Leaderboard

I’d be inclined to go along with the cache theory but I’d have issues with the quantities required, we’re talking a few thousand pounds. Not an easy amount to gather in a secure spot(s) where weather and other animals wouldn’t get to it. I’d find it more likely they’d have some deposits for when it got really rough and other than that stuck to the lowlands and lived off of what they could find. This would bring them into closer proximity to people which would curtail their movement and reduce their required caloric intake somewhat.

I'm grasping for words here. There are two interacting factors, population size and environmental survival stress. Presumably if you have a large population, it isn't under extreme stress over long periods of time, it is stable. In that setting, most mutations that aren't fatal don't have much survival benefit either. An unusual individual probably swaps genes with normal individuals and gets averaged back into the population in a few generations. With a small group under great selective stress from environmental factors, a small mutation might prove fatal, but it also might confer survival advantages so that within a couple generations all surviving members have inherited that trait and those without have mostly perished. I think ... maybe.

Why might Bigfoot move from where Bigfoot is happy? We must guess on tendencies of Bigfoot based on what same and similar animals might do or be expected to do. Does Bigfoot hoard food? Does Bigfoot eat until it's full but with no hoarding concerns due to abundant food all around? What Bigfoot might eat? Does Bigfoot's diet change with changing conditions? Does Bigfoot eat meat? I can only say any animal stays where conditions (food) are good and then moves on if those preferred conditions change. I have to think as long as Bigfoot's wish list is in place Bigfoot stays put. Now other factors unrelated to the wish list could still drive bigfoot to move. They might be mankind moving in to develop the property whose activities drive Bigfoot out of there. I think the main driver which would actually make Bigfoot migrate is a change in the weather. I say this not as much because it could be getting cold but because real winter makes a lot of things go dead until the spring. Bigfoot prefers to stay for the feast but leaves for the famine. 'Winter' -as we think of winter- is a big negative to a lot of animals. I can imagine many of those same reasons apply to bigfoot. Monkeys in the jungle probably have a year-round supply of bananas, water, bugs and so on. Finally, the drive to procreate might cause Bigfoot to move on. If Patty is looking for a boyfriend, she might not want to stay in Bluff Creek every Saturday night for 50 years.

Another possible consideration is if you look at bigfoot as a species in rapid terminal decline, you should expect great difference in morphology as there is no buffering population. I don't necessarily believe they are in decline but neither can I have confidence that they are not.

I think that using Patty as the "standin type specimen" for sasquatch is understandable, given the glaring lack of an actual type specimen, but it sends the discussion in a canted direction. My idea of a sasquatch phenotype, based on my own sighting, my viewing of a large number of forensic artist sketches of sightings, and a large number of sighting descriptions (both reported and unreported via personal interviews), involves much less hair (on the face as well as on the body) and much more Homo sapiens-like facial features (and even human-like facial expressions!). The bottom line for me: My understanding of the sasquatch phenotype is much closer to Homo sapiens than it is to Patty.

Too bad we can give only one "response", that's worth both a thumbs up and a laugh!

I am not a Dino eater…. Mammal beef steak medium rare please.

I thought that the central message is that chickens taste like dinosaurs. Might be why Chic-fil-A has a 2 lane stack up at the drive through.

My experience has been that deer love to eat pumpkins. They also would pull carrots up with their teeth and leave them there over night and eat them when they dried out.

All I know is if I was pretty well lit and it was close to last call the Neanderthal woman wouldn’t look bad at all. Patty on the other hand, I’d pass out before she’d look good. I’d say that’s a good way to judge how human they are.

In my post at the bottom of the previous page, I mentioned a lead regarding footsteps heard by a young man I met on that outing, in the next valley east of where we met. I managed to spend a few hours in that valley this afternoon, after being rained out the last couple of days by torrential downpours. I was lucky enough to find the gate to that road system open today, which is not always the case when I go up there. The last time I was in this watershed was about 4 years ago, and I soon saw that there had been very extensive logging in there since that time, leaving many new branch roads and dozens of new clearcuts, which didn't bode well for seeing sasquatch or game, as all the activity would have sent those deeper into the wilderness. I drove to the end of the newest logging road, where some equipment was still parked, only meeting one other vehicle in the whole valley, a couple and their 2 dogs, getting ready to explore some of the side branches on their ATV. After scouting around the area at the end of the road looking for tracks, and finding none, I took a few photos and turned back for home, as the change to DST this weekend meant that sunset was at about 4:45. This valley is about 30km long, and the roads end at about the 15km mark, so there is still a lot of untracked wilderness in the upper reaches. The recent heavy rains had the main creek and the smaller tributaries roaring and seething, not something you'd want to fall into! IMG_1500.MOV