Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss The Bigfoots?

[Guest]

As for BF and trailcams in general. As was pointed out, BF might not be worried about TCs as they do not mean harm. But than on the other hand, the most likely encountered other kind of traps with food as invitation. With enough intelligence they might just think of a TC setup as a beartrap. There is also the question how a TC is set up. To catch an 7+ feet tall induvidual you need an "unusual" point of view to catch a full frame picture of a BF. Bloobsquatches there are.

[Guest]

Good point about the ultrasonic repellants being of limited value bipedalist, The fear of them is overcome with familiarity when the alternative is starving... however if they are not used for resource denial, then there's no percentage in "being brave" for the critters that can hear them... it's like if your local bank teller always smells like an alcoholic homeless guy, you wrinkle your nose and get your money out anyway, but you still give smelly alcoholic homeless guys a wide berth on the street. (Overridden of course by any imperative to go near them, social work, charitable thoughts, fetish for smelly homeless guys, etc)

Same argument could apply to "reeking plastic" smell of cameras to those with a sensitive nose, a case of "I don't like it, so if I don't have a reason to go near it, I won't."

Now if someone can tell us what the BF equivalent of Walmart looks like, we could smother that area with cameras and cross our fingers. (Excellent example IMO, coz it always feels mildly unpleasant to go there but you do anyway )

[Guest Cervelo]

My trail cameras alert EVERYTHING that it takes a pic of. Deer, coyotes, racoons, turkeys. I've seen them react to the camera, be it running away, quizzically looking, or simply glancing at it. Bottom line - trail cams alert animals.

And the Hovey pic, that was from a game cam. Was crisp, clear, up close, and yet proved nothing.

So maybe they DO get their pics taken, but when those pics are released, they are dismissed.

You might want to go back a reread that thread, pretty sure Mel indicated it was some sort of camera trap that the person set up, not a trail cam.

[Guest]

Yah, specific type of trap targetted at a specific type of animal, likely baited with what had been researched and known to be the most attractive bait.... (and biologists are not using flash cams these days, fad, fashion or good reason? https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:omTWiIzo62cJ:images.reconyx.com/file/GibeauMcTavish_NotSoCandidCameras_2009.pdf+&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi9jswCMaGlp7M844OmmPJMxR5a8aXi57_HAr18swPf71pH9geeGlZHD-cV8VfQ4Py6XxIUS4YkERkkO5affNRajPEh2c9CA39ecvvrSsFwKsN_TMnmyaBbTT1xhO4lLVzghong&sig=AHIEtbQVrdUIKWzG6cpNpImCD1fQtNlgxQ ) but anyway, it's being held up to prove that we shoulda oughta got bigfoot pics with it, which is like fishing for minnows and landing a shark.

If we impart a dose of "real world" here, we'll be interested to observe that scientists using cams to document elusive species have needed years of experience to get anything, and through those bitter trials are using only the top end trail cams, or purpose made units. We may speculate that the cheaper stuff is about equivalent in performance to the ones they had years of dismal results with.

Believe it or not, they're even having to practice on captive populations of some animals to be sure their methods work!

So I'll just need 15 years experience and 20 or so captive BFs to practice with, then you may have your good wild pics.

Special pleading you say? Well howabout you go to the moon tomorrow? What's that you can't? Sounds like special pleading to me

[Guest]

Specific type of trap for a specific type of animal? Did you see the different species of animals they managed to photograph? The bait they used attracted both carnivores and omnivores. Does bigfoot require a special kind of bait or is it mostly a herbivore? Just because they practice on captive animals to see if that can attract and get a good shot of an animal, doesn't mean have have to practice on every single species they intend to film. Talk like this and about "years of experience" just seems like a red herring to me. If we can get clear photos of rare animals in foreign countries then we can get some of one that is sighted hundreds of times a year in our own backyards. No amount of talk of "experience" and "practice" can explain this away.

[kitakaze]

 

Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss the Bigfoots?

 

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/5116-cascades-carnivore-project-how-do-they-miss-the-bigfoots/

 

 

Dunno.  Wish there weren't such obvious reasons for the researchers who saw and heard them to shut up about it.  That might help.

 

 

Awesome. This project locates a single wolverine existing in the Cascades which they get multiple shots of from remote survey stations over a huge area, and it is a huge boon for the project. That's a single medium sized mammal far outside it's normal range. Yet here there is supposed to be a population of Bigfoots living and thriving and nothing. Or maybe survey stations did record the Bigfoots but The Man is keeping the stunning truth down.

 

Single wolverine - âœ“

 

 

 

Bigfoot - not so much.

[norseman]

Holy necro post batman!!!!

[bipedalist]

Well now that the thread is back from the dead.   I think the evidence is hidden.

 

Blame it on this group: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/

 

http://www.predatordefense.org/USDA.htm

Edited December 29, 2013 by bipedalist

[Guest]

We already had this discussion. Even alpha coyotes will avoid the cameras.  You need a soundproof, smellproof box, no one still doing the outdated camera thing has even attempted that to my knowlege, but I'm sure someone might be working on it.

 

There are at least half a dozen + trailcam photos out there that are pretty good though, but nothing could or would ever be conclusive so there could be 20 or 30, people will still not be satisfied.

[17x7]

Awesome. This project locates a single wolverine existing in the Cascades which they get multiple shots of from remote survey stations over a huge area, and it is a huge boon for the project. That's a single medium sized mammal far outside it's normal range. Yet here there is supposed to be a population of Bigfoots living and thriving and nothing. Or maybe survey stations did record the Bigfoots but The Man is keeping the stunning truth down.

 

Single wolverine - âœ“

 

 

 

Yeah, they have shots of a single wolverine.  Where are the shots of the rest?  Despite what the experts say, there has been a population of wolverines in the Oregon Cascades for decades.  They are not commonly seen, but people have been consistently doing so for ever.  Why only one on film, and the same one at that?

 

17x7

[BobbyO]

That picture doesn't look real to me. It looks like the exact same one I saw in the Natural History Museum in London a few months back, and the pose is identical too.

[Drew]

 The thing is, the researchers don't even need cameras.

Wildlife officials can get a decent population estimate based on other things.

 

These are things that are tested in controlled environments, where an exact count is known.

 

There is a study in Canada where they knew exactly how many Elk were on an island, so they did aerial surveys, with different methods.

 

They took the count from the aerial surveys and now they know that if they fly the same pattern over an area they can use the data to extrapolate the actual population.

 

For example If they fly grid pattern A, with survey method B, they know that they multiply their result by X to get Population estimate.

 

 

They do the same things with carnivores except they use hair catchers and scat surveys.

 

In areas with known wolverine populations, they know that a bait placed out will recieve Y number of visits from the known number of wolverines.

 

In the Cascades they didn't get any hits, until the one guy showed up, his DNA which they collected from 20+ scats in the area, all from the same wolverine showed him to be from a long way away.  He was a migrant, or an Eruptor.

[BobbyO]

Are you talking about Isle Royale Drew ?

[Drew]

Isle Royale is in Michigan, but that is another example where Dr. Rolf Peterson knows the condition of the Carnivores based on his surveys and radio tracking.  He is a professor at the college I went to, I saw him talk several times about the Moose/Wolf relationship, and his tracking methods.

 

Canada has been doing most of the surveys I'm referring to.

Here is one that counts deer in Fenced in plots to get estimates. 

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2193/0091-7648(2004)032%5B1099:ASFWDW%5D2.0.CO%3B2

[BobbyO]

Michigan > Canada, same thing..