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Chest did not heal…again. Go see surgeon tomorrow. So I have taken myself off of light duty. And I went for a Wolf hunt in Idaho. Went over Gisborne ridge. Lots of fog down low, finally broke out up high. I saw lots of deer and elk. Whitetail and elk on the way out down low. Mule deer up high. No wolves. There was about 4 inches of snow up top in the shade.

Do you believe chimpanzees really do exist? If yes, did you believe that chimpanzees really existed before 2004? If yes again, that would impossible to believe if fossilized remains are the benchmark by which existence is measured. The first fossilized remains of a chimpanzee was not found until September 2004 by Dr. Nina Jablonski in the Rift Valley of Africa. Let's compare the two "creatures". It's estimated that ~250,000 chimpanzees live in Africa, their average lifespan is about 35 years, and they have been in existence ~5-8 million years. Let's be conservative, use 5 million years, and if these estimates are correct, let's do the math. (5,000,000yrs x 250,000 chimps)/40 yr lifespan= 31,250,000,000 billion chimps. So, ~31 billion chimpanzees have lived in Africa yet not one fossilized remain was found until late 2004. Moreover, we all suspect that sasquatches are far more rare than chimpanzees don't we? Armed with this information, in my opinion, that leaves us with the real question which is, "What clear-thinking person would ever expect fossilized remains of a sasquatch to be found?"

Some from this year blacktail deer hunting More IMG_20251101_142002.heic IMG_20251101_203359.heic

Conditions that preserve fossils are extremely rare. It is commonly agreed by professional and academic biologists that less than 1% of the species which have ever lived have left fossils that we have found. Never mind individuals, we're talking about 99% of all species did not leave fossils for us to discover. Contemplate that. Contemplate the implications. Many of those fossils we do have which were land-based lived in flash flood country, they did not live in forests. Flash floods occur in dry climates with infrequent but catastrophic rainfall and cover dead animals then dry them, maybe for decades, in soil that absorbs the deal animal's moisture when the flood ends. Forests have regular rainfall so that fallen dead things don't dry adequately for preservation and have acidic soils that dissolve bones rather than preserving them. The main exception would be in volcanic ash beds .. we can see that in the John Day / Clarno fossil beds in eastern Oregon for instance. So while we might find recent bigfoot remains, given what we know about where bigfoot reports come from, few are in places that are likely to create fossils to discover later. Edit to add .. so if I were looking for fossils, I'd look in the ash beds near the Cascade volcanoes or in the dry washes on the east slope of the Cascades, maybe east slope of the Rockies. I think most other places in the continental US get too much rainfall for preservation needed to produce fossils. MIB

For anyone interested in this idea of a Bigfoot metapopulation, I go deeper into the subject on Substack this week. I think this idea offers an answer to a few Bigfoot mysteries and debunker arguments. And, it may explain differences in Bigfoot morphology reported in different parts of North America (e.g., PNW vs east Texas region). https://thesocialbigfoot.substack.com/p/bigfoot-are-meta

I would suggest a home range model with a nomadic cycle of following resources completely every 2 to 3 weeks ( obviously deviating enough down from lasting snow ) along box-canyons and or benches that follow streams and smaller river pathways. This area would be chosen based on the ability to remain hidden, thermoregulation and browsing/hunting along the way. My data indicates constant movement cycle within a territory, they seem to hang in an area for not much longer than 3 or 4 days ( there have been certain months in certain areas that are exception ) and they basically travel for a day to another resource area along a known routine and hang out for a few days and so on, eventually they follow this general path all the way back around to the starting line and repeat but constantly flexing the path ( within 1 or 2 miles of bandwidth outside of direction of intended travel ) according to need or human activity. This model prevents patterning by prey and humans, prevents over browsing and resource devastation, explains the indifference and frequency of road crossing reports and provides a schedule that allows for gauging future resources to avoid scarcity periods. I plan on doing a thread thoroughly explaining it all in-depth in the near future.

We now have a sub forum specifically for hunting and fishing! Excited to see all of your hunts and trophies! Follow this link below. https://bigfootforums.com/forum/208-hunting-and-fishing-forum/

My view is there are not many of these things out there ( less in your area, maybe 3 from border to Newport ) and I am convinced they come down right to a place they find " tolerable " and skirt along river corridors just above normal human access or use. The cycle they likely follow in the colder climates must be large and in thick timber so the ice plate deposits from melt and refreezing cover a lot of their recognizable prints and destroy details that give it away. I believe Grassman58 on youtube has found a few suggestive trackways over the years. Being close to edge habitat for deer, elk and remote valleys with running waterways would be priority. My only guess would be they reduce activity massively, perhaps have some caches and operate at on deficit until snow breaks up. I would not be surprised to find out one day they can reduce their metabolic rate in the colder months, some form of torpor but not true hibernation. I have heard some far north native tribes are reported to have this ability to a degree. I could see them taking advantage of shafts and shallow cave systems but I want to know why we don't find preserved tracks in the cave floor if that is the case. There are a variety of snow trackways from nearby your area and they tend to occur around periods of bad weather, one I remember was about a guy found a set of prints that crossed his property near the Priest River area and they led up hill to a mangled deer completely disemboweled and meat pulled from the body, he noted bloody butt marks, hand prints and knee prints in the snow around the carcass. This was back around 2008 or something, the tracks went up hill into timber through some nasty thick regrowth and the guys could not follow as the snow was bucketing down and night was falling. I met the guy and heard his story first hand at the Klondike Tavern in Laclede, WA just before he moved to Alaska ( Thorn Bay ). I heard a similar story about someone finding snow prints up Dry Canyon Rd in 2014, tracks crossed the road and went up hill toward the north to south ledge above the river, I tried to get in touch with the witness but he was native and did not want people to think he was crazy so he would not get in touch with me. I also got a report of a snow trackway behind Freeman Lake in February of 2017, guys brother told me a little about it but said that he would not talk to anyone as he was a totally recluse. The other factor is that people out in these more harsh environments and remote properties are generally tight lipped and don't like to share. They know stuff and you don't and they want to keep it that way. To just touch on the coast for a second, I have loads of data here that seems to indicate they are still moving through their core habitats and visit throughout the year, as noted in another thread. They seem to drop below the holding snowline and hang out in wet thick crap on the edge of big timbered slopes that border a variety of habitat types and resources, they then cycle through a kind of loop along preferred paths over the course of a couple weeks and return to the starting point. Outside of the coastal states, your guess is as good as mine honestly but we still get the occasional snow trackway in the dead of winter so my question would be, how is it happening if they go coastal? This where I am with the question and that is what I have come across in my 4 years investigating the Selkirk area and it did not add up to much. I 100% agree, if you can solve the winter strategy in snow holding areas then you can really move the ball forward.

Yeah, that is why the herbivore and even a plant dominant omnivore modeling is a tough pill to swallow for Sasquatch. I am of the mind that protein and fat are dominant in the diet. That would alleviate many of the problems regarding area devastation and energy expenditure. 1 pound of animal fat/ plant fat is around 3500. 1 pound of animal protein ranges from 500 to 900. 1 pound of huckle berries is about 170. If a Sasquatch wanted to eat well I think it would be fair to suggest that if they managed 2.5 pounds of fat, 5 pounds of protein and 3 pounds of fruit/leaves they would likely be in a surplus. That would indicate that you could meet the needs of one individual with just over 10 pounds of mass.

Something like that crossed my mind briefly back in Aug 2011 when "he" came into camp. The first thought was ... "Ishi?" Yep, Native Americans wearing moccasins .. and using night vision goggles. Surrrrre, just like bears, "they do that all the time." Then the speed of travel vs speed of steps .. thus length of steps .. became obvious and such foolishness went out the window. And so ... we follow the evidence ...

We should be able to select more than one category. I visit the tar pit to see what humor Inc has dredged up.

I know many here are hunters based in the PNW and so I figured this section needed a black tailed deer thread as they are the grey ghost of the cascade range. The mature blacktail buck is truly the toughest ungulate to locate and hunt in North America Please feel free to share stories, strategies and photos of the pursuit. I will start off with my own experience and strategies. In my few years of learning mature black tail buck behavior and patterns I have found that these guys like to be up along benches, plateaus and saddles that are difficult to approach, they routinely move between these kind of bedding areas and a series of feeding zones such as 5 to 8 year regrowth of clearcut or select cut stretched over terrain that has relief points and staging areas. If there are springs and marshes nearby the chances are even better that you are on a great spot, they are edge habitat creatures and like irregular pockets of different forest types and feed heavily on general browse in the summer favoring red huckleberry leaves, alder, vine maple and cottonwood. In the fall and winter they shift to hitting lichen, mushrooms, alder, salal and huckleberry tips. The older mature deer become very nocturnal and move to a very heavy lichen diet and hold up in old growth timber, these older deer will tolerate a little more snow to remain in higher areas that predator pressure is lower. The also seem to move less overall and don't run until later in the rut but rather wait for does to get pushed into their core areas as they escape the younger bucks and human created pressure. At 4+ years they essentially build a knowledge of what areas do not get pressured that also have and retain resources late into the year. As far as basic behavior they will use the wind and stand perfectly still for well over 15 minutes watching and listening before entering into a new environment to try and pick out predators and movement. I have had them catch me move just an inch and they will circle the detected disturbance until they can catch a scent before dropping their guard to feed or approach, they will also stay in their bed in the brush until you get almost on top of them if they feel you do not know they are there.. Younger bucks make more mistakes and will lean hard into the rut and take chances if there are hot does nearby. My goals for getting close are to identify remote transitional habitat pockets, locate feeding zones and then key in on old rub routes within 60 yards of primary game trails that take me to knobs, benches and flat top ridges. I then will set cameras up along staging areas and try to plan still hunt routes based on dominant wind and barometric pressure changes around wet nasty weather. I also E-scout often to try and understand how the does are using the area and how the bachelor groups settle in around fall as they break up. I often find higher deer density in areas that have some south east exposure for warmth in winter as well as some wrap around benches to face north east as this is an escape from the wind in winter and some shade and cool in summer. Hope this is helpful to some of you guys out there and feel free to add any tips you have.

Thanks for posting all the articles and that was really a great effort. It was quite interesting to know that some of the reports that I posted were, of value and that the Indians did have a problem with bigfoots that kept bothering them. Your writings are always very detailed and thank-you for participating on this topic. You always do a good job of answering and replying to topics that helps keep the entire forum membership informed.

I'm sure a lot of you already know about Lazy Cowboy's Bigfoot YouTube videos. If not, they are a MUST SEE. Lazy Cowboy does an excellent job taking the data from the PGF and creating a CGI recreations better than anything I have ever seen. Specifically, I recommend: 1) Bigfoot- Recreating Bluff Creek 2) Bigfoot- Recreating Bluff Creek Part 2 The Patteson Gimlin Film Route. <--- This is the best one. Outstanding. We can see points of view from any angle, through Roger's camera, through Patty's POV and so on. The terrain comes to life. For some already aware of the Lazy Cowboy videos, this is not news. Still, I would like to hear your thoughts on it and anywhere you might think Lazy Cowboy might get it wrong here or there. If you haven't seen these, don't walk, RUN to your computer and watch these Especially . Bigfoot- Recreating Bluff Creek Part 2 The Patteson Gimlin Film Route. They are amazing. The PGF site makes sense so much more sense to me now. One area I am uncertain about is his use of the shadows indicating the PGF was filmed at 3pm timeline not the 1 or 1:30pm. Give these a view.

You must be aware of which videos you click on. Otherwise your suggested videos will look like this

You know what I realized yesterday? My YouTube always suggests wildlife content, and every time its polar bears, these bears are being duped by walrus or seals and they almost NEVER get the kill. The media is anti polar bear and I am sick of it. Just show me the King of the North getting some kills already!!!

I think unless you fall into a habituation setting the math is always against you. Both were accidents / surprises, but the more time you spend in good spots at the right times the less unlikely fortunate accidents become. That, combined with being willing to accept what you see. I'll share a story as an example of what I mean by that. My father is a scoftic though he tells one story which suggests he is also a witness. As an early teen, dad accompanied his father who was working as a construction engineer when the ski lift at White Pass in Washington was first built. (I'm not personally familiar with the location.) Apparently dad was in the back of the crummy with the crew and as they drove up the highway, there was a break in a line of trees separating the highway from a field. Through that gap, dad says he saw something out in the field that looked like what he imagines a bigfoot would look like "if bigfoot existed" and that something was not there when they came back at the end of the day. Hmmm. You have to not be so afraid of ridicule that you deny / distance yourself from your own experiences. I doubt most people here would do that but I have to wonder how many people have experiences they just don't want to invite ridicule for. If you separate positive ID sightings from process of elimination sightings, then I've had 2 others. I think both were the same year, 2013, but I can't swear to it, and they were along the same ridge system, within 10 miles or so, of the second of the positive ID sightings. Again, it is being in the right place the right season presenting an opportunity for blind dumb luck to help .. and then not being in denial about what is going on, just matter of fact about pros and cons of what seems to be happening. I hope you have a sighting. Hope it is long enough to satisfy any doubts. My main tool, even though it is only through 2015 or so, is mangani's bigfoot overlay for Google Earth. By messing with the time sliders, if there are enough reports in an area, it suggests seasonal movement. So .. figure out when that's going to be most likely to happen and try to be in place ahead of time. It really helps to have some other reason to be there so boredom doesn't interfere. For me, hunting, fishing, exploring off-trail, a little bit of feeble photography really help the effort. And yet, at the same time, at the moment I can't think of any fairly certain activity I've experienced in several years .. it's been pretty quiet. MIB

^^^ Giant skeletons found and newspaper stories written about them, although good luck tracking down the remains.

Yes. But that does leave out non fossilized remains. What you say is true we had no fossilized remains until 2004. But we had complete specimens dating back to 1641 and the Dutch East Indies company. If an extant species exists in our forests? It would be expected to find non fossilized remains of said species. My personal belief? We have found non fossilized remains before. And they are most likely at the Smithsonian that is strangely exempts from the Indian graves act. They don’t have to cough up the goods. If a Sasquatch skeleton was mistaken for a human giant.

Unfortunately, Bob Gimlin is an unreliable witness (which does not mean I think he's lying). With regards to this issue, he has said that the film site was: two miles from the campsite - see Webster's interview of Roger & Bob in 1967 four miles from the campsite - see John Green's interview of Bob in 1992 and a CBS47 2019 interview of Bob Roger Patterson gave both those estimates and added 3 miles in an interview by Stan Peters Interview of Roger Patterson As to the time they left camp, Bob has said: midday (which could be 1:30 during the summer, I suppose, but not in October) - see Robert Morgan's interview of Bob "right after lunch" (which could be anywhere from 11:00 AM if they were up early to 1:00ish) - Les Stroud's interview with Bob and this 1:30 time, which I believe came from a CBS47 2019 interview of Bob - If I understand correctly, The Lazy Cowboy is using other people's interviews, not his own. And leaving camp about 1:30 contradicts times Bob Gimlin has given for the encounter itself, which include: “about midday, perhaps a little bit after noon time” - again from John Green's interview of Bob in 1992 "Early afternoon" - attributed to John Green's questionnaire in Bigfoot at Bluff Creek by Danny (Daniel) Perez (2003) about 2:00 PM - Finding Bigfoot Legend (2018) All of this because early interviewers asked both Roger and Bob to tell them a story, but did not conduct the kind of interview necessary to determine as precisely as possible the facts. Also, I don't believe that The Lazy Cowboy (or anyone else) cherry-picked a certain interview because it better fits a narrative; instead, it seems a lot of of people are unfamiliar with (or unwilling to admit) the inconsistencies surrounding the P-G film.

People who argue that are arguing from "religion", not report data. The report data, taken as a whole, is very clear. Taking the next step, the body shape reports are indicative of something that is primarily a predator. BF seldom if ever is described as having a big sloppy gorilla style gut needed for digesting masses of vegetation, they're described as having ripped abs .. ripped abs are not an herbivore characteristic. I think that just as black bears are omnivores that are primarily herbivorous but will opportunistically scavenge or even prey, bigfoot is technically an omnivore but primarily a predator, one that will not pass up a berry crop if handy. I suspect this is consistent .. maybe necessary .. for the large distances reportedly traveled. If you spend 16 hours a day chowing on weeds that's not much time left for walking, but if you can meet your nutritional needs in 15-30 minutes catching and consuming meat, there are many more hours available for travel .. or whatever else is available. Moreover, that reduced time spent foraging also means reduced time distracted and at risk of being seen. So we don't KNOW .. but like linear approximations in math, we can get within almost any distance from exact that we want to. And .. from those approximations we can devise tests, devise questions for study. Like .. science .. at least in a sort of loose hinged way. I think loose-hinged is fine, we have to remember we're still in discovery mode, not study mode.

Norse, can you give a general area (again, I know) as to where you saw those tracks? Nothing that would dox yourself, but some major landmark in the area? Any idea of what would be drawing a Bigfoot (or other large animal) south - farmland, elk migrating in that direction, getting to lower elevation? Just curious. Also, love your driveway (and the fact that I'm not the one who has to clear it in the winter!). Norse and Huntster, Is it safe to infer behavior from a limited number of trackways, no matter how long? Someone upthread mentioned meta-populations of animals that are well spread out and have wide home ranges (for lack of a better word). So even a long trackway of over a mile could be just a day trip to the grocery store for Bigfoot. It's not necessarily an indication that Bigfoot populations are making like snowbirds and heading south. In the northeast US and Canada, there are 51 reports from December, January, and February where the report either stated direction of travel or was detailed enough to allow a reasonable approximation of direction of travel.* Only 14 of those were traveling in some southerly direction; 25 were heading in a northerly direction. However, that doesn't tell the whole story. I crunched numbers that I had in 2017 and there was a visible southward movement (between 160 and 200 miles) in the number of reported encounters. * Normal disclaimers apply - small sample size, room for witness error, room for error in analysis, &c., &c., &c.

Yes, stream pathways that branch off are harder to access and have restrictions but I think equally important is the overwhelming record of sasquatch doing this activity at night. This reduces exposure and therefore sightings, what few are by the river are majority at night by campers or night fisherman on reservations. I do have several dusk vocalization events close to salmon pathways at dawn and dusk and one very up close sighting ( 20 feet under a high powered flashlight ) in the parking lot of salmon fishing area.

^Good example, and yes lots of reports from pickers of all kinds. BTW, there's plenty to learn about behaviors from select podcasts. I recently listened to an interesting report from a mushroom picker who was picking to make money, and had hired a whole crew to help. They got an aggressive confrontation in which the man's dog tried to attack and was killed by the big guy. I got the impression that the people had really messed up by overharvesting. That one starts about 50:00 in the first video. The second one I haven't entirely listened to but the title is on-topic.

You talked about Bigfoot needing to leave cover and be out in the open to forage. That’s a false assumption. I have picked huckleberries under a lodgepole pine canopy in Ferry county. Stuff grows IN the forest. That’s my statement. And yes? There are plenty of reports of berry pickers encountering Bigfoot. And yes there is a seasonality to it. https://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=20802

They do. Just not as often as we'd like. This is partially because there are very few sasquatches and the sasquatches have taken up nocturnal or other behaviors to minimize contact. For example, bear encounters in berry patches occur in Alaska, but not nearly as often as they could, considering there are @ 140K bears, less than 1 million people, and an area over twice the size of Texas involved..............as well as the fact that people don't pick berries for a good 16 hours of the day.

They hypothesis that we began burying our dead because it attracted predators. So it began as pragmatic and may have evolved into more of a ritual. Homo Naledi at Rising Star Cave just unceremoniously dumped their dead down a chute in the back of the cave. Whereas Neanderthals buried their dead with grave goods, ochre, flowers, etc. Interestingly enough? There are no stone tools associated with Homo Naledi. So I find it odd that they are included in the genus Homo. Which just shows that science has a very gray area defining what is included in our genus and what is not. So Sasquatch may be included in our genus or it may be excluded upon discovery. But I flat reject that they are apart of our species. Based on morphology alone. Great apes are exceptionally smart (excluding humans or Homo Sapiens), so our ancestors like Homo Erectus must of been terrifying. I would not want a pack of them hunting me in the forest with spears. (L-R) Australopithecus Afarensis, Homo Erectus, Homo Naledi

Bigfoot's needs and abilities are always stretched into whatever shape is needed to fit the narrative. <--- This almost always makes the narrative wrong. -Say Bigfoot is sick, suddenly there are more fellow Bigfeet out there bringing him food. -Say we can't find a body, Bigfoot bury their dead -Don't have sightings in decades of looking, Bigfoot has the ability to teleport. When Questions about Bigfoot arise, we need to look at the most likely scenario. Sure, shows like Finding Bigfoot seems to know what Bigfoot's favorite baseball team is, or his favorite color. Not bad considering they have never found Bigfoot let alone studied the actual issue in Queston. Yes, we can imagine various scenarios for Bigfoot. But if bigfoot is old or injured is just more likely to die or get eaten by another predator. Nothing extreme needs to explain it. If the food supply dries up for Bigfoot in one area, like most animals (or people) it would move on to an area where it needs are available. Billy the Kidd (of whomever) robbed banks because, "That is where the money is" Simplicity rules. Simplicity is the marketplace of nature. Brody: Now this guy, he... he keeps swimmin' around in a place where the feeding is good until the food supply is gone, right? Hooper: It's called "territoriality". It's just a theory that I happen to... agree with. It is easy to imagine elaborate scenarios to explain all things Bigfoot. When Bigfoot is not able to meet its needs, it dies. It will live so long as it can. We don't have to imagine much beyond that

Yes, would be helpful to list, say, your top three reasons, and add a few more.

That notion seems to lack imagination. Chasing down dinner is only one option. Ambush is another .. and doesn't take speed or endurance. Yet another is .. if you're somewhat nocturnal .. to wait for dinner to go to sleep, then sneak up on it. You should, if you want to get at the crux of the thing, think about all of the options, not just the stereotypical and obvious.

You are 100% correct. The NPS knew of his games over 13 years (not 8) in Kaflia Bay and allowed it to continue. So did the air taxi operator, who should have faced charges, AFAIC.

I'll add another layer of complexity to this. If Bigfoot are a real species, they could exist as a meta-population. As a meta-population they live in small, mostly isolated groups distributed over patches of forest areas. These groups are highly mobile, moving among these forest patches (across hundreds of miles) and occasionally running into other groups for breeding. In the case of Bigfoot, they may even exchange information in some way — for example, avoid that forest to the south because deer are sick or the water is bad or the BFRO is there or whatever. This isn't a new theory. I got the idea from a 2006 article on the Indian Gray Wolf, but the concept is frequently employed in ecology. Meta-population view of Bigfoot would explain: Sightings in non-remote places and roadsides Low inbreeding despite living in small groups Sightings in areas that may lack sufficient resources to survive over long periods Bigfoot sometimes reported taking farm animals (as they move between habitats) Overestimation of pop size, as the same animal is witnessed in widely different places near the same time Not seeing a Bigfoot when visiting a place where one or more were recently witnessed A meta-population of Bigfoot will likely be affected by the USDA removing 112 million acres of forests… which is equivalent to 175,000 sq miles, which is more than the size of California. Certainly this would not happen in one place, but it's likely that each forest management area will be reduced significantly enough to affect wildlife cover and food sources. I doubt this would be a thinning out of a forest, because that’s just not cost effective. It’ll be large swaths of biodiverse forest areas, and replanting will either not happen or will lack in plant diversity and become dead spots for wildlife. I’m not a hunter or camper but this is my main concern about this USDA initiative. Maybe someone with forest experience on BFF has a more optimistic assessment and can relieve my anxiety (or link me to a post in that other thread). Oh, and for any conspiracy theorists, perhaps the national forest system was created originally to support a meta-population of Bigfoot. An argument could be made, actually.

Served with borscht?🤣

If I ever heal up? I think a snow bike would be an amazing research tool. We obviously cannot keep up on foot. But a snow trackway being followed on a snow bike is sure to produce results. You cannot go straight up the mountain like a sled, but you can finesse your way through almost anything. They are dropping into creek bottoms I would never consider with a sled. Throw a drone in a backpack? I don’t think Sasquatch escapes without being seen, filmed, whatever. These things go any where.

I have seen no convincing data to suggest they as a population go all the way to the coast here in the PNW, I do find good data to suggest they come down in elevation. We have had activity in December, January, February, March and April here at various locations in WA. The below video is a fair example ( I personally went to this location a few years ago based on a number of winter reports including this track find, I was able to get in touch with the investigator who was on the scene at the time. ), the tracks came from up above ( small knobs and benches on the slope side at about 2200ft on the high end ) on the west side of Shannon Lake and Baker Lake that are both loaded with miles and miles of thick/marshy timber patches that are tough to hunt and penetrate. They came from the timber uphill and both jumped off a rock ledge over 12 feet up to get down to the edge of that community, they crossed the road and went up onto someone's porch and got into a charcoal grill likely out of desperation looking for food ( fat drippings ? ). I don't remember at the moment where they retreated to but it was generally back into timber up slope. Here is a side angle photo of the terrain and direction the prints came from, everything below the blue line would all be winter habitat under my theory. This would not encompass the entire space they use but rather a section of the loop or cycle they likely run along. The Gold pin in the back end of the photo is separate encounter report from years later in late November. For full context and accuracy I will note that this trackway from what we could gather is legitimate but after the investigation, word got around the community and someone got back in touch and with another trackway soon after and that trackway was clearly hoaxed and fabricated, the prints looked nothing like the original tracks and showed no dexterity of the foot or toes, lacked any of the athleticism and started in stopped at highly questionable places. They seem to hold up in very difficult and hard to access locations and move in changing weather conditions from one low human activity area to another.

Well it certainly doesn’t bode well for the person in Illinois claiming a family of Sasquatch live on his 50 acre wood lot all year long. But I don’t think they are that populous. And also that their activities probably fall through the cracks and are attributed to something else. Lastly? If they are as smart as say an Orangutan? Orangutans pick locks, know sign language and can paddle a boat. Surely Sasquatch could be rather cunning. And they probably know that sustained contact with humans is unhealthy. So they stay nocturnal, take only what they need and keep moving.

This is what bothers me. First, FWIW, I made a chart for my own edification comparing biological facts about common animals. As I got all of this information off the web, I am certain that it is highly accurate & not subject to question. Somewhere, I found an estimate that Cro-Magnon, Neaderthals, and paleo-Indians required 4,800 calories per day and moose required 9,700 calories per day. The data I found for other large animals is just in poundage - 10-20 pounds of food per day for elk, 30 pounds per day for grizzly bears, 35 pounds for black bears(?), and 30-45 pounds for gorillas. What bothers me is that if Bigfoot is an omnivore, and if Bigfoot is as populous in the eastern US as some believe, why aren't they eating farmers out of house and home? Deer do it, groundhogs do it, foxes and coyotes prey on chickens, and such ... why wouldn't a bigfoot settle down near a nice big corn or potato or squash field and simply strip mine it for a day or two, then move on. That problem occurs with other biological animals, why doesn't it occur with Bigfoot?

The mountains and inland plateaus of BC get heavy accumulations of snow, but the coastal valleys only get a few snow days a year, usually followed by enough rain to melt it away quickly. Most sightings in BC, Wa. and Ak. occur in those coastal valleys. The only Sasquatch trackway I ever found was in late spring snow, crossing a pass over a ridge between two river valleys. I believe they stay below the snowline as much as possible, just as the majority of big game does.

My take on this is that they use very similar resources as black bears do, and we have thousands of those here in BC. The only real difference from bears' needs is having to forage in winter, which bears avoid by hibernating. Sasquatch is supposed to be pretty intelligent, so presumably plans ahead by stockpiling food for the winter needs, such as nuts and tubers, which store well.

I think that is a part of the picture, maybe all of it depending on locale. My own area is very seasonal .. main time, late summer, with a couple data points in mid July which could be outliers or could represent a second, smaller, pass-through. Behavior is pretty different up there when it is "busy" and I suspect there is something "special" going on. That area spends winter under 5-10 feet of snow with nothing to eat but snow and tree bark. They are elsewhere. A friend works on a ranch at the bottom of a deep valley in the other direction. Off and on snow but nothing seasonal .. and no downhill for food to migrate way towards. He says they have low level activity year around with occasional flurries of greater activity. His explanation is that there is a very small permanent population (seemingly akin to what you describe) which act as a "rear guard" making sure that that spot is safe for the traveling groups to temporarily occupy as they pass through. I've followed up on a number of reports there and out maybe 10 miles in each way. I can't say that the explanation is right or wrong but I can say it certainly seems to fit the observations.

I have not read all the posts up to this point but I think it is difficult to calculate pounds of material because the caloric density per gram can vary greatly. We also can't measure metabolic rate with Sasquatches necessarily as what you eat at what time can change the rate itself. In mammals the metabolic rate is effected by sun exposure, temperature, stress and sleep. Sasquatches do not seem to be pot-bellied ( fermentation gut adapted ) and seem to consume a lot of direct protein when compared to gorillas. I would say that they focus on nutrient dense food heavily in the fall and again in the spring, sources heavily would lean toward insects, small critters, nuts, tubers, salmon, ungulates, fruits, lichens, mushrooms and softer plant leaf material. Just a side note, I am very convinced that omegas are likely the most important need to the Sasquatch, big brains demand them and this would explain the continued historic references in native cultures that sasquatch can become fairly confrontational in situations such as pulling salmon nets and invading smoke houses. I have also noted that Sasquatch reports do often happen on a regular basis close to large tracts of masting nut trees. I suspect they target certain foods at certain times and try to conserve energy, the few long trackways on record seem to indicate very focused directional travel as if they have a point B in mind. If I had to guess with what little I know from reading, behavior and looking for feeding sites I would say someplace between 7500 to 1000 calories split between 30% fat, 30% carbs, and 40% protein averaged across the year cycle. That is my 2 cents and again I don't have a whole lot of confidence yet in my view here but it is where I am at, critics are welcome. It would be interesting to see what the metabolic consumption of the Chinese snub nosed monkey is throughout the year as a comparison as they have a wide range diet and endure some fairly cold conditions following the snowline.

Just to continue the prior (as I didn't know how long it would be), there were no mentions of "Sacred Baby Mountain" in newspapers.com. Nor are there any when doing a general web search apart from those tied to websites reporting this specific story. Searching for "Captain Joshua LeFlore" draws a blank in newspapers.com; omitting his supposed rank brings up mostly wedding announcements, obituaries, a sale of land, and a murder case in Atoka, Oklahoma where a Joshua LeFlore pled guilty to manslaughter in 1899. The so-called professor is an author who has a bunch of sensationalist books listed on Amazon, etc., but most of them appear to be out of print. I will say that the Choctaw Lighthorsemen sound like an interesting bunch, breaking up political impasses (by forcing one side out of the assembly hall) in 1897 and enforcing bans on alcohol in their territory (after a sort) in 1902. One of their early leaders was indicted for introducing liquor into the Indian Territory (that's a legal term that is still used in court cases today) in 1914 and arresting some businessmen who circumvented the law to get a railroad run through the reservation in 1920.

great post. thanks

Albert Ostman. It was in the 1920's. Another similar story was Muchalat Harry, also in the 1930's: http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/muchalat.htm The third story of kidnapping was not widely known. It was posted by a rural guy from the Copper River Valley of Alaska on an Alaskan outdoorsman forum about an event he was involved with in the 1970's. Here's a link to it:

Thanks for the edit/update, norse.

Yes multiple choices, please.

My husband and I drove to this event early on Friday morning, the first day of the festival. We walked through the buildings and vendor stands . Everyone there were friendly people and they were selling very nice items all Bigfoot / Sasquatch labeled , or handmade quality products. I enjoyed the scenery nestled within the beautiful Owachita mountains . The air was filled with the scents of smoked meats , Carmel popcorn and candles . I would have liked to stayed longer but we had another place to go and people waiting on us . Hopefully next year I can attend the festival and enjoy hearing some real stories from the people who had actual experiences or encounters. I wanted to say Thank You to all that helped make that festival happen and hope they can continue to be a success .

RIP, Dr. Meldrum. You'll ever be an icon to the bigfoot enthusiast community.

Having some major rain which is great! Creeks are finally running good, and these 2 stepped across the creek, I couldn't begin to make this step in one move like they did.

I think the reason is because its pointless anyways and they know it but they have a reality TV show to film with a camera crew and make up artists included in tow . Thermal will never be enough because look at through all the 6 seasons how many times they filmed a blob of something then they say where did it go it's gone!! with scary music. If they could actually get some clear day time footage it would go a long way at least in filming something that would make national news . Would it be proof? maybe not but it would be a lot better than thermal blob spots which they always seem to have .