The Bones Debate

[Guest LAL]

And yet many, many animals are killed by motorists every day. From the Washington State DOT website:

Q: How many collisions with animals are reported on Washington’s highways each year?

A: Each year more than 1100 wildlife/vehicle collisions are reported to the Washington State Patrol (WSP). It’s apparent that not all collisions with wildlife are reported since WSDOT removes an average of nearly 3500 deer and elk carcasses from Washington highways annually.

With about 1.5 million driving through the Columbia Gorge alone yearly that's not many, is it? The other major route through western Washington is a freeway. Even deer and elk tend to avoid freeways. There's an average, annual harvest of 40,025 deer. What would the total deer population be? How many sasquatches? 500? 30? I'm no good at math. Someone else can figure the odds.

<snip>

So...are we to presume that those 3500 elk and deer as well as moose, bighorn sheep, cougar and black bear occurred because the drivers in those instances did NOT have "an inclination to hit the brakes" but instead decided to try to plow the Subaru Outback over a 700 lb elk or a 1000 lb moose?

Nope, but often collisions with deer occur because the deer leapt into the vehicle. They tend to freeze when the driver may be thinking they'll finish the crossing.

And they determined -what? An "investigation by local law enforcement" does not = "corroboration by local law enforcement"...not to mention that I doubt "Identification of Bigfoot tracks" is in the training manual. I'm not being snarky when I say that.

That that was no bear. The sheriff said he guessed he'd have to stop laughing. He kept a cast on his desk but I'm not sure if it was from that event or one of several others around the county that year. It may be the one that's now in Dr. Meldrum's collection.

The association of law enforcement, clergy, military, etc. with Bigfoot reports, UFO reports, etc. is frequently cited and on the surface sounds impressive to a lot of people..but the fact is that such claims (even when true) add little value to validating the report. Did they (the law enforcement, clergy, military, etc.) corroborate the claims and if so, are they specifically trained or otherwise qualified to render an opinion on what they saw/think they saw that's any more valid than that of anyone else -?

That wasn't my point. This was a sighting that had physical evidence to back up what the driver said.

It's significant -to me, at least- that credible, professional woodsmen including game wardens, forest rangers, wildlife photographers, etc. rarely report having seen Bigfoot. In fact, the dearth if not outright complete absence of photographs (of Bigfoot) by professional wildlife photographers is especially damning, in my opinion. Those guys make their living hiding out in the woods, getting photos of wary, elusive, even rare animals. To date, none of them have ever captured a Bigfoot on film to my knowledge.

And many of those shoots are in wildlife parks or are out and out staged. Funding from NatGeo would certainly help. There have been sightings reported by professional woodsmen.

And your point is-?

It's a little difficult to get roadkill in an area that has few roads. For what it's worth, last time I looked Skamania County had more reported sightings than anywhere else in the country.

Nona, you'll find all these arguments on JREF. They may be good but they're kind of old.

[Guest BIGFOOT BBQ]

How many sasquatches? 500? 30? I'm no good at math. Someone else can figure the odds.

Evidently so many that we see the frequent claim of "There are just SO MANY REPORTS that ALL of those reports have to mean there's something out there". Right?

It may be the one that's now in Dr. Meldrum's collection.

Or it may be the one in my collection. Or it may be one from my collection. So many maybe's, so little time.

Honestly, all this "maybe" stuff coupled with rampant name dropping is what gives your...um...hobby -?...such a bad name.

And many of those shoots are in wildlife parks

Bigfoot are never seen in wildlife parks?

...or are out and out staged.

Source?

There have been sightings reported by professional woodsmen.

Relatively few compared to the overall number. The significance there is the people who spend the most time in the woods and are most likely to be able to render a credible report of a sighting are the least likely to do so.

It's a little difficult to get roadkill in an area that has few roads. For what it's worth, last time I looked Skamania County had more reported sightings than anywhere else in the country.

Then with such an (apparently) highly localized and dense population of huge animals, it should be fairly easy for experienced woodsmen with cameras/wildlife photographers to get credible photos/film.

Edited July 12, 2011 by BIGFOOT BBQ

[Guest LAL]

Evidently so many that we see the frequent claim of "There are just SO MANY REPORTS that ALL of those reports have to mean there's something out there". Right?

Wrong. 500 would be a viable breeding population. 30 was Rick Noll's estimate for Washington, I believe. I think we can agree there are more deer and elk than sasquatches, especially if there are no sasquatches. The odds are greater for deer, elk, moose and chipmunks getting hit.

Note dates on reports for an area. They can be decades apart.

Or it may be the one in my collection. Or it may be one from my collection. So many maybe's, so little time.

Sheriff Closer holding a cast here. It was reported to be 22" long but was only Patty-sized. A copy was sent to Dr. Krantz. Dr. Meldrum inherited his collection. However, there was a report on the BFRO site about 22" prints in snow. Closner cast in a campground using sulfur. I don't know if the cast he's holding was from the Cox sighting or from another incident. There were several trackways found that year - the double one north of Carson and one reported in Dahinden/Hunter's book that was near a canyon.

Honestly, all this "maybe" stuff coupled with rampant name dropping is what gives your...um...hobby -?...such a bad name.

I don't state as fact something I don't know to be fact. I don't know where that particular cast was made but one of the deputies told me a full print was found by the river after the Cox sighting. It might be a cast from that print but I don't know that. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't but how does that affect the whole field? Where did I rampantly drop any names?

Correction: I thought the original was in Meldrum's collection. Apparently it's a copy. I don't know what happened to the original.

Bigfoot are never seen in wildlife parks?

Especially African ones.

Source?

Meldrum and at least one wildlife photographer.

http://scienceblogs...._photograp.php.

Relatively few compared to the overall number. The significance there is the people who spend the most time in the woods and are most likely to be able to render a credible report of a sighting are the least likely to do so.

It may have to do with job security. Remember what happened to Paul Freeman? One of the most intriguing reports involving an apparent ambush was from a wildlife officer who wished to remain anonymous.

Then with such an (apparently) highly localized and dense population of huge animals, it should be fairly easy for experienced woodsmen with cameras/wildlife photographers to get credible photos/film.

Have you been there? I don't think they're localized or dense. Even if they are it would be easier for them to hunker down and hide than for a photographer to get through a tangle of salal in time to get his camera aimed.

[Guest BIGFOOT BBQ]

Wrong. 500 would be a viable breeding population.

If they had ready access to one another, maybe.

I think we can agree there are more deer and elk than sasquatches, especially if there are no sasquatches.

Indubitably.

Meldrum and at least one wildlife photographer.

Good point but I think it's skewed by being restricted to 'money shots' of 'impressive' animals like the referenced cougar, wolves, in the article. There's a lot of photography of small game, more 'mundane' species. The point is that regardless of their reason for being there, there are a lot of professional or at least adept photographers out in 'Bigfoot Country'...and they just ain't getting no shots of Bigfoot.

It may have to do with job security. Remember what happened to Paul Freeman?

Yes, he died of diabetes. Your point and/or what does that have to do with "job security" for professionals working outdoors in "Bigfoot country"?

One of the most intriguing reports involving an apparent ambush was from a wildlife officer who wished to remain anonymous.

Anonymous reports = lowest form of credibility.

Have you been there?

Yes.

I don't think they're localized or dense.

That's a reasonable conclusion derived from your own claims.

Even if they are it would be easier for them to hunker down and hide than for a photographer to get through a tangle of salal in time to get his camera aimed.

Successful wildlife photographers don't go chasing the wildlife. They stake out spots that have -for whatever reason- an attraction for wildlife. To wit, if you want to observe Alaskan Brown Bears, stake out the salmon streams when the salmon are running. Or, a watering hole or mineral lick.

Otherwise, I'll just comment that you seem to be offering the same, tired old claim that Bigfoot are camera shy when the camera operator is well-armed and proficient.

[Guest]

Sighting claim = no physical evidence.

And how do we know that -? Oh right: PHOTOS.

Thanks.

No, A photo only proved it to you. other people believed the guy who said he witnessed it. LOL

[Guest]

And yet many, many animals are killed by motorists every day. From the Washington State DOT website:

Q: How many collisions with animals are reported on Washington’s highways each year?

A: Each year more than 1100 wildlife/vehicle collisions are reported to the Washington State Patrol (WSP). It’s apparent that not all collisions with wildlife are reported since WSDOT removes an average of nearly 3500 deer and elk carcasses from Washington highways annually.

These collisions result in an average of 1190 human injures and two fatalities per year.

Q: What animals are most often involved in vehicle collisions?

A: Most reported wildlife/vehicle collisions are with deer and elk. Each year there are a few collisions with other large mammals such as moose, bighorn sheep, cougar and black bear.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Environment/Biology/FAQwildlifeCollisions.htm#areas

So...are we to presume that those 3500 elk and deer as well as moose, bighorn sheep, cougar and black bear occurred because the drivers in those instances did NOT have "an inclination to hit the brakes" but instead decided to try to plow the Subaru Outback over a 700 lb elk or a 1000 lb moose?

Not to mention a lot of these incidents happen when the driver does not have time to stop. My ex ran over a deer on I-90 between Moses Lake and Spokane. Well the deer was already a dead carcass someone else had hit but it was dark and the speed limit was 70 mph so he didn't have time to stop. Ended up damaging his car.

[Guest LAL]

If they had ready access to one another, maybe.

500 is a minimum number needed for a population to survive.

Indubitably.

So the odds of deer and elk getting hit are pretty good. given their numbers, the number of motorists and highways in roaded areas.

Good point but I think it's skewed by being restricted to 'money shots' of 'impressive' animals like the referenced cougar, wolves, in the article. There's a lot of photography of small game, more 'mundane' species. The point is that regardless of their reason for being there, there are a lot of professional or at least adept photographers out in 'Bigfoot Country'...and they just ain't getting no shots of Bigfoot.

Source? I've never run into any professional photographers in Bigfoot Country. Maybe I should get out more.

Yes, he died of diabetes. Your point and/or what does that have to do with "job security" for professionals working outdoors in "Bigfoot country"?

He either lost his job or quit because of the ridicule (I've read it both ways).

Anonymous reports = lowest form of credibility.

Kathy Strain was the investigator. She may know his name but a request to have it withheld should be honored. Maybe the climate is changing thanks to all the TV shows and a ranger can report a sighting to his superior without fear off being sent off for psychiatric evaluation.

Yes.

Then you should have an idea of how hard it is for a human to navigate the terrain and how easy it is for an animal to hide without even trying.

That's a reasonable conclusion derived from your own claims.

Thank you...........I think.

Successful wildlife photographers don't go chasing the wildlife. They stake out spots that have -for whatever reason- an attraction for wildlife. To wit, if you want to observe Alaskan Brown Bears, stake out the salmon streams when the salmon are running. Or, a watering hole or mineral lick.

A stake out might work if you knew exactly where a sasquatch was planning to go for the salmon. I can think of several great places on the Columbia at night.................oh, wait.

Maybe an habituator will invite a NatGeo guy over sometime soon. I think I'll do well to not even mention the Erickson Project.

In the meantime, Roger Patterson showed how it's done.

Otherwise, I'll just comment that you seem to be offering the same, tired old claim that Bigfoot are camera shy when the camera operator is well-armed and proficient.

No, I'm not and I've said nothing to indicate that I am. Why would they be camera shy? Unknown object possibly harmful to be avoided.......maybe. Perhaps they're smarter than the average bear.

Most if not all encounters are quite accidental. The witness or witnesses may not even be carrying cameras. If they are they may be too stunned to even think about using them.

[Guest Carl]

Chimpanzees and Elephants bury their dead.

[Guest LAL]

Chimpanzees and Elephants bury their dead.

Are you sure? I've seen photos of dead chimpanzees, natural causes and, on a recent Wild show, mutilated by patrols when the hapless males got into their territory. An elephant carcass can be reduced to a greasy spot in four days. Do I recall members of the herd may cover a dead elephant with branches?

Sick and dying animals tend to hole up so their remains may not be easy to find even if someone is actually out looking for them in some of that roadless prime habitat.

[Guest ajciani]

Back onto the topic of bones. BTW, this topic should be merged with the two other bone topics.

It is not surprising, at all, that bigfoot bones are rarely, if ever, found.

First, one has to say rarely, because there are reports of unverified bigfoot bone finds. Just to name a few, are the Minaret Skull, Michael Rugg's tooth, and the newly added Oklahoma Foot. Going even further back in history, to the 19th and 18th centuries, there may have been bigfoot bone finds, given some of the descriptions published in news papers and early scientific journals. So we can only say that no definitely proved bigfoot bones have been found.

Second, there is a strong possibility, indicated by DNA, that bigfoots may be some lineage of early human. If this is the case, we may well already possess tens to hundreds of bigfoot bones in our museums; all properly identified.

Third, I do not expect to find primate (or any) bones just laying around. Do I find bones laying around out in the woods? Yes. What are they? Bits and pieces of deer bones. Most common is the end of the femur or tibia, at the knee. The second most common piece is the scapula, followed by a lone vertebra. I generally find about one bone fragment in every square mile I visit. When you consider that between 3 and 4 deer die every year in each of those square miles, there are very few bones indeed. Of course, I only find the bits that are laying near game trails.

I have come across the skeleton of a horse, well, maybe 1/10 of the skeleton of a horse. About 1/4 of the leg bones, a scapula, a couple of ribs, and a few vertebra. A horse is a substantial animal, the skeleton was laying in a flat opening beside a trail, and the vast majority of it was gone. I have discovered bird carcasses in my back yard, and they vanish within a couple weeks.

Most important, is that primate bones don't seem to fair any better than the horse, and rarely seem to make it into the fossil record. As already mentioned, G. blacki is only known from teeth and a few jaw fragments, all found in caves. The only indication of its actual body shape, is that the teeth look similar to those of Sivapithecus, which is only known from about 10 partial fossil finds of 6 different species, spanning about 6 million years; the body shapes of those also being guessed at. BTW, Ramapithecus, which is now considered a variant of Sivapithecus, was once thought to be a human progenitor.

Just looking at teeth finds in Chinese caves, there may be four or five as yet unnamed primate and/or human species which lived in eastern Asia.

As to finding bones just laying around, you probably never will, except for things ripped apart on the trail. There are many examples of murder victims found years after their murders, laying just a few feet off a well used trail. A human body, wrapped in clothing, hindering dispersal, keeping it intact, and it still cannot be found by thousands of people passing just feet from it. Can you honestly even be considering that people should find a naked, dispersed or buried skeleton, hidden deep in the bush?

Or think of this another way. Imaging that the bones of every dead animal would hang around for 1 year, intact, before magically vanishing. You couldn't walk over a mile through a forest without finding a deer or coyote carcass, although they would be back and out of sight from anyone sticking to the trails. The forest floor would be covered with squirrels, rabbits and rats, like apples fallen from a tree. And maybe, just maybe, after walking a couple hundred miles through the deep forest, you might find a bigfoot skeleton, if you look into the right thicket. But this is all fantasy. In the real forest, skeletons get scattered and bones get destroyed with days to weeks of an animal's death. The skeletons are spread out, disintegrated, and buried in the underbrush. People might be in the woods, but they rarely go into the deep woods, far from the beaten trails. So 100 miles of walking becomes more like 5000 miles of walking, combined with looking under the right bush, all distributed to a few hundred people (or fewer) actually doing it, combined with their ability to readily recognize the bone fragments of an unknown animal, assuming BF don't bury their dead.

[Guest]

Back onto the topic of bones. BTW, this topic should be merged with the two other bone topics.

It is not surprising, at all, that bigfoot bones are rarely, if ever, found.

First, one has to say rarely, because there are reports of unverified bigfoot bone finds. Just to name a few, are the Minaret Skull, Michael Rugg's tooth, and the newly added Oklahoma Foot. Going even further back in history, to the 19th and 18th centuries, there may have been bigfoot bone finds, given some of the descriptions published in news papers and early scientific journals. So we can only say that no definitely proved bigfoot bones have been found.

You seem to have this ability to not get the facts straight. The Oklahoma Foot incident has not been claimed to be a bigfoot yet. It is a foot that is being examined, you should really stop trying to group stuff together.

[Guest ajciani]

You seem to have this ability to not get the facts straight. The Oklahoma Foot incident has not been claimed to be a bigfoot yet. It is a foot that is being examined, you should really stop trying to group stuff together.

Before someone claims that a person doesn't have their facts straight, one should read (for comprehension) what that person wrote, and know the facts oneself. Just a helpful bit of advise.

Neither the Minaret Skull nor the Rugg tooth were ever claimed to be from a bigfoot, but all three have been suggested to be from a bigfoot, including the OK foot, which has been described as human-looking, but too large, just like the other two. You might want to revise history, in the event that the foot turns out to be ursine or human or other known animal, but the fact still remains that the foot is being discussed, by you and others, in bigfoot related locations, with the very clear implication that the MABRC (or some members of it) suspects it is a bigfoot body part.

If people want to see things that were erroneously claimed to be parts of bigfoots, then I suggest looking at Tom Biscardi's bear paw. Biscardi also has a giant fingernail, which he has claimed to be from a bigfoot, sans any definitive analysis. And then there's Biscardi's bigfoot skeleton.

Now, lets look at how the OK foot relates to finding body parts out in the woods. I believe DO said the foot-like object was found in a ditch, perhaps that means on the side of a road, or frequently traveled path? Nothing deep woods about that, but it's only a piece of a body, where's the rest? It's out there, where humans don't walk.

If you had no disposition to suspecting that the piece of flesh appearing material, which has the shape of coming from the end of a foot, in any way belonged to a bigfoot, then might you have dismissed it as the toes of a bear? So people also need some idea as to what they are looking at. A person could find the end of a bigfoot femur, but without any knowledge of bones or bigfoots, could conclude that it belonged to a deer or a cow. In one fell swoop, a rare bigfoot bone is found and lost.

[Guest]

Dang! I misread the thread title!! I thought it said "The Blondes Debate". I was all excited to log in here are watch the blondes try to debate the facts about bigfoot with all their God-given smartses! Imagine my disappointment!!! Oh well, maybe next time.....

[Guest]

Gentlemen, please keep this discussion civil. At least one of the above posts could be considered a personal attack. Please debate the posts instead of attacking the poster.

Thanks, Mark

[Guest]

The facts are, is that no one has additional information related to an investigation, yet want to insert assumptions and accusations about it. There is physical evidence that can't be disputed that it's a foot. Of what, no one can say until further testing is done. It's more tangible than a photo taken of a figure that many conclude to be a hunter or trespasser. Under Dr. Meldrum's advice, the foot is undergoing x-rays, DNA testing and examination by accredited Biologists and Medical Personnel. Whatever the foot turns out to be, the MABRC will present the facts of what the investigation proves it to be, whether human, BF or even a bear if that is the case. The investigation team is doing their due diligence in everything they do here, and they are doing it with the knowledge that people are criticizing them with assumptions and accusations that are factless.

People who criticize others and expect things done right should sit down and help develop protocols and procedures that are iron-tight for use in the field. Stop criticizing others who are trying their best to do what they think is right. You want to do something helpful AJ? Help put those protocols and procedures together to help others in the future.

I'm not attacking anyone here, I am attacking the post that is made. If you want others to do it the "Scientific" or the "Right" way, then help develop the p&p for them to use.