To The Skeptic: If They Can Find 10000 Chimps Then ...

[Drew]

Well, I think it is noteworthy b/c it illustrates the difficulty in finding and cataloging a primate that one knows is already there in great numbers.

 

It took 10 years for them to complete their task.  That is will funding, full time support, and the fact they KNEW the animals were in there.

 

Kind of puts in perspective the amount of time and effort it will take to prove BF's existence.

 

It really doesn't put it in perspective.

 

If Bigfoot only lived in the dense forests of the PNW, which it does not, based on the sighting reports showing them at Rest Areas, on Highways, In parking lots, raiding dumpsters, and looking in trailer park windows, those forests still do not compare to those forests in the Northern DRC.  It is not only a question of forest density, but of access.  In the Northern DRC, You have to dodge military units, hope your vehicle can navigate as close as possible to the area without breaking down, pack in every commodity for staying there, avoid dangerous animals.  In the PNW you have paved trailhead parking, groomed parking trails, and some form of decent road within 5 miles from any point on the map.

 

The area is huge.  Our PNW forests do not compare to the scale of the area the chimps are located in.

 

http://www.awf.org/landscape/bili-uele

Bili Uele Protected Area is 14,017,450 hectares (54,122 sq. mi.) It is 1/5 of the size of ALL US National Forests combined.

 

http://www.fs.usda.gov/giffordpinchot

Gifford Pinchot is 553,731 hectares (2138 sq. mi.)

 

http://www.fs.usda.gov/okawen/

Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (combined) is 1,619,000 Hectares (6250 Sq. miles)

[Cotter]

But Drew - we don't know for sure if BF were spotted at rest stops, dumpsters, or peering in windows.  Remember, anecdotal evidence is not falsifiable, thus, cannot be considered.

 

Additionally, (if your statement above is correct).  We have 5 times the nat'l forests than is in the area of the Bili preserve.

So we have at least 5 times the ground to cover.

 

And this: "In the PNW you have paved trailhead parking, groomed parking trails, and some form of decent road within 5 miles from any point on the map."

 

I must kindly disagree.  Maybe certain times of the year this is somewhat true.  But for instance, Bear Camp Road is shut down all but a handful of months of the year.  It would take weeks to access some areas by foot. 

 

Have you spent much time in the PNW?  I mean, not taking a normal touristy vacation into the 'forest' for camping, but a real backcountry trek?

1500 feet in 1 hour would be a good pace off-trail.  

 

And this:  "You have to dodge military units, hope your vehicle can navigate as close as possible to the area without breaking down, pack in every commodity for staying there, avoid dangerous animals."

 

In the PNW you have cartel grow operations, bears, lions, identical vehicle considerations, and identical commodity considerations.  Pretty much the same.

Now, I will grant you that the Congo doesn't have the paved roads the PNW does.  But if BF were living in populations on or adjacent to major highways, we'd have discovered them long ago.

 

It's not as simple as taking a stroll through a park, y'know?

 

 

[Guest keninsc]

Well, I think it is noteworthy b/c it illustrates the difficulty in finding and cataloging a primate that one knows is already there in great numbers.

 

It took 10 years for them to complete their task.  That is will funding, full time support, and the fact they KNEW the animals were in there.

 

Kind of puts in perspective the amount of time and effort it will take to prove BF's existence.

 

Ok, well if they knew they were in there then they didn't just discover them, now did they?

 

The fact that Bigfoot hasn't been found yet is because too many people are not doing what they need to do to find them, that or they don't exist. Which I don't think you can prove really. Time and effort are all well and good but if you are applying that time and effort in finding footprints, recording howls, looking for Bigfoot poop, hair samples then it's going to take a long time........besides, I'm not convinced you can prove poop came from a Bigfoot. Why? Because most poop contains so much bacteria that it will make sorting out DNA from any blood cells in the poop almost impossible to find, at least with today's technology. Five years from now that might change.

 

Don't get me wrong, this guy went out and found chimps where apparently no one thought they were before, so kudos on that, and they have adapted to the environment they're in, so kudos to the chimps. But other known chimp clans hunt, they hunt other chimps and monkeys of various species. They fight wars over territory, they repel intruders and generally do what most humans do.

 

Now if you want to be impressed then by all means do so, but there is a huge difference in finding a known species in a place they weren't thought to be and find a completely new species, namely a Bigfoot.

[norseman]

It really doesn't put it in perspective.

If Bigfoot only lived in the dense forests of the PNW, which it does not, based on the sighting reports showing them at Rest Areas, on Highways, In parking lots, raiding dumpsters, and looking in trailer park windows, those forests still do not compare to those forests in the Northern DRC. It is not only a question of forest density, but of access. In the Northern DRC, You have to dodge military units, hope your vehicle can navigate as close as possible to the area without breaking down, pack in every commodity for staying there, avoid dangerous animals. In the PNW you have paved trailhead parking, groomed parking trails, and some form of decent road within 5 miles from any point on the map.

The area is huge. Our PNW forests do not compare to the scale of the area the chimps are located in.

http://www.awf.org/landscape/bili-uele

Bili Uele Protected Area is 14,017,450 hectares (54,122 sq. mi.) It is 1/5 of the size of ALL US National Forests combined.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/giffordpinchot

Gifford Pinchot is 553,731 hectares (2138 sq. mi.)

http://www.fs.usda.gov/okawen/

Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (combined) is 1,619,000 Hectares (6250 Sq. miles)

Obviously Drew has never been on the cassiar highway.

If one ignores the Canadian border the western forests are some of the largest in the world. And while I agree that the Gifford Pinchot visitors are spoiled with easy access? Go to central Idaho and get back to me on that.

The tongass nat forest is 17 million acres or 26500 sq miles and doesn't take into account adjoining crown forest in British Columbia.

Edited April 17, 2014 by norseman

[Guest DWA]

... Wouldn't Sasquatch be a possibility? I think most of you would have "scoffed" at those claims 2 months before the discovery. You're the same people who would never have found the mountain gorilla or the panda.

"Researchers in Africa have discovered a huge population of 'unusually large' chimps who feast on leopards and giant snails in what is being described as the continent's 'last untouched wilderness'.

The previously unknown 'mega-culture' was found in the heart of the Bili-Uele forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo by researchers, who trekked thousands of miles dodging armed police and militia to get there.

And they were stunned to see the chimps eating leopard and huge African snails, whose shells they pound open on rocks."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2554620/Researchers-discover-10-000-community-chimpanzees-war-torn-Africa-eating-LEOPARDS.html

Exactly.  NICE.

Oh and by the way:  we get reports of these 'last untouched wildernesses' from every continent, on a frequency of about every month or so.

 

If anyone's wondering why I don't buy the mainstream take on sasquatch and yeti.  This is why.  If there is anything scientists should know by now, it is where all these places are!

But Drew - we don't know for sure if BF were spotted at rest stops, dumpsters, or peering in windows.  Remember, anecdotal evidence is not falsifiable, thus, cannot be considered.

 

Whooops.  HATE IT when that happens.

 

Additionally, (if your statement above is correct).  We have 5 times the nat'l forests than is in the area of the Bili preserve.

So we have at least 5 times the ground to cover.

 

North American Forests vs. This Latest Last Huge Wilderness =  Haystack vs. Needle

 

 

Have you spent much time in the PNW?  I mean, not taking a normal touristy vacation into the 'forest' for camping, but a real backcountry trek?

1500 feet in 1 hour would be a good pace off-trail.  

 

PNW Alone vs. This Latest Last Huge Wilderness = Haystack vs. Needle

 

WSA and I just spent three days in the Sipsey Wilderness in AL.  Cars packed at every trailhead.  And we didn't see a person.  There could be 100 sasquatch in there with the 60 cougars and 10 to 20 jaguars...and no one would know.  Because no one looks.  And no one takes anyone seriously who says they saw one.

 

Quite simple, really.

Edited April 18, 2014 by DWA

[WSA]

DWA: Which of course leads you to conclude that these "untouched" wilderness claims are largely an intellectual construct. Untouched by whom, exactly?  Well, we know that part is not necessary in order to be able to confidently predict the presence of previously unexamined life forms. That is why we keep looking, or should be why. And things show up that haven't been around for a long time, or were never there before. Biology lately seems to be an exercise of cataloging life forms that are no longer present, or decreasing rapidly. We lose sight of the other side of that equation in a hungry and fecund world. "Invasive" is in the eye of the beholder (and the predator), after all. 

 

Our little excursion into the "untouched" corner of the Sipsey Wilderness this week drove home these points for me. On a weekend where hundreds of dayhikers and campers were assaulting the resource, we managed to get ourselves to a quiet corner and not see or even hear another person for three days.  If we could do that with only a map and some limited experience, how hard would it be for other, native fauna to do as well?   

 

So what has showed up in the Bankhead N.F. since I frequented that corner of the world more often? As we saw: Pigs.  Still, we followed that herd of swine for the better part of two days before we saw our first one. Pigs don't have much of a reputation for elusiveness either. Does anyone think that much protein on the hoof is just going to go begging?  Not a chance.

[Guest DWA]

^^^The Sipsey, of course, is part of the repeatedly pounded into submission Southeastern U.S., where every stick of timber has been cut and every acre has a house.  And the human evidence we saw was ...well, pretty close to the humans we saw.  (Pig sign:  passed my lifetime previous total by leagues.)

 

In fact, were one not familiar with either human or pig sign (who is familiar with sasquatch sign?), one could comfortably conclude that no humans - or pigs - had ever been our way.

Note about the pigs we did see:  They didn't explode up in a panic.  They ...best way to put it is "they assembled and filed off into the silence, with far less commotion than half the people would have mustered."

 

In fact, after I lost sight of them, there was no sign, sound or otherwise, that they had ever been there.

[Guest DWA]

 It should be also noted that this and almost every other primate discovery was made by fully funded researchers and scientists who spent long periods of time in these areas with top notch equipment.       

 

 In Sasquatchery we have a small select group of people who take the subject as serious, and only have a very limited { self funded } amount of money and time to put into research efforts.      

 

 For most Bigfootery is a hobby and not a serious pursuit, they would much rather have a dirt bike, go on five star vacation or have a awesome cellphone and plan every time a new phone comes out.

 

 It is no mystery as to why we have not found Bigfoot yet.        

 

Quoting this because there is no way possible to over-emphasize it.

 

It is The Explanation.  No others, really, need apply.

[Guest]

 

It should be noted that this and almost every other primate discovery was made by fully funded researchers and scientists who spend long periods of time in these areas with top notch equipment.

They were also made far from where the researchers and scientists live. In addition, there's a difference between capturing and confirming an animal and doing long term behavioral studies on it. For Westerners, bigfoot is more like elk and bears, not chimps and gorillas.

[Guest DWA]

^^^No they're not.  If I told you I saw three elk and two bears yesterday - in my backyard in UT - you'd believe me.

[Guest]

No kidding. I wonder why.

[JDL]

Neither.  They are Eastern Chimps.

 

Yes, but many of them pretend to have Southern accents.

[Guest DWA]

Jerrymanderer:  I don't wonder why.

 

It's because you're comfortable with elk and bears.  People beat all other species at simply dismissing what they are uncomfortable with.

 

Fact is:

 

You have no more reason to believe me in either case.  Logic 001.

[Guest]

Nope, because elk and bears are proven to exist and their populations are monitored. Don't pretend otherwise.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest DWA]

^^^You're right.  You got me.

 

I can't pretend Logic 001 isn't offered in colleges across the country.  Take it.

 

One story = one story.  Do I believe you that Joe Did It, just because Joe exists...?

 

Whether the society is settled on something's existence could not be more irrelevant to this discussion.  When I see a sasquatch, the society is 100% slam dunk wrong, and I am right, and we are done.

 

Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant; I am right.  You are wrong.

 

It has nothing to do - WHATSOEVER - with the acceptance of existence.  Existence is, accepted or not.

 

Once again, students:  no more reason to believe me or not, in either case.

 

AND THIS WILL BE ON THE FINAL!

Edited April 19, 2014 by DWA