N A W A C - Field Study Discussion

[bipedalist]

Interesting about the squeaky balls. In one of my research locations I left a small (cheap) garden solar light beside a small rock cairn I'd built over some fruit, all in the middle of a small sand/gravel island in the creek that I'd raked and prepared to improve the chance of prints. Solar light was taken, fruit and stone cairn appeared untouched - no prints, and no sign of the solar light in the year or so since.

 

I also placed a small pet rattle/ball nearby next to a food temptation-based hair snare that I've been working on. On one occasion the ball ended up a few metres away in the creek, but usually appeared untouched. After swapping hair snares in and out a few times I actually picked up the rattle/ball to look at it more closely and noticed several of the small fruit stickers that were on some of the apples had been chewed and picked out and were on the ground underneath the ball.

 

 

Bears have been known to steal plastic gas cans to play with, if the solar light was smelly plastic something besides a biped could easily have made off with it.  I say lack of tracks might have to do with substrate, hair snareless can't say but maybe a well-groomed, dexterous sort of quadruped.  

[Guest]

The interesting thing about bears and the dog toys we've left out is that, in our experience, bears will totally destroy whatever interestingly smelly plastic thing that can get their paws on. In the case of the one tennis ball (like this one, to be specific), it was moved laterally along the slope from the log on which is was left and found about 20 feet away buried under about six inches of leaves and detritus. It didn't have a mark on it. The others, though we've heard them squeak, are found right where we left them. Another has disappeared and we have no idea where it is. No trace of it has been found.

 

Again, we can't know is this is ape behavior, but it sure doesn't sound like bears. I'm open to suggestions. 

[dmaker]

Pack rats like shiny things and would not leave deep impressions.

That's not nearly as exciting as a Bigfoot.

[Guest]

Any idea regarding the lack of prints on the sand/gravel?

 

Not really, although I did rake it the substrate's still not the best for holding a print - too firm and gravelly. Also, it was reachable from an approach in the creek, or on the rocks lining it. I was just hoping for an approach on the path of easiest access.

 

Pack rats like shiny things and would not leave deep impressions.

 

True, although a rat carrying a light around at this site's not going to last too long - within a 500 meter radius of the site I've personally ID'd 6 species of snakes, seen several goannas (including one that followed me for 15 mins), and is home to a number of predatory birds, including the powerful owl, kookaburras and kingfishers, and a couple of different hawks/goshawks. I also would have thought the rat would be more interested in the easy feed.

 

Bears have been known to steal plastic gas cans to play with, if the solar light was smelly plastic something besides a biped could easily have made off with it.  I say lack of tracks might have to do with substrate

 

One of the pleasures about researching in Australia, I don't have to worry about bears (just lots of venomous critters). But yes, obviously there are any number of critters that could have taken it.

[Guest Robert2]

The easiest and cheapest and possibly most deadly firearm to carry for the purpose of harvesting one of these creatures is a short barreled tactical 12 gauge shotgun with a powerful LED flashlight mounted on it.

 

Don't load it with buck shot, load it with 500 grain rifled slugs, then get out there and practice with it in both daylight and darkness.

 

Buck shot would be a big mistake, unless you are very very close. 

[dmaker]

I would carry a camera. It seems Squatches are scared to death of them

[Guest]

When rocks are being tossed at the cabin just throw a live hand grenade back !

[Guest Darrell]

 

 

The problem with Sasquatch is that they operate at night. The problem with traditional cowboy lever guns like my Marlin guide gun (or a bolt action rifle) is that they don't have any attachment points for accessories that help with night time operations. Some companies are attempting to remedy this with small RIS (Rail Interface System) for Marlins.

 

 

Actually, IF you get a XS Scout Rail for the Marlin LA you would have enough room to mount a PVS14 NV Monocular and an Aimpoint M2/M3/M4 or a NV EOTech model. Thats about 4K in optics and mounts but It would give you 45-70 NV options. you could do the same thing with the XS extended rail for the Ruger GSR and have a NV capable, 10 shot bolt action with a threaded barrel for a sound supressor. Serious trick set up. 

Edited August 9, 2013 by Darrell

[Guest]

When rocks are being tossed at the cabin just throw a live hand grenade back !

 

I was thinking a Claymore mine would work pretty well, too.

[Guest Darrell]

Too much noise.

[Airdale]

 

[Sunflower]

When rocks are being tossed at the cabin just throw a live hand grenade back !

 

And hope that the hairy guy doesn't throw it back to you!!!!!!!!

[Guest]

Yep.. thats what makes it a fun game kinda like Russian roulette!

[Guest JiggyPotamus]

I just finished going over the report and conclusions of this operation, and I will offer a few thoughts. First of all, I was glad to see that some of the evidence collected, including personal experiences, seemed to validate some of the hypotheses that have been proposed in the past, but were still considered to be unsolved to any satisfactory degree, at least in my opinion. 

 

For instance, here are some of the conclusions from the NAWAC expedition...

 

• Cameras should be used in timed mode, where pictures are automatically taken every few seconds or so, rather than relying on the detection of heat or movement in order to take pictures. This obviously places severe limits on the duration that cameras can be used, but it is seen as a necessary adjustment, at least while teams are in the field.

I believe that everyone should take note of the fact that our technology has failed under field conditions in this respect, which is something that most skeptics or non-believers do not seem to take into account. How much of the trail-cam research that goes on across the US is done while the cameras are set to go off when triggered? And out of those, how many cameras fail to capture any animal that walks in front of them? Apparently these failures were noticed on multiple cameras, ruling out the possibility of a single, uncommon failure, indicating that trail cameras may not be as reliable as many believe them to be. Field conditions can be notoriously harsh, and if this is the cause of the failures, I would expect many other cameras, utilized by many different groups, to also fail. And out of those, how many of these groups actually realize that their cameras are failing to capture images when they should be capturing them?

 

• Observations strongly indicate that at least a few wood apes dwell in the area, supporting the idea that the species is not necessarily solitary, as has often been proposed.

IF the conclusion regarding multiple individuals dwelling in the area is correct, it is not indicative of any new discovery or novel idea, and there would have been almost no way to distinguish between a family unit, and a group of non-related sasquatch who happen to be living in the same area. From what I gather of this report the sasquatch did not seem to solitary individuals operating independently of one another the entire time. What I mean is that the sasquatch know each other, basically. Again, if this was a family unit, I am of the opinion that sasquatch could still be deemed "solitary" animals, in that they do not tend to form groups or units with other sasquatch who are not in their immediate family.

 

• Sightings by our own members of large bipedal hair-covered creatures lend credence to the theory that wood apes were responsible for some of the recorded phenomena. The possibility that human hoaxers were hiding from NAWAC team members for weeks during the height of summer, avoiding detection and searches in that remote area, and waiting until the wee hours of the morning to scramble around treacherous mountain slopes without light, often in pitch black conditions, to vocalize, throw rocks, and hit trees is even less likely than the existence of the wood ape.

I completely agree with this conclusion, as it highly unlikely that any hoaxers, and there would have to have been multiple present, could have remained undetected while performing the behaviors and tasks, and exhibiting the characteristics that were witnessed, without at the very least leaving some type of evidence of their presence. On the other hand, the only evidence of any presence not with the research group itself seems to point to a non-human primate of some sort, or what we know as sasquatch.

 

• While perhaps a foregone conclusion, spending more time in the field increased the quantity and quality of compelling observations. At this point, there should be little doubt that protracted field studies of weeks or months must be favored over much shorter and much less productive weekend events. There may be sufficient reason to postulate that these animals are likely conditioned that human forays into the remote wilderness habitats they favor usually only consist of a few days in length; all that is required is to simply wait out any human visitors and within a few short days or even hours, humans will leave. Operation Endurance ran contrary to such predictable human behavior.

Again I completely agree with this interpretation. In fact, it seems that the sasquatch activity toward the team may have escalated as the expedition wore on, which suggests that the team was provoking more of a reaction, probably indicating a rise in their level of annoyance. So basically, the sasquatch very well could have held off initially with the aggressive behavior, behavior designed to display the idea that the humans are not welcome, expecting the humans to leave within a matter of a couple of days. When this did not occur, the behavior would have escalated to get their point across.

 

This is one of the few true theoretical ideas that can predict behavior in the field of sasquatch research. Therefore the longer the stay within an area with a sasquatch presence, the more that aggressive behavior can be expected. Although personally I believe that aggressive displays can be encountered quite early upon entering sasquatch territory, IF the area is more than just a foraging area, etc., and instead is an area that is highly utilized for things like sleeping, leaving young, etc...So basically for them it would be like their house, or their temporary residence. If a researcher walks directly into the territory of their house, which of course would be much larger than an average house in square footage, then the response could be expected to be highly aggressive. 

 

This may prove to be useful to researchers, in that when aggressive behavior is experienced upon first entering an area, one can be relatively certain that the particular location holds some importance to these animals, and further research should be conducted in this area since in all probability there will be sasquatch present. But then again, this interpretation will fail if aggressive displays, including rock throwing, tree shaking, etc., are conducted simply because the sasquatch is busy in a particular area, an area which usually holds no importance to the animal. So it would seem that this is not such a concrete idea after all.

 

• Events experienced by team members produced an overall perception that the creatures were extremely intelligent, wary yet curious. For example, by all appearances, wood apes definitely take notice of the presence of cameras, approaching with circumspection, if they approach at all. Such behavior is not at all far-fetched; indeed, wildlife biologists have recently noted similar cautious behavior among alpha coyotes in relation to camera traps (Sequin, Brussard, Jaeger, & Barrett, 2003). Members believe we have come very close to obtaining images; we will continue to employ cameras for documentation purposes, in spite of the noted limitations.

I know for a fact that many skeptics have a problem with the idea of sasquatch recognizing and avoiding cameras, but as I have pointed out many times in the past, these animals need not understand what these devices are, or what they do, but they need only to realize that the cameras are not natural objects, and therefore are suspect to some degree. Look at it from the point of view of a sasquatch. If you spent your entire life in the forest, and rarely encountered humans or human objects, which most probably don't very often, seeing an unnatural object is not simply something to be ignored. If you were in tune with your environment, and had to notice things to aid in your survival, every such incident would require some thought and subsequent action.

 

I have also stated many times in the past that these animals are intelligent, but also that their ability to recognize unusual objects and situations can seem to us like intelligence, when in fact it simply a survival instinct of sorts. Actually, in some instances such an instinct would be preferable to intelligence in my opinion. So not only are we dealing with a highly intelligent animal, an animal that is not as smart as a human in many respects, but who is much smarter than a human in the forest, and this animal also has instincts and senses that aid in its survival, and help it avoid us, whether this behavior is based on personal choice or not. Finding such an animal is nothing to scoff at. Theoretically it should be difficult, and that seems to be the case.

Edited August 10, 2013 by JiggyPotamus

[southernyahoo]

 

I have also stated many times in the past that these animals are intelligent, but also that their ability to recognize unusual objects and situations can seem to us like intelligence, when in fact it simply a survival instinct of sorts. Actually, in some instances such an instinct would be preferable to intelligence in my opinion.

 

 

Jiggy, this runs counter intuitive to what seems to happen with audio recorders according to other research. If they didn't know the difference, or have a different effect to their senses we couldn't get close up recordings, yet, it happens.