Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss The Bigfoots?

[Drew]

What would be better is a statistical chart related to time.

I would bet that most of the sightings in the 60's were in the PNW, and they didn't start getting large quantities of sightings in the Midwest, East and SE, until the legend got really rolling.

[Ronnie Bass]

What would be better is a statistical chart related to time.

I would bet that most of the sightings in the 60's were in the PNW, and they didn't start getting large quantities of sightings in the Midwest, East and SE, until the legend got really rolling.

Actually there is one done in a documentary I saw a few months ago on the History Channel and it was eye opening for sure, before the PGF it seemed like 90% of the eyewitness reports were located in the PNW, after it they started to spread across the country.

I'm trying to remember the documentary, it was two hours long and Jeff Meldrum was in it, but then again he is in all of them so that's not going to help much, lol.

EDIT: Found it: http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoologists/bigfoot-definitive-guide/

Edited May 6, 2011 by Ronnie Bass

[Guest CaptainMorgan]

Until we know what data they decided to use for those statistics, we have to take them with a grain of salt.

Match this against the BFRO sightings kml in Google Earth.

Just because sightings were not "reported" doesn't mean that they didn't happen, but that folks were more reluctant to make the reports with less fear of ridicule.

After it became something that was more widely talked about others were more willing to come forward.

I would bet that most of the sightings in the 60's were in the PNW, and they didn't start getting large quantities of sightings in the Midwest, East and SE, until the legend got really rolling.

Arent you really quoting the program "Bigfoot: The definitive Guide" from having already seen it?

Are you dismissing eye witness reports as folk lore and urban legend by masking report data as "legend"?

.

Edited May 6, 2011 by CaptainMorgan

[Drew]

Arent you really quoting the program "Bigfoot: The definitive Guide" from having already seen it?

Are you dismissing eye witness reports as folk lore and urban legend by masking report data as "legend"?

.

No- I can't quote too many Bigfoot programs

Yes - I believe the sightings were a product of the legend spreading across the country.

ETA- After clicking on Ronnie Bass' link, I did see that program, however, it is not as memorable as LMS or Monsterquest.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Drew

[Guest CaptainMorgan]

"ETA- After clicking on Ronnie Bass' link, I did see that program, however, it is not as memorable as LMS or Monsterquest."

I was 99% sure you has seen it, didn't bother to find the reference.

It sounds like you are on the Kit train with the false assumption that eye witness sighting reports are merely a social construct.

Would you deny that most legends, myths and social constructs are 3 person accounts about the boogie man etc.

In your assessment then, first person accounts are also all fabrications and any other anecdotal evidence such as associated tracks are also imagined and misinterpreted.

This would also be in direct conflict with reports from the East coast in to the Southern and Central US dating back to at least the 1800 of these sights.

Or perhaps social constructs come in waves. Do you have an applicable wave theory?

.

"ETA- After clicking on Ronnie Bass' link, I did see that program, however, it is not as memorable as LMS or Monsterquest."

I was 99% sure you had seen it, but I didn't bother to find the references.

It sounds like you are on the Kit train with the false assumption that eye witness sighting reports are merely a social construct.

Would you deny that most legends, myths and social constructs are 3rd person accounts passed on about the boogie man etc?

In your assessment then, first person accounts are also all fabrications and any other anecdotal evidence such as associated tracks are also imagined and misinterpreted.

This would also be in direct conflict with reports from the East coast in to the Southern and Central US dating back to at least the 1800's of these sights.

Or perhaps social constructs come in waves. Do you have an applicable wave theory?

[Guest]

Me too, but I don't know what statistical scrutiny really means in such a case. Some have made an effort to demonstrate that the great abundance of reports in the PNW is disproportionate to the number of people in the region, so they interpret the cluster of reports there as indicative of a real animal. Some make the same interpretation based on the correlation between bigfoot reports and land cover, e.g., bigfoot distribution reveals a real animal because it correlates well with something like topography or precipitation.

It's an argument from consistency with established norms. The more closely a distribution maps to an established natural pattern, the more likely it is to be the result of a natural cause, rather than an artificial one. It's the same line of argument from Fahrenbach's track trait analysis.

I don't see how those inferences rule out fabrications. To make a bigfoot story believable, you set it in a place where people think bigfoots live (e.g., the PNW) and in habitats that look wild enough to support such a creature, e.g., remote forests of high productivity which, in the PNW and just about everywhere else on the planet, are spatially autocorrelated with high precipitation. Viewed through this lens, it's actually the accounts from places not remote, forested, and PNWern that gain an air of credibility because they don't align with the traditional mythology.

This has got to be the biggest WTF I've heard yet. It goes entirely AGAINST the laws of statistical norms.

[Guest]

This has got to be the biggest WTF I've heard yet. It goes entirely AGAINST the laws of statistical norms.

Your statistical norms that could result from a real population of organisms are indistinguishable from those that would result from a specific cultural mythology.

[Old Dog]

OK, let me get this straight. This from the parks web site.

"Located in southwest Washington State, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest encompasses 1,368,300 acres and includes the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument established by Congress in 1982."

All those acres of land, and you expect that IF there is a Sasquatch running around out there that a few camera traps are going to capture an image of one. Also, the statement that in all those acres of land there exists only one Wolverine? See this is the problem I have with skeptics, their postulations are just as fantastical as the ones from the true believers. This will never be settled, and neither side will convince the other of their point, so why all the back and forth on this? I used to argue my point till I was blue in the face on the old forums, but came to realize it was all for naught. One is going to believe what they wish, and most have it so solidly fixed in their minds, both for and against, that argument is futile.

[Guest]

Your statistical norms that could result from a real population of organisms are indistinguishable from those that would result from a specific cultural mythology.

Sas, I thought you were better than this...the use of normative statistics is well proven and documented as being a reliable indicator of real world natural behavior. It is used by everyone from marketing organizations to design PR campaigns, to stores that design their product placement layouts from an analysis of shopping patterns to LEOs, who use it to track suspicious financial activity and information-based crimes.

In relation to wildlife trait distribution, the Bell curve is also well known and documented. A natural curve is strong evidence for a natural source, not an artificial source.

That's basic science.

[Guest]

Sas, I thought you were better than this...the use of normative statistics is well proven and documented as being a reliable indicator of real world natural behavior.

The distribution of a cultural meme results from "real world natural behavior."

Edited May 8, 2011 by Saskeptic

[Guest Grazhopprr]

How does anyone miss the BF's? Anything done by the fed or local natural services, is hamstrung by rules impeding their "employees" from discussing anything about BF, including any studies with game cams. There was a long term study about the crossing areas of I-90 east of the Snoqualmie Pass summit, for future crossing construction to avoid collisions with vehicles. I read the report when it was completed, and it stated nothing about BF. Go figure. They have to cross I-90 as much as any of the other critters that they caught on cam, or the track causing stations they created on either side of the highway. One of my own researches, involved the crossing areas of I-90, west of the summit. I haven't been able to go back there all last year from personal situations getting in the way, but it's still in the back of my mind for this year.

Might was well get it in your head, that the govt. institutions will not discuss BF, no matter the information they've gathered. For whatever reasons you can come up with. Use their studies to watch patterns of other animals, and you can postulate BF's movements all you want. Just have to stick with your own angles of the research, and ignore why the gov. doesn't come out with theirs.

[Guest]

I have in-depth conversations with state police (they handle wildlife/game law enforcement) and federal animal related forensic lab employess (high-level). The government restricting them from talking about bigfoot...hmmm, don't think so.

[gigantor]

It may be an implied restriction...

[Guest]

I'd rather not distract from the thread looking for squatching locations in Washington State, so I will move these posts here for discussion...

So we have scientists and forestry experts making a long-term concerted effort at documenting rare and elusive PNW mammals right smack in the middle of what is supposed to be Bigfoot Central and Bigfoot is MIA. Why is this?

a few thoughts on this:

1) They got funding for the study

2) Bigfoot is not strictly a carnivore

3) There are nowhere near as many BF in the the Cascades as there are in other parts of the Country.

That about sums it up for me. Big Dog is also on the money as a few camera traps in such a huge area are laughable. People reporting sightings are also very different from a plastic box strapped to a tree. Way more entertaining. Which do you think will attract more attention?

[kitakaze]

a few thoughts on this:

1) They got funding for the study

They'd get truckloads more if they had clear game cam images of giant bipedal apes in the GPNF. I'm showing the BFF real PNW wildlife biology and conservation science. Unexpected animals like Wildy the wolverine that lives on Mt. Adams are a massive benefit to those efforts because of the attention and increased funding they bring.

2) Bigfoot is not strictly a carnivore

That did not stop survey stations from recording all large mammals in the area, herbivores like deer and elk and omnivores like bears included. For bait the CCP used Canada goose, chicken, fish, road-kill deer, and winter-killed elk. Do all these things go off the Bigfoot menu when they fail to be documented on an extensive mammal detection array?

3) There are nowhere near as many BF in the the Cascades as there are in other parts of the Country.

Are you actually suggesting that Bigfoots are not as plentiful in the PNW as elswhere? The survey area is in the heart of the PNW in what is supposed to be Bigfoot Central - the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The park covers a territory that includes the counties of Skamania (which covers about 65% of the park), Lewis, Yakima, Cowlitz, Klickitat, and Clark, which account for 137 of the reports for Washington State on the BFRO. The monitoring areas of the CCP and GP Task Force include Mt. St. Helens (110,000 acre or 445 km²), Goat Rocks Wilderness (105,600 acres or 427 km²), Mt. Adams (47,420 acres or 191.3 km²), and Indian Heaven (20,400 acres or 82.6 km²). Indian Heaven as an example should be exactly where Bigfoot is with its abundance of fish and game as well as its fall yield of huckleberries.

That about sums it up for me. Big Dog is also on the money as a few camera traps in such a huge area are laughable. People reporting sightings are also very different from a plastic box strapped to a tree. Way more entertaining. Which do you think will attract more attention?

42 camera traps in total set in place since early 2008 in the best possible habitat for mammals in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Nine species of forest carnivore were surveyed with an average latency to detection period of 13.7 days between them. Half of the stations had a value for 11 days or less while the rest ranged from 43 and 66 days. All the large mammal species present were detected, including one species represented by only one animal, the wolverine, that was detected multiple times. In no case did any of the species take over a year to be detected and certainly not the three years the monitoring has been going on. This is not simply a few cameras strapped to trees randomly in the woods. It's a major effort that has been running for years with dozens of monitoring stations and researchers actively patrolling the forest for mammal sign and Bigfoot is nowhere to be found in all of it.

It's not a matter of considering the entire PNW and western Canada right up to Alaska. In terms of Indian Heaven, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Goat Rocks Wilderness, the failure of the extensive monitoring efforts in those areas over the last three years is a strong indicator that there are no Bigfoots to be found in those areas.