust and introduced to the secret world hidden by governments everywhere to live with the bigfoots or something. Could this be proven genetically? Is there a great mitochondrial dna pinch point 12,800 years ago or so? I don't even know, never checked. Also, if we can get mitochondrial DNA from bigfoot, can't we tell how far back we split off (if they even did?).

I am not. If they exist and if I ever encounter one. I am taking the shot. My niece is an attorney. I will deal with the fallout later.

I find your argument very persuasive. You are making me think about this issue from a different perspective.

All right, it's time to organize a BFF field trip to Siberia. Or at least Kamchatka. Huntster can almost see it from his window! (I kid).

What's the difference?

BINGO! And that's the point I've been trying to get across all of this time. And since science by and large do not believe in the Sasquatch's existence, it doesn't think twice about tossing a "Human contaminated" sample that resulted from the usual metabarcoding process. Metabarcoding will probably ALWAYS show Sasquatch DNA as Human contamination. Only the CO1 process will make the distinction and be able to determine a difference in a closely related species investigation. Science DOES use CO1 for targeting normal organisms that physically look identical like the huge moth study out of Nigeria where moths looked identical but after CO1 barcoding it was discovered that even though a certain moth appeared to be the sole representation of the species it was in fact MANY species that just looked the same. CO1 is used on our ancient ancestors as well when comparing them (Denisovan, Naledi, Neanderthal and so many others) to modern Humans. Because the process WORKS. That's why I've been on a mission to find that right person who uses the right barcoding process and understands why it is critical in this hunt. Needle in a field of haystacks

The Bighorn Dam Incident in 1969 has estimates for the Bigfoot to be from 12' to 15'. Five people saw it and they did a size comparison to a known human so the estimate is likely close.

For this to work you would need to prove it came from a Bigfoot, which means reliable data, not just one DNA test. Again, DNA is evidence not proof unless you know it for sure came from a Bigfoot because if the reports are correct they are indistinguishable from human DNA. Also, great post norse

Not to mention that norseman got my upvote for this new tidbit of information.

Meh, most repetitive show format ever, doomed to NOT find anything. They find bigfoot, the show ((Cash Cow)) ends.

Hey. I hope you're well safe and well. I am from the UK and first got interested in the paranormal /crypto side of life as a 7 year old kid when I read a book called the mysterious world and the picture of Party blew my mind. I spent hours with a magnifying glass looking at that one picture. From there I've never let it go. I would imagine there's not a documentary I haven't seen! I've always said it.. One day I will visit and spend some time in the forests of North America. Thank you for accepting me!

That has got to be one of the finest posts I've read in a long time, and there have been some very good ones along the way. But paring down the main issues confronting us in order to delineate the path forward takes being able to back away and look at the entire picture. Norseman has done that and he did while respecting everyone here. It wasn't a post that criticized as much as it spoke to having everyone's knowledge and ability channel into the larger end goal of getting this creature exposed for its own good by whatever physical/scientific means available to us. It has been difficult to persuade this community to work together and not follow the usual pattern of isolated and fragmented research. Maybe we can turn the corner on that hold a more collective effort for discovery. At this point there isn't a darned thing to lose by doing so if our BF research history has anything to teach us. And we can have science on our side in this effort. Trust me, there are some potentially good things currently happening in that regard as I speak.

Agreed. New points of view and new opinions are more interesting than a decade old thread populated by inactive members. I am here for the discussion. If I just want to read I will buy another book.

I agree. Lively discussion would be preferred to me rather than reading a thread that started 9 years ago.

I wonder if they are kill or no kill. Hopefully no kill as they could have killed me at least 2 times but chose to let me go. Happy to return the favor and be no kill. The end does not justify the means.

You have a couple of spots with activity there in North Georgia. One might get hit on those twisting mountain roads yet.

It may now seem ludicrous for a Bigfoot to be living on the outskirts of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland or San Francisco. Huntster and I have both talked about SE Alaska being probably one of the last great places. But there is a place that trumps all other places. Siberia. Vast. Unexplored. Where natives still move with Reindeer herds. Much of it is bitter cold. But surely there are coastal areas not unlike North America. I came across a video of a supposed mammoth crossing a river. Hoax? Maybe. But some fossils are mere thousands of years old. What if? I think for me the lure of cryptids is to go find the end of the road and explore what’s beyond. If there is something left out there? This may well be the place to go look. And Larch trees are my favorite tree, especially in fall. Now. Beautiful.

I always liked this video. Very ape like.

Lake Baikal fascinates me. What cool trucks. Looks like one hell of a road trip! Great video, norseman!