Are Sasquatch Numbers On The Rise In Your Opinion?

[Guest DWA]

To analyze each encounter as a stand-alone "real or not" is a pointless exercise.

 

As I've said many a time:  it's the frequency and coherence of the encounter literature that makes it compelling, not any one two or 25 stories.

 

Only looking at it this way can one see how compelling the Manitoba shooting encounter is.  There really is not a good reason to suppose it didn't happen, just the way the guy told it.

Edited November 21, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

There really is not a good reason to suppose it didn't happen, just the way the guy told it.

 

^^

 

Well except for the fact that the story has a Bigfoot in it...  

Edited November 21, 2013 by dmaker

[BobbyO]

Some food for thought numbers.

 

In 2009, there were thought to be anywhere between 1,900 - 2,100 Cougars ( which is a decline )  in the state of WA. - http://www.mountainlion.org/us/wa/-wa-portal.asp

 

In that same year, there were approximately 400 reported sightings of Cougars to the Washing Department of Fish and Wildlife - http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/dangerous/cougar_reports/index.php?keys=&county=&year=2009

 

That's around about 20% give or take of the population getting reported when seen or some kind of Cougar evidence like animal kills etc are concerned.

 

So far i've found 14 Sasquatch sighting reports from across different databases for 2009.

 

I know Derek Randles has spoken of his belief that there could be around about 50 animals on the Olympic Peninsula at any one time, and if that's even remotely close as i think it most definitely could be and we then take into consideration other core areas in the State such as the Cascade range ( North and South portions ) which is roughly around the same size width wise as the OP and around about double the length and use the same numbers as the Olympic Peninsula estimate ( would be 100 due to size ), then add NE Washington as another core area type habitat and SE Washington and the Blue Mountains, we're not a million miles off of that 20% mark again like we were with the Cougar.

 

Interesting even if still inconclusive as maybe the numbers would change with different years but that was the year i picked to look at for no particular reason other than that was the first full year i could look at with the cougar sightings ( 2010 isn't a full year on the link i provided ) and those are the numbers it spits out.

[Guest DWA]

There really is not a good reason to suppose it didn't happen, just the way the guy told it.

 

^^

 

Well except for the fact that the story has a Bigfoot in it...  

[rimshot]

[Trogluddite]

If alleged Squatch numbers are on the rise, then would there not be an increased chance of someone finally providing some verifiable evidence? Or is that expectation unfounded, despite the increase in numbers?

 

While I think this was a rhetorical question, the obvious answer is "yes."   But, for the PA-WVa-NY region, even recently, you're looking at 15 encounters (not all visual)/year for the aughts (2000s) in a 100,000 square mile area.  So the chances go up from 0.0000001 to 0.00000003.  (I.e., a very small amount)

 

Presumably, lots of bear and deer die of natural causes in the woods each year, and while some skeletons are found, its never nearly as many die each year. 

 

A hunter out looking for other game is not likely to shoot bigfoot because 1) target identification - you don't shoot what you haven't identified, particularly where it might be another human, or 2) fear - "never has a .30-30 felt so useless," as one hunter said.  

 

I'm holding out for a deaf, lame, and slow bigfoot to get smacked down by a semi as the best chance..... 

I'm not so sure Trog.

I can't see how we would even begin to attempt to work out that reports are much greater now than in years gone by, because of course in years gone by there was nowhere near the type of communication available to so many people as there is today.

We still get reports added to databases from years gone by, pre internet, and that's not necessarily because these people have just decided to tell of their encounters, it's because before, pre internet, there was virtually nowhere to be able to tell of their encounters and certainly with nowhere near the amount of accessibility as there is today to submit a report.

 

BobbyO,

 

    My thought was that if bigfoot encounters were more frequent in past years, it would be engrained in folklore and legend (or family oral tradition).  For example, if bigfoot roamed the plains of Nebraska like the buffalo, there'd be more Baurmen (sp?) like stories floating around out there. 

[Guest DWA]

I don't think skeptics give adequate thought to the physical and mental difficulties involved in shooting something that isn't real.

 

The reactions I've read about would virtually preclude a gunshot from witnesses, almost without exception.  Most haven't grasped what they saw by the time they got home (never mind years later), let alone during the time they could have pulled the trigger.  Men with big guns and bows have run to their trucks fearing for their lives.  Even those who considered a shot had the world's most practical reasons for not taking it.

 

The least troublesome aspect of this whole thing to me is "no body."  Collecting that carcass is, as a practical consideration, out of the question unless (NAWAC) one has entered the field fully prepared to do it.

 

Which, by the way, is the only way Patterson got his film, and why we shouldn't be holding our breaths waiting for some yutz with a camera phone to get us that either.

Edited November 22, 2013 by DWA

[Trogluddite]

I don't think skeptics give adequate thought to the physical and mental difficulties involved in shooting something that isn't real.

 

The encounters reported by hunters seem to fall into two categories:

 

   - It's a man (you see that in many of Tirademan's historic articles) or

 

   - I should've brought a bigger gun....

[Guest DWA]

I am almost sure we'd all have tried sasquatch steak by now were the societal attitude toward this topic different from what it is.

 

As I said:  "no body" is nothing but totally understandable, given the almost universal denial of the evidence.

 

That's the biggest part of the mystery, by far, to me:  why the denial?  I have a theory but it is still much, much harder to get my arms around that than it is the reality of the animal.

[Guest LarryP]

It's the sightings that are up, not the population.

 

That's not by accident.

[Guest]

  I read a great article in the paper about a young lady from Asheville NC who has hiked the AT alone several times and holds the trail record averaging around 46 miles a day, She did this by hiking 16-18 hrs. a day, not running. I believe she has recently had a book published about her travels.

  But the point is if she can travel that far with some gear everyday, think about what kind of range a squatch could have. One could travel from the SC coast to the mountains(about 240 mi.) in 2-3 days, averaging around 65 miles a day. Or from Maine to Florida along the Intercoastal Waterway in possibly a couple weeks.

   I never thought them to "migrate" so far but it would seem they are certainly capable. I figured in coastal SC where I live they could stay year round as there is lots of food, water, cover, etc.

[Guest Cervelo]

Nope just the number of reports.....

[Sunflower]

Hopefully people will feel the need to protect them instead of hunting them.

[BobbyO]

Is there any animal in North America that doesn't get hunted ?

Don't kid yourself that this one wont be even if it got all of the protection after aceceptance.

It's the nature of the beast ( Humans ), well the beasts of North America anyway.

[steenburg]

Are the numbers on the rise? Who can say. Unfortunately what is on the rise is hoaxing, or attempted hoaxing. Epidemic in the US as far as I am concerned. That and  researchers who seem more like a religion pushing a faith, rather than people trying to solve a mystery.

 

Thomas Steenburg

[JDL]

So why wouldn't they be increasing?  There are abundant populations of prey species, and other predator species are on the rise, so the general availability of prey shouldn't be a factor in population growth.  They also do not rely on any single food source, or even a restricted set of food sources, so a key limited food source should not be a factor either.

 

The availability of habitat should not be an issue.  They are sighted in virtually every type of habitat from arid desert to coastal rainforest, so they are not pigeon holed into a single type of habitat.  They appear to move around a lot, so they don't curl up into a fetal position and perish when someone cuts down a stand of trees.  They simply relocate.

 

With regard to human activity, we haven't managed to pave over the entire continent yet, so they can avoid us if they so choose, and if they choose not to avoid us, they can take advantage of the food sources we directly and indirectly create, which actually seems to be one of their key traits in both folklore and in modern sightings.

 

Bigfoot is not the passenger pigeon.  They're presumably not good to eat, so whether or not a relatively few people decide to go out and try to bag one as a trophy (which will be illegal as soon as they are acknowledged), they won't be hunted for food, and they won't be the target of genocide.

 

There certainly are endangered species out there, but most are very specialized, reliant on a narrow set of conditions such as ideal habitat or food sources.  The more specialized a species is, the more likely it is to be endangered if a small set of conditions change.  Bigfoot is not so specialized that it is subject to this limitation.  In fact, it seems to embody the very essence of adaptability.

 

So, describe an actual vulnerability of the species, and then we can discuss whether or not that vulnerability is being exploited to decrease their numbers.  Absent such a vulnerability, we have to assume that their population is either increasing, as is that of other predators with access to an abundance of food, or is remaining stable, perhaps due to some self-regulating aspect of their species, which I consider unlikely.