Survivorman Bigfoot A-Z

[Guest]

Love Les's show on the subject matter.....Hope he does a lot more.

[Guest]

Very credible show so far. Really good to see.  

 

[WSA]

Bipedalist...yes indeed, thanks for the correction.  Not the first name I've mangled lately in haste to get a thought out.

 

Randy, very intriguing theory. Who knows? Plausible until proven otherwise, right? Thanks for the geology lesson, that is exactly what I was wanting to know. Without more detail of what the searchers smelled, exactly, it would be hard to say what it could have been.

[SWWASAS]

My sulfur theory awaits the dead one on a lab table like a lot of other things to figure out.    You need volcanism to get sulfur so that would not apply in many parts of the country.     So if the bad smell us universal, throughout the country, my sulfur theory is wrong.    Just the term skunk ape in the South would indicate I am probably wrong.    There are reports that some BF seem to like garlic.    Could that be a source of body odor if they eat it in large quantities?     It may have medicinal properties that they need.      

Edited April 13, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Guest]

I was kinda surprised he let those snippets be used in the intro.  So, far there's been no TS in this series, other than the comments Les made about how the footprints could have been made on the hillside by someone wearing stompers backwards and running down the hill (which I think was a reference to a TS claim - but Les did not directly say so).

 

interesting comments.

[LeafTalker]

I think you just showed us how unnecessary a body is to answer this particular question. (And in case it's not perfectly obvious, I think it's unnecessary for every other question that's ever been raised about BF.)

 

But anyway, it's a brave person that pokes holes in their own theories.

 

Also want to say I've smelled a bad smell that followed me, on and off, for an eighth of a mile or so one day, and we don't have volcanoes or lava tubes or anything like that in my part of the world. 

 

And yeah, I think the reports show the smell thing happens pretty much all over. 

[SWWASAS]

Poking holes in my own theories is my way of searching for truth.    Call it the Edison approach.    When he was still searching for the right material to make light bulb filaments and had tested over 1000 materials that did last very long,  some reporter asked him about his lack of progress.    He said that he was making good progress because he knew over 1000 things that did not work.     So if I propose theories, that do not hold up to analysis, at least I feel like I am making some progress.    Forward progress is what we need. 

[Guest DWA]

What I like from what I have heard about Les's approach to this is what one would expect from a survival expert:  he doesn't see himself an expert.  He's a student.  He's talking through stuff; he's had experiences he can't explain and he isn't done until the explanation.

 

Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey didn't start out scientists, but it was in them, and they grew into the role.  I am really hoping that Les not only provides an example to researchers everywhere, but learns whatever he can from them as well.

 

When one's theories become one's facts....well, hopefully one doesn't trust that, too too much.

[WSA]

I think the most remarkable footage in the episode was that extremely impressive scat pile. For a woodsman who has seen just about every kind of scat, like Stroud has, and for me, who has seen probably not even half as many. but I've seen my share, THAT was a  "whoa Nelly" moment. The fact that so many now lack the intimacy with scat (Yeah, I realize how that sounds...) is just one of the many headwinds this research is bucking. One hundred years ago? Anyone who saw that would know it was something to pay attention to, and not the excrement of any known wild or domesticated animal. The only thing that remotely comes close would be a pig (which I think gets misidentified as Squatch droppings pretty often) but the size of the hog who could have pinched that one off would be as startling to see as a BF.  If the episode contained nothing more than that, I would say he'd brought home the goods.  .

Randy, I think creative thinking like that makes it all worthwhile around here. Yup, it doesn't account for the aroma of BF reported in other areas, but maybe the piece we need to consider is that Sasquatch just likes stinky stuff, no matter what it is, or how it gets it. We've all known dogs who were not that particular about what they rolled in...horse manure or offal  or just swamp mud in a pinch...whatever gets the job done. Rotten-egg sulfur water? Set me up barkeep.

[SWWASAS]

I think the most remarkable footage in the episode was that extremely impressive scat pile. For a woodsman who has seen just about every kind of scat, like Stroud has, and for me, who has seen probably not even half as many. but I've seen my share, THAT was a  "whoa Nelly" moment. The fact that so many now lack the intimacy with scat (Yeah, I realize how that sounds...) is just one of the many headwinds this research is bucking. One hundred years ago? Anyone who saw that would know it was something to pay attention to, and not the excrement of any known wild or domesticated animal. The only thing that remotely comes close would be a pig (which I think gets misidentified as Squatch droppings pretty often) but the size of the hog who could have pinched that one off would be as startling to see as a BF.  If the episode contained nothing more than that, I would say he'd brought home the goods.  .

Randy, I think creative thinking like that makes it all worthwhile around here. Yup, it doesn't account for the aroma of BF reported in other areas, but maybe the piece we need to consider is that Sasquatch just likes stinky stuff, no matter what it is, or how it gets it. We've all known dogs who were not that particular about what they rolled in...horse manure or offal  or just swamp mud in a pinch...whatever gets the job done. Rotten-egg sulfur water? Set me up barkeep.

I have seen suspicious piles of very large diameter scat obviously made by an omnivore in that they contained both fur and berry components. But quite frankly I am not comfortable declaring them not from bear. Initially in the field I thought that bear poop was piles without form which I often see, but when I compare pictures in my Mammal Tracks and Sign "bible" on such things, I find bear scat does have a tubular form in some cases. So what I am saying is that I do not know how to rule out something is not bear. Anyone have thoughts on this? Since bear and BF diet are probably very similar in some areas, I am wondering if anyone can really tell the difference. Certainly Les is very familiar with bear scat, but in areas where both exist, how can he or anyone know what is what unless they see it being dropped. Perhaps some of what he, or others have seen and assumed to be bear, is not bear at all. I really think because of that, that scat based research might be very misleading. As I understand it, unless DNA samples are taken almost immediately at the first out end of it, bacteria in the scat quickly destroys any DNA present. So even that is likely a dead end.

Edited April 14, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Guest DWA]

I don't think it's safe making any calls here.  Sometimes one can say something *probably* or could well have come from X based on what is in the area.  For example I have seen two scats in my neighborhood that I might bet lunch money were coyote.  The size was about right and both had what is considered a coyote trademark:  being left on a log or rock on or next to a trail.

 

But a big pile of scat from an omnivore could be any large omnivore in the area.  I once found a "cow pie" high up on a ridge where I might bet a used car no cow ever goes.  There was a lot of grass up there, however, unusual for ridgelines in this vicinity.  Bears are known to eat grass.

Edited April 14, 2015 by DWA

[SWWASAS]

But as it turns out the more time you spend in the field the more you wonder about such things.      A couple of times,  I have hiked in on a trail or unused logging road, then came out the same way sometime later and found a huge pile of such suspicious scat right in the middle of a trail or road.    Why would whatever put it down decide to do it right in the middle of the road or trail after I passed by?.     Anyone know if scat marking is bear behavior?   I guess it could be since other animals, particularly canines do it.    Like someone said previously in this thread,    100 years ago, a woodman would know all of this stuff.     I sure don't.     Someone previously corrected me about coyote scat.    When berries are in season they eat those too.     I had no idea they would do that.     

Edited April 14, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Guest DWA]

This one seems interesting:

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=8259

 

But I might not make a call myself without the circumstantial and experiential evidence available to these folks.

[Guest]

 

There it is just behind his left elbow in the background.

[Guest]

 

Could be I suppose.