Debunk The Debunking

[Guest Spazmo]

Here's another possible reason for the lack of roadkill:

Road-crossing reports come from rural roads, almost exclusively, correct?

Ok, now let's look at this from a human perspective. How much human roadkill is there? Sure, in cities pedestrians are smoked all the time. So are dogs and cats, bicyclists, skateboarders, etc. But in the country?

How many humans are killed each year by vehicles when walking along or crossing rural roads? A few? A dozen? A hundred?

Let's be liberal with the argument. Let's say a thousand. Even though rural human roadkill happens, it's rare. Why? Because people usually know to stay out of the way of cars. People have higher intelligence, and some would say that BF does as well. So, if 1000 folks get creamed every year, and there are several million humans every year that put themselves in the position of becoming possible roadkill, how do those numbers translate to possible BF roadkill when factoring in their apparent low population?

Now let's look at the numbers again. How many people are on or near rural roads at any given time? And how does that number compare to possible BF being on or near roads at any given time? Since we do have reports of car-BF collisions, we can assume that it is possible for them to be hit by a car. But how does this probability compare to a human on the same rural road? The numbers alone say that the odds of BF roadkill are going to be far, far less than that of human roadkill. And human roadkill on rural roads is already very rare.

And, we do not know if a BF has ever been killed by a car. It is quite possible that this very thing has happened. Hopefully nobody is assuming that every animal killed on a road is reported, or even that every driver who hits an animal stops to see what it was. Conversely, we see dead animals all the time. How many of them do you think were reported? And how many more do we think were hit, but managed to move away before dying?

I think the reasons for no BF roadkill are these: probability based on density is low, and the animal is more intelligent than others who do get killed frequently. And there is no evidence showing that BF have not been killed by cars, even though there is obviously no evidence to the contrary either.

Here's an analogy: how many Polynesian people get hit by cars on rural Canadian roads? I'll bet there are no such accounts. But there are certainly Polynesian people living in Canada, right? Are they more adept at avoiding collisions? Probably not. But there are so few of them in Canada as to skew the data in a way that is obviously misleading.

[BobbyO]

I understand where you're coming from too Spaz, but i'd say the BF Population >> Number of Road Reports isn't that far apart, form the last 10 Years let's say anyway where the Population could still be of a good % of the same Animals anyway .

For all of the Humans there are in Rural areas, i don't think the % of them that use Rural Roads regulary on foot, Rural Roads where you have a mauch better opportunity/chance ( which is even then very low ) of getting hit, would actually be that great at all % wise..

Huamns wouldn't & don't generally, need to use those Roads on foot, like Animals & liek BF's do/would need to.

I don't think BF Roadkill in these specific Roads are going to be far, far less than the chance of Human Fatalities, i honestly don't.

Of course there are far more Humans than BF so you would naturally expect the % of a Human fatality to be more but are there really far more Humans crossing this Road below ??

I'm not so sure at all compared to other Animals & even BF..

Edited December 13, 2010 by BobbyO

[Guest RayG]

We know human pedestrians die each year, and they die on both major highways as well as rural roads. It's not difficult to find things online pertaining to pedestrians struck on rural roads.

• If you live in a rural area there is far less traffic then in a metropolitan area. However, people tend to go faster on rural roads due to lack of traffic and police patrols. Your odds are reduced of being hit by a car, but the odds of that accident being a fatality almost doubles. Almost 2/3’s of pedestrian accidents occur on rural roads.[1]
  
• Transport Canada published a report in 2004 outlining pedestrian accidents and fatalities covering the period of 1992-2001. Surprisingly, pedestrian fatalities fell 24%, particularly among children under the age of nine. Still, one person is killed each day on average on Canadian roads.[2]
  At greatest risk are seniors over 65. Approximately 70% of all fatalities and 95% of all injuries occurred in urban locations. This may be due to the assumption that motor vehicle drivers travel faster on rural roads, so a rural collision with a pedestrian is more likely to be fatal.
  
• A pedestrian is struck late at night while walking along a dark rural road in Plymouth County without wearing light colored or reflective clothing [3]
  
• The majority of child pedestrian injuries and deaths occur in urban areas, however, when a pedestrian is hit on a rural road, the result is more likely to be fatal because of higher vehicle speeds.[4]
  
• Pedestrians made up about 13% of traffic fatalities, with an average of 363 pedestrians killed each year...Urban locations had more fatalities that involved crossing the road. On the other hand, rural locations had more fatalities that involved walking along the road, running into the road, or lying on the road.[5]

The statistics show that while you have a greater risk of being struck by a vehicle in an urban setting (more pedestrians, more vehicles), your chance of it being fatal goes up in a rural area (higher speeds), and that nearly one pedestrian a day is killed in Canada.

We know that every North American mammal ends up as road kill somewhere, even extremely rare ones like the wolverine. [6]

Even Grizzlies and Moose end up as road kill, so we know that size shouldn't matter.

From bigfoot reports we know that bigfoot has been spotted crossing both major and minor highways in both urban and rural areas (though I'm not sure how you'd see a bigfoot in your rear-view mirror on a rural road), and that there are reports of bigfoot being struck by the occasional vehicle, but bigfoot has yet to be pancaked or end up through the windshield.

I find that very puzzling.

RayG

ARGH!!! It won't let me add the urls for the footnotes, sorry

Edited December 13, 2010 by RayG

[Guest Knuck]

Here's another possibility; maybe the Sasses don't care (in the scenario of crossing the road) if they are seen or not. They may view a person in a vehicle as no threat. By that, I mean the person in the car/truck isn't going to instantly jump out with camera or gun and pursue the Sas off through the woods, and they know it. Yes a person could pull over and jump out, but by then the Sas is long gone. The whole hiding from human eyes thing may stem from how much access the human in question has to the Sas in front of them. If the human could, in the Sasses viewpoint, reach it (on foot) in seconds, then that would be grounds for being extra elusive. Where a person in a passing car is not viewed as much of a threat, because it would take some time for the human to actually pursue the Sas in question. Just my opinion-Knuck

[Guest]

Bravo Ray for expressing so well my thoughts on bigfoot as roadkill, among other things.

First, lack of habitat? Lame argument against bigfoot. I usually slap the hands of anyone using this one. There's plenty of habitat out there to support a small, dispersed population of a large mammal in North America. It'd be very difficult to identify "bigfoot browse" as distinct from sign of deer, elk, or bear (although so far no suspected bigfoot poop has tested out as anything significant, and that's problematic). If bigfoot is more carnivorous, that requires a bit more special pleading about not being able to notice the results of its depredations, but I can live with it.

Lack of bigfoot in the fossil and near fossil record is a big obstacle for me. Why? We have fine records of other organisms that occupied the same habitats attributed to bigfoot today, including top carnivores that should have occurred at very low population densities, and species that became extinct roughly 10,000–20,000 years ago. (In other words, "bigfoot" has had an additional 10,000–20,000 year opportunity to leave behind some remains, relative to other Pleistocene megafauna.) All the same difficulties inherent in the preservation of remains of these species apply just as they do to bigfoot.

I'd expect more recent remains from accidental or intentional human harvest over the past, say 300 years of exploration and occupation by humans with advanced firepower and technology. (This even ignores the many thousands of years of co-occurrence in North America of bigfoots and native peoples whose technology allowed them to hunt everything else with great efficiency.) This expectation continues today with a vehicle collision as arguably the most likely way that a bigfoot could be collected.

Now we've pushed the technological envelope to the point at which we should be able to capture bigfoot on a game camera. But, wouldn't you know it, bigfoots just happen to be able to detect and avoid the danged things. Darn.

These are not skeptical "tactics" that need to be debunked, they illustrate gaping holes of missing evidence where we should expect some if there are real bigfoots out there. None of them, either in isolation or in total, proves that there is no bigfoot. They are suggestive enough to have convinced me, however, that "bigfoot" exists in folklore, but not in forests. Until the day that we have one, mental exercises about the probability of finding one given bigfoot and human population densities in different areas are just that.

[BobbyO]

Bravo Ray for expressing so well my thoughts on bigfoot as roadkill, among other things.

I usually slap the hands of anyone using this one.

They are suggestive enough to have convinced me, however, that "bigfoot" exists in folklore, but not in forests. Until the day that we have one, mental exercises about the probability of finding one given bigfoot and human population densities in different areas are just that.

Sas, you really strike me as if you believe you're some kind of Jedi Master of ALL BF Skeptics with they way you word things at times..

Just an observation, nothing more..

& your last part, they are just what ?? I can't see any reference to what you say they are, the mental excercises about the probability of finding one given BF & Human Pop dens in different areas, i mean ??

[Guest]

How many humans that got hit by cars were drunk or otherwise under the influence? What other factors make a human easier to kill by car? Paper thin skulls, bones that probably have less strength than something 3ft X 7-8 ft in proportions. Because of the height difference you are much more likely to hit a major organ like a spleen or liver that will cause you to bleed out quick on a human. That's just a few things I can think of off the top of my head.

If bigfoot is smart enough to not get hit by cars then he was probably smart enough not to fall in quick sand or the tar pits back in the day don't you think? Mulder pointed out that most of the habitat that they would have lived in is now underwater. Every source I've read said that the fossil record is only representative of a fragment of what actually existed. Soo....I don't know what to tell you. There are several hominid fossils that ought to be in the "record" that are missing. As for modern day remains, to me that's real simple. We can't find missing human remains out in riral areas the vast majority of time, why would bigfoot be any different?

[indiefoot]

Bravo Ray for expressing so well my thoughts on bigfoot as roadkill, among other things.

So you agree that 360 pedestrian deaths out of 40 million inhabitants in Canada is a valid correlation to the number of Bigfoot roadkill? That's one per 111,111 thousand. How many Bigfoot are you proposing there are for your example?

[Guest Spazmo]

So you agree that 360 pedestrian deaths out of 40 million inhabitants in Canada is a valid correlation to the number of Bigfoot roadkill? That's one per 111,111 thousand. How many Bigfoot are you proposing there are for your example?

This is closer to the point I was trying to make.

[indiefoot]

I predict that when the population of Bigfoots hit 10 million we should start seeing occasional roadkill.

BTW, I overstated the population of Canada by mistake, I was thinking about the number of comedians.

[Guest RayG]

How many humans that got hit by cars were drunk or otherwise under the influence? What other factors make a human easier to kill by car? Paper thin skulls, bones that probably have less strength than something 3ft X 7-8 ft in proportions. Because of the height difference you are much more likely to hit a major organ like a spleen or liver that will cause you to bleed out quick on a human. That's just a few things I can think of off the top of my head.

A grizzly or a moose are certainly larger/stronger than a human, but they too come out on the short end of the stick when playing chicken with a 3,000 lb metal people-carrying missile. It's not whether a human is more fragile than a bigfoot, it's whether or not a mammal with a highly developed brain (human) gets pancaked, however infrequently, while a bigfoot never does.

If bigfoot is smart enough to not get hit by cars then he was probably smart enough not to fall in quick sand or the tar pits back in the day don't you think?

Do you think bigfoot are smarter than humans? I don't.

We can't find missing human remains out in riral areas the vast majority of time, why would bigfoot be any different?

But we DO find missing humans, stranded humans, injured humans, dead humans, and even humans who are making efforts to remain undiscovered. So far no one has been able to track or find a stranded bigfoot, an injured bigfoot, a dead bigfoot, or bigfoot that make no effort to cover their tracks. It's almost as though we're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Bigfoot Zone! <cue the music>

So you agree that 360 pedestrian deaths out of 40 million inhabitants in Canada is a valid correlation to the number of Bigfoot roadkill? That's one per 111,111 thousand. How many Bigfoot are you proposing there are for your example?

First, your numbers are skewed. There aren't 40 million pedestrians in Canada walking the roads each day. Nor are there any sasquatches behind the wheel.

Second, the population density seems to have little bearing on whether or not an animal ends up as road kill. You need only look at the Wolverine to see that they end up as road kill too. As for their population density:

Wolverines generally prefer remote areas, far away from humans and their developments. The density of wolverines ranges from one individual per 40 km2 to one per 800 km2. Those regions that have the most different kinds of habitat and prey, particularly those that include large ungulates, or animals with hooves, contain the most wolverines. The mountainous and forested areas of British Columbia and Yukon have the highest densities, although these numbers are still low compared with the densities of other carnivores. Densities of wolverines in Manitoba and Ontario are lower. The rarity of wolverines becomes readily apparent when their density is compared with the density of other solitary carnivores: one coyote per 0.5 to 10 km2 and one grizzly bear per 1.5 to 260 km2.

I'd be willing to bet there are fewer sightings of Wolverines crossing highways than there are for bigfoot, yet Wolverines go splat and bigfoot does not. It appears that the arguments for bigfoot not ending up as a hood ornament are nothing more than special pleading when compared to other mammals -- bigfoot is too smart, bigfoot is too big/strong, bigfoot is too fast/agile, bigfoot is too cautious, bigfoot is too rare/has small population density, bigfoot lives in remote areas, etc. etc.

It just all seems so... so...

RayG

[Guest]

Lack of bigfoot in the fossil and near fossil record is a big obstacle for me. Why? We have fine records of other organisms that occupied the same habitats attributed to bigfoot today, including top carnivores that should have occurred at very low population densities, and species that became extinct roughly 10,000–20,000 years ago. (In other words, "bigfoot" has had an additional 10,000–20,000 year opportunity to leave behind some remains, relative to other Pleistocene megafauna.) All the same difficulties inherent in the preservation of remains of these species apply just as they do to bigfoot.

Then you need to educate yourself about the realities of fossilization. The fossil record, despite what some would have you believe, is NOT the exhaustive, comprehensive account of past life on earth that the lay person has been given the impression it is.

[Guest]

A grizzly or a moose are certainly larger/stronger than a human, but they too come out on the short end of the stick when playing chicken with a 3,000 lb metal people-carrying missile. It's not whether a human is more fragile than a bigfoot, it's whether or not a mammal with a highly developed brain (human) gets pancaked, however infrequently, while a bigfoot never does.

Yes, but they are horizontal, bigfoot is vertical. Ever watch gymnastics? There is a thing called center of gravity that needs to be considered.

Do you think bigfoot are smarter than humans? I don't.

I don't think they are smarter but may have certain advantages that we do not have to enable them to survive in environments that will kill us in three days unless we take everything but the kitchen sink with us out in the woods. I've heard of bigfoot being seen on the side of the road,or crossing the road, but never one about a drunk walking or running bigfoot .

But we DO find missing humans, stranded humans, injured humans, dead humans, and even humans who are making efforts to remain undiscovered. So far no one has been able to track or find a stranded bigfoot, an injured bigfoot, a dead bigfoot, or bigfoot that make no effort to cover their tracks. It's almost as though we're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Bigfoot Zone! <cue the music>

You obviously missed the fact that when a human goes missing in the wilderness we usually have a general idea of where they are and search and rescue is called. Yet, still many are not found despite our best efforts. I don't think I can recall ever seeing or hearing about anyone but a handful of investigators going out to look for bigfoot, and unfortunately, he didn't tell them where he was going or where he would be...gee,do you think that might make a difference?

[southernyahoo]

It just all seems so... so...

RayG

Unless you allow for a combination of factors such as rare, strong, fast, and cognizant of the potential danger of being hit. The fact that they are reported being seen crossing the road at all would then suggest that dashing in front of a car is either a game they are good at or they have been hit on occasion and either didn't sustain debilitating injury or the body wasn't taken to the media for public consumption. You might wish to argue that a body would without doubt make the news, but I think there are people that are of the persuasion that bigfoots existence shouldn't be proven. As the mind can imagine something as real, it can also reject reality. Cognitive dissonance then ensues, and then you can cue the music.

[Guest]

A grizzly or a moose are certainly larger/stronger than a human, but they too come out on the short end of the stick when playing chicken with a 3,000 lb metal people-carrying missile. It's not whether a human is more fragile than a bigfoot, it's whether or not a mammal with a highly developed brain (human) gets pancaked, however infrequently, while a bigfoot never does.

Never pancacked, anyway. But statistically there's fewer fatalities for bigger/stronger animals. That's not special pleading.

Do you think bigfoot are smarter than humans? I don't.

Smarter at avoiding humans and their cars maybe. Smarter than Wolverines I'll betcha.

But we DO find missing humans, stranded humans, injured humans, dead humans, and even humans who are making efforts to remain undiscovered. So far no one has been able to track or find a stranded bigfoot, an injured bigfoot, a dead bigfoot, or bigfoot that make no effort to cover their tracks. It's almost as though we're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Bigfoot Zone! <cue the music>

They are elusive, live in remote areas, have low numbers and most of the sightings are inaccurate, of course. That's the only way they could exist without us having found fossils, remains, etc. But that's not special pleading, that's their MO.

First, your numbers are skewed. There aren't 40 million pedestrians in Canada walking the roads each day. Nor are there any sasquatches behind the wheel.

What % of sasquatches do you figure are dodging the traffic these days versus the number of mistaken witnesses?

Second, the population density seems to have little bearing on whether or not an animal ends up as road kill.

We should see a proportionate number of animals becoming roadkill relative to their population density. Or are other factors involved? Is it the fate of every animal on earth to eventually become car meat?

I'd be willing to bet there are fewer sightings of Wolverines crossing highways than there are for bigfoot, yet Wolverines go splat and bigfoot does not.

Wolverines is just too dumb to look both ways.

It appears that the arguments for bigfoot not ending up as a hood ornament are nothing more than special pleading when compared to other mammals -- bigfoot is too smart, bigfoot is too big/strong, bigfoot is too fast/agile, bigfoot is too cautious, bigfoot is too rare/has small population density, bigfoot lives in remote areas, etc. etc.

It just all seems so... so...

RayG

Yet bigfoot keeps on truckin.