N A W A C - Field Study Discussion

[Guest]

501c3 is a scam, so bigfoot isn't real.

 

You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. If you run your group as a benevolent dictatorship with foggy financials, you aren't taken seriously. If you try to be legit, you're accused of doing it for the tax dodge. 

Bipto - on an aside, are you allowed to share your by-laws publicly?  If so, is there any way we could peruse them?

 

Yeah, I don't know. We have them posted for all the members, but I don't know if there's any reason why we shouldn't share them publically. If I had to guess, I'd say they're fair game, but I don't know. They were based originally off the AIBR's bylaws since that was the first 501c3 that I'm aware of in this field. We made some changes when we incorporated and have amended them from time to time, mostly around the types of members we have and what they're voting rights are. 

Why's it a charge? 

 

ShadoAngel said there was no financial incentive for the group in sharing its findings and experiences and our Alaskan friend implied we're hiding or obfuscating the huge benefit of writing off a few hundred bucks off your tax bill every year. That's a "charge" and one he's made before. It remains preposterous. On the one hand, you get this small perk (assuming it's even worth filing - it's not for me), on the other you spend literally thousands of dollars on gear, food, clothing, gas, beat the hell out of your vehicle driving in (mine had about $300 in damage from the last trip in) and eat up essentially all your vacation time. Yeah, we're in this for the fortune fer sure.

[Guest DWA]

 

501c3 is a scam, so bigfoot isn't real.

 

You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. If you run your group as a benevolent dictatorship with foggy financials, you aren't taken seriously. If you try to be legit, you're accused of doing it for the tax dodge. 

Clearly, One Must Combine.  I suggest the benevolent dictatorship, trying to be legit.  That may not have been tried yet.

 

Has Survivorman gotten in touch with you guys to talk shop?  Looks like they're greenlighting him to hunt wood ape on the teevee.  Unfortunately it appears they're gonna wind up running "Finding" Bigfoot With Survivorman!

[Guest]

He's working with Todd Standing, so my expectations have been lowered dramatically. We've not been in contact with him, but even if we had been, we aren't interested in any TV involvement as an organization. EVERYBODY in this field is trying to get a TV deal but us. For a while there, I was turing them down every week. Now it's only about once a month. Finding Bigfoot specifically has contacted us multiple times and we've declined to participate each time.

[Guest DWA]

Why's it a charge? 

 

ShadoAngel said there was no financial incentive for the group in sharing its findings and experiences and our Alaskan friend implied we're hiding or obfuscating the huge benefit of writing off a few hundred bucks off your tax bill every year. That's a "charge" and one he's made before. It remains preposterous. On the one hand, you get this small perk (assuming it's even worth filing - it's not for me), on the other you spend literally thousands of dollars on gear, food, clothing, gas, beat the hell out of your vehicle driving in (mine had about $300 in damage from the last trip in) and eat up essentially all your vacation time. Yeah, we're in this for the fortune fer sure.

 

But you're using all your vacation time to find bigfoot!  Compare that to Sandals, and wha?  you're going to the beach?  I'm hunting bigfoot!  God you lucky dogs.

 

So bigfoot isn't real.

 

Just trying another creative variant on for size, beat the crowd, that sort of thing.  Back to what you were doing...

He's working with Todd Standing, so my expectations have been lowered dramatically. We've not been in contact with him, but even if we had been, we aren't interested in any TV involvement as an organization. EVERYBODY in this field is trying to get a TV deal but us. For a while there, I was turing them down every week. Now it's only about once a month. Finding Bigfoot specifically has contacted us multiple times and we've declined to participate each time.

I guess some people think you'd be chewing trees over this.  Sponsorship!  Big Time!  Bobo squatch-callin' from the porch of the cabin!  Bright lights, big city!  How can you not do this?

 

It's really down to what one considers important.  This topic is apparently getting treated by TV according to the dictates of TV and not science.  Planet Earth got the benefit of the latter.  Establishment science frequently does.

 

Let's say PBS or Nat Geo or somebody came to you and said:  We want to shoot this.  But you tell us how.  You get edits you get rewrite we become basically your study diary.  We'll give pointers as needed on how to get this down to consumable TV time and content, but we want this to be about what you do and not what we do to you.

 

Have you talked about that?  I mean Planet Earth clearly didn't have corporate suits calling all the shots, so I can dream.

[Painthorse]

Just in reference to nearest road distances in the Ouachita's.  This is a vast area, you can google Earth all you want but there ARE plenty of areas that you can drive for "more than 10 miles" with no access to roads or trails. The Ouchita's cover 1,789,666 acres with 354,794 acres in Oklahoma. I've lived here for over 7 years and have driven plenty of miles both here in Arkansas and Oklahoma to know that as fact. BTW "not all the roads" are as pristine as what may be shown.

[norseman]

Generally speaking a 501c non profit organization is set up that way so that other people can donate to a group and get a tax break.

I own a LLC and I get to write off expenses such as fuel and food, etc. No difference there. But if somebody gave me money they could not write that off on their taxes as a charitable contribution. There is the difference. They also do not pay a corporate tax, but cannot show a profit or collect dividends etc.

My wife is an accountant:)

http://m.grantspace.org/Tools/Knowledge-Base/Nonprofit-Management/Establishment/Pros-and-cons

Edited July 11, 2013 by norseman

[Guest]

Just in reference to nearest road distances in the Ouachita's.  This is a vast area, you can google Earth all you want but there ARE plenty of areas that you can drive for "more than 10 miles" with no access to roads or trails. The Ouchita's cover 1,789,666 acres with 354,794 acres in Oklahoma. I've lived here for over 7 years and have driven plenty of miles both here in Arkansas and Oklahoma to know that as fact. BTW "not all the roads" are as pristine as what may be shown.

 

Well, there's research you do in front of your computer and research you do in the field. Practical field experience will always be preferable. It doesn't matter if the closest road is a mile away or ten when the "green stuff" you see on your screen in between is a mountainous tick infested jungle tangled with greenbriar and poison oak. I can find all kinds of pictures of beautifully maintained forest roads, too, but what does that mean in the end? I wish 10% of the hardened critics of all this would try and bust cross country over a mountain range in this stuff (as I have). The "there's no place that remote or difficult to reach" attitude would surely change. 

 

I could say exactly how far the nearest road is from the location of the rock/nut/boulder find (which is what started this entire line of discussion) but to do so would be too revealing, IMO. Too specific. We aren't mysterious about this to sweeten our experiences, we're mysterious because of people like our Alaskan friend. Knowing where we are would be an invitation to mischief by some and would be a potential danger to all involved. 

 

In the end, anyone with experience with this region knows, it doesn't matter. The terrain and flora is some of the most difficult you'll find and, as I said before, not all lines on a map are created equally. In the end, all anyone's going to get from me is 1) it wasn't close to civilization and 2) it wasn't in an area we've seen people (and remember, we had camera traps in this area for more then five years). If that's not good enough for some, then it's not. But that's all anyone's going to get. 

[Guest]

Generally speaking a 501c non profit organization is set up that way so that other people can donate to a group and get a tax break

 

And so we don't have to pay tax on money we make, right. Individual donations are tax-deductible but then you don't have the money anymore. That doesn't seem to align with the Alaskan's implications of NAWAC members gaining financially from our endeavors. Pretty much all the donations to the group and the modest amount we earn from our conference go to buying big-ticket items such as cameras, night vision, and thermals or get reinvested in the next conference. A money-making machine we are not. 

[Painthorse]

 

Just in reference to nearest road distances in the Ouachita's.  This is a vast area, you can google Earth all you want but there ARE plenty of areas that you can drive for "more than 10 miles" with no access to roads or trails. The Ouchita's cover 1,789,666 acres with 354,794 acres in Oklahoma. I've lived here for over 7 years and have driven plenty of miles both here in Arkansas and Oklahoma to know that as fact. BTW "not all the roads" are as pristine as what may be shown.

 

Well, there's research you do in front of your computer and research you do in the field. Practical field experience will always be preferable. It doesn't matter if the closest road is a mile away or ten when the "green stuff" you see on your screen in between is a mountainous tick infested jungle tangled with greenbriar and poison oak. I can find all kinds of pictures of beautifully maintained forest roads, too, but what does that mean in the end? I wish 10% of the hardened critics of all this would try and bust cross country over a mountain range in this stuff (as I have). The "there's no place that remote or difficult to reach" attitude would surely change. 

 

I could say exactly how far the nearest road is from the location of the rock/nut/boulder find (which is what started this entire line of discussion) but to do so would be too revealing, IMO. Too specific. We aren't mysterious about this to sweeten our experiences, we're mysterious because of people like our Alaskan friend. Knowing where we are would be an invitation to mischief by some and would be a potential danger to all involved. 

 

In the end, anyone with experience with this region knows, it doesn't matter. The terrain and flora is some of the most difficult you'll find and, as I said before, not all lines on a map are created equally. In the end, all anyone's going to get from me is 1) it wasn't close to civilization and 2) it wasn't in an area we've seen people (and remember, we had camera traps in this area for more then five years). If that's not good enough for some, then it's not. But that's all anyone's going to get. 

 

I had to laugh when you used the term "jungle". That's no lie, lol. We're in the process of clearing a couple of acres and it's been brutal, even with a gentleman using his tractor and logging equipment to bring down the larger trees. The underbrush is intertwined with thick thorn vines that will trip you in a heart beat and tear through your jeans and skin. It's "not a pleasant environment to navigate through".

Kudos to you and the team for taking it on.

It's something you have to experience in order to understand it.

 

On a side note, Bipto, in reference to the hickory nuts. This is going to sound crass but curious if any of the team or property owners have found where something may have marked (urinated) territory, possibly on the cabins or nearby trees that has an overwhelming smell of hickory nuts. This happened here a couple summers ago.  There was what appeared to be a urine stream a good 4' off the ground on the side of the cabin. When I swabbed it and took a sniff (yea I know, gross) it had an overwhelming stench of urine mixed with what the raw outer shell of a hickory nut smells like.

[Guest]

We have found areas with a strong urine smell, but not right around the cabins. We also smell it when we think they're near. I don't think we've ever thought any of our stuff or the structures we use have been marked, though.

[Guest]

 

I had to laugh when you used the term "jungle". That's no lie, lol. We're in the process of clearing a couple of acres and it's been brutal, even with a gentleman using his tractor and logging equipment to bring down the larger trees. The underbrush is intertwined with thick thorn vines that will trip you in a heart beat and tear through your jeans and skin. It's "not a pleasant environment to navigate through".

Kudos to you and the team for taking it on.

It's something you have to experience in order to understand it.

 

 

 

Yes, that is no joke. I used to bow hunt in the area, and you couldn't find a more secluded, difficult-to-move-in country once you get 20 yards away from your vehicle. The friend I hunted with was from Mena (just over the border in Arkansas) and he knew the area well, and we still got lost occasionally. When we stayed out there, we either camped (not at a campground) or stayed at a friend's cabin in the mountains, and we never saw anyone out there when we were hunting. And we knew that there were "a lot" of people that lived out there, and other hunters moving around the area.

 

As for the roads, what may appear to be a good road on a map or aerial photo is most likely, in reality, to be barely passable on foot, much less with some sort of vehicle.

 

If you are used to the more open forests of the west (as I was), you won't have a clue as to how dense and impassable this area is. You could have an entire Cub/Boy Scout troop out camping, and once you are more than about 100 yards away, you wouldn't have a clue that they were there if you didn't know where they were.

 

A very different "animal" these Ozarks/Ouachitas...

[Guest]

As for the roads, what may appear to be a good road on a map or aerial photo is most likely, in reality, to be barely passable on foot, much less with some sort of vehicle.

 

But I can find pictures of roads on the internet that are wide and beautiful. You must be mistaken. 

 

[Guest]

^^^^

Yeah, yeah... Sorry you are right! (All those years of field geology and mapping, photogeology, areal photo interpretation, field verification of maps, hunting, etc. really don't mean anything when the internet and google say it is so...!  ) /sarcasm

Edited July 12, 2013 by BigGinger
To Remove Quote Directly Above

[Airdale]

When we moved in to our current home on two acres in the foothills of the Elkhorn Mountains south of Helena, Montana, the small creek (18 to 24 inches wide on average) running in a ravine along one border of the property was totally in accessible. You could get to within about 30 feet of it and hear it, but nothing bigger than a house cat could penetrate the mixture of wild rose and clematis vines, giant rope weed, aspen, Russian olive, choke cherry, etc., to actually see it. It took me 21/2 hours with machete, weedeater and hand saw to make an opening big enough for me to squeeze through to stand beside the creek. This is in Montana with an average annual total precipitation of about 12 inches. That was in August of 2006. We've still only fairly well thinned out about 200' of a 600' frontage on one side of the creek and keeping it clear is a never ending task. 

 

 

 

 

 

And just for the heck of it, one taken from my driveway in May of this year

 

 

[hiflier]

Hello Airdale,

Beautiful!