Does Scent Really Matter?

[Painthorse]

I'm curious about what other peoples opinions are on human scent when placing cams or walking onto a possible game trail that is possibly bigfoot related. Especially if the critter is possibly coming onto a humans property that is obviously saturated with human scent.

Here's my scenario for wanting opinions. In the past we had quite a bit of activity here, both visuals, vocals, rocks thrown, cabin slammed, huge hand print on window over 7 foot up, horses spooking cats being killed, missing, etc. Then it all just QUIT, NADA! The last few years has been DEAD other than the cat issue but had chalked that down to the coyote issue. Most of the activity was coming from the north side of the property that includes an old closed off road. My back property that the cabin sits on abuts it. My front yard "drops off" litteraly to the old road, the cabin sits approximately 80 from the drop off. When your in the cabin or in the yard you cannot see what's down into the old road area. On the other side of the road it goes into a downward slope 1/4 of a mile until it gets to the creek. VERY THICK foliage along the road. Now, back when we had the activity there were 3 "voids" in the tree line with large game trails. The last couple of years they never appeared.

-----> So, in the last week our inside dogs have gone nuts, barking, growling, rushing up and jumping onto the doors, my big female jumped "on top of me" while I was on the couch to look out the window, not normal behavior. My horses are spooking like fools, one cat gone and twice we smelled what we thought was a bear. <Still could be a bear> BUT when I was chasing down one of my hens to throw her into the stall for the night I noticed that a new void had opened up in the tree line across the road with a very evident game trail and it comes up right into my yard. The vegetation, a good 2 foot in diameter is all mashed down.

When standing at that location and looking back towards the cabin "you cannot see the window" all you could see is the eve. I wanted to go down and look for tracks but the husband said no to keep my scent out of there. BUT he said he wanted to place the cams in the yard. I told him that it didn't make sense about the scent because if it is a bigfoot and it's coming up onto the property the area is saturated with human scent. So if there is even the slimmest chance that we have b/f activity starting up again after all this time I want to maximize my chances of getting something solid. Opinions please, how would you handle this situation if this was your opportunity? I will be placing the cams tomorrow. Below are some pics of the void and game trail, the old road, the matted down area and the view from the location facing the location and back to the cabin.

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

The TBRC used scent during their 5 year camera trap operation and they didn't manage to get a single photo of one. I don't think it's so much a scent issue as it is a game cam issue. They apparently avoid areas where game cams are placed.

 

Assuming your experiences are legit, the activity you claim to have experienced in the past sounds a lot like territorial aggression. There must have been a bunch of them living nearby if they were throwing rocks and hitting the cabin.

 

Getting actual photos and videos of Bigfoot is one of the most sought after things in this field, except it never really happens. It's possible to make it happen though. If you can predict when you'll have a visual encounter, you might be able to get good footage using a regular camera. The encounters don't last long so you might have to keep the camera on ahead of time. 

[BigTreeWalker]

I believe you are talking about human scent contamination. Since there's no consensus on how well bigfoot can smell, I would err on the safe side an not go into the area below the cabin.

Place the cameras somewhere on the cabin. It is reported they do constantly come close to human habitations. Even with all our smells, electronics and light pollution. All this may help to conceal the camera from their notice.

If nothing else it could act as a bigfoot repellant! ;-)

[BobbyO]

I would have thought it matters a hell of a lot.

For modern humans, our strength at smelling things has diminished in general, certainly in the western world anyway as our need for it diminishes as we completely dominate.

In the animal kingdom though, that's not the case.

Humans are the smelliest creatures on earth then when adding in clothing and alien sprays and lotions which linger for days, we aren't playing hide and seek with anyone in the woods if they don't want to play with us.

However, my belief if that the vast majority of Sasquatch encounters are by chance anyway.

They generally steer clear of humans, they must do, and they must be able to steer clear of humans largely because of scent amongst other things.

[JDL]

We don't know how well they smell, but it seems from accounts that they take their own scent into account when hunting.  Driving from upwind and ambushing from downwind.  But I don't think this is uncommon in the animal kingdom as a whole, so it might not be that remarkable.

 

There have also been accounts of violent reactions when people urinate in certain areas.  This could be either a territorial or a dominance response, but if the location in which one urinates is significant to them, that may indicate that they can detect the lingering scent of urine (and other things), and that scents are significant to them.

 

There is also the possibility that gender-specific scents are provocative to them and may encourage certain behaviors.

 

Where safety is concerned, I think it is reasonable to assume that they can smell well.  Think of it in terms of the way we hear.  In areas you frequent there will be a clutter of lingering scents (lots of background noise), so it will be more difficult for them to pick out newer scents getting closer to the source.  In the woodline, away from the immediate vicinity of your home, your lingering scent may be more apparent to them.

[Guest]

A modern human "been in the woods for a couple of days" nose is 10x more sensitive than a city nose, or even a country home nose (cooking etc scents will dull it). Myself, out of pollen season, I can scent things up to a couple of hundred yards upwind after I've been out there a few hours, and I wouldn't say I have a particularly exceptional sense of smell (Though I know a lot of people that seem to barely have one). Also modern special forces are cautious about scents due to possibility of getting sniffed out by the locals.

 

Just a pointer that modern life dulls our senses of smell drastically, so just a "full genetic potential" sapiens sense of smell would seem like a superpower to the average city dweller, though it would not be as good as that of a regular mutt. However, there are some human trackers who claim to be able to pick up a fresh scent trail. Ergo, assume they can smell you easily if you don't take precautions, and assume they will smell you if you take precautions but have made them suspicious (i.e. they are actively smelling for you, rather than what they might passively catch in passing) 

[Foxfire]

*Some animals tend to know where human scent belongs and adjust their behavior accordingly, but put it where they know it DOESN'T normally belong, and it's a definite alarm. I'd stay out of the lower area.

[Painthorse]

Thank you all for the responses. So, I will stay out of the void area and just focus on the yard. By the way I keep my horse sweet feed and hay in that white horse trailer and there is no back door so it's open and 3 feet behind that is the garage / barn. I'm thinking of trying to place one of the cams on the trailer hitch facing where the trail comes up into the yard. I wish I had a way to put the other one up on the eve of the garage. The trees I had in that area have been cleared out so I don't have much choice other than the power pole. This is the same general area where I got the pic of my avatar but that was back in 2009 but most believe it's my guinea hen. BUT "IF" this is the beginning of b/f activity it's starting out the same way and that's why we originaly set the cam out there in 2009 trying to figure out was stealing the eggs, cats, etc. The only thing that has changed since then was that I was keeping the feed and hay in one of the open garage bays that has since been turned into a stall.

SO, if this is actually the beginning of activity again I want to maximize my chances of getting something significant. We also have surveillance cameras with IR and audio but in order to view that area we would have to move the horse trailer and don't know if <if it is actually b/f related> moving it would put up a red flag if we move what is covering the void zone.

That's one of the things that is interesting to me is the "location" of where the trail comes up into the yard. "It is obscured" by the horse trailer, it's a blind spot to the cabin window. It could just be a coincidence but....it does make you kind of think that something may be intelligent enough to avoid the line of sight.

So the next question would be to bait or not to bait?

Here's another issue that keeps us scratching our heads. We have over 15 chickens that are "free roaming" they go into the woods, they are all over the place. They are in my opinion the easiest prey, can't really fly, can't run fast, can't climb trees but as of yet we've only lost maybe 3 to 4 chickens in the last couple of years. The cats are faster, can climb trees, have less meat ratio than a chicken, basically stay within the yard area and have lost/killed more than a dozen. Have lost up to 5 in one week. What we have left have been staying on the front steps at night up at our front door under the light and stare towards that area.

I stayed up until almost 3am this morning and didn't hear or see anything, the dogs never went off but when the husband came in this morning from taking the dogs out he said that something was still lurking because of the way the dogs and cats were acting outside, so we'll see if this keeps up and if anything else happens.

[BigTreeWalker]

Sounds like you've got it figured out pretty well. Moving the trailer probably wouldn't be a good idea. The best bait is probably just you two in the cabin.

Lost a lot of cats to coyotes around my place. Must be a favorite coyote snack.

Your avatar is sure an interesting looking Guinea Fowl. Looks like a baby chimp to me.

[Painthorse]

BTW, ya I guess just leave things the way they are. Just trying to figure out the best way to get something better than that previous pic. Just not good enough. That cam was set to take still shots, if I had it set to video there would be better answers to what it was. Both cams that I am setting out will be set on video, no more guessing games.

The yotees are a BIG issue, but for the life of me I just can't figure out why they haven't picked off my chickens instead of the cats, so maybe your right on the cat vs chicken being a favorite snack.

I just took this pic looking out of my living room window on how that location looks from inside.

There is an area back behind the rear horse paddock that abuts to that old road. The horses have been doing some major spooking back there also. I have deer come up to that fence and graze and the horses don't pay any attention to them so I don't believe they are spooking at the deer. I am going to walk the area behind that paddock but not on the road side and see if I can find anything.

[WSA]

Why whack the cats and not the hens? Just a w.a.g., but hens are a great alarm system, as you probably know, and might have value to a furtive critter like a BF. Cats just slink around and are not at all useful. Plus, they might taste really, really good. (Apparently, not "just like chicken" either) 

[Guest JiggyPotamus]

I think it all depends on what the sasquatch is doing. If it is simply going about its business and does not want to have a run-in with a human, perhaps it would be more likely to avoid any signs of a human presence. If however the animal was coming onto your property in search of food, as you said there are human scents all over the place, meaning that the sasquatch would just be ignoring them. Likely because it realizes that humans are there much of the time, but that they are not there at that moment, and that it can safely do whatever it wishes to do. Given the plethora of events that have occurred on your property I think it is entirely possible you are dealing with a sasquatch, but I think it should first be assumed that this is not the case.

 

Assume the worst first, because then you will be prepared. For instance, assume it is a dangerous bear instead of a bigfoot, so you are not caught by surprise and eaten by that bear. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times...A bear is more likely than a bigfoot to eat us. Anyway, I have often pondered the sasquatch sense of smell. There have been a couple of reports in which the eyewitness saw a sasquatch sniffing the air like a dog might do, which certainly implies that it utilizes its sense of smell to some degree. But a human might do this as well, if that person caught a whiff of something and was trying to gather more information via smell. So even smelling the air tells us nothing about how good their sense of smell actually is. It also makes more sense that a wild animal would rely on all its senses, unlike humans who have no real need to maintain 100% awareness at all times. Perhaps bigfoot cannot even distinguish human smells. Humans cannot really smell other humans' natural scents. Would bigfoot with a better sense of smell have had some advantage over those of its species who did not, and thereby crowd them out of the overall population through breeding over an extended period of time? It is possible I suppose, although I think that due to the many advantages a bigfoot has over all other wild animals, having a good sense of smell is not essential.

 

I have always advocated that a person masks their scent, as well as the scents of anything they are carrying, when setting up game cameras or doing any type of field research involving potential sasquatch contact. This is a better solution than assuming that smell will not play a part in determining where a bigfoot goes or does not go. Control as many variables as possible I say.

[Painthorse]

Definitely Jig, bear and large cats are definitely here, numerous bears on the cams. I am now being extra cautious before going into the trailer to get my feed. We had a bear tear up one of our deer feeders so I know the damage to a human can be lethal.

Have one cam set on the flat be trailer hitch on the other side of the horse trailer pointed towards where the trail comes up into the yard. This cam when triggered will take one still shot and them immediately record 10 seconds of video. Have to get batteries for the second cam when I retrieved the batteries were dead, so one cam set to go.

[Sunflower]

Your avatar is sure an interesting looking Guinea Fowl. Looks like a baby chimp to me.

 

Lol, I told her the same thing a few years ago.  Another friend took one that has a similar chimp look.

[Painthorse]

^Ya Sun, lol, I know it's not a guinea fowl, that's why I'm trying like sin to get video. Hoping this is an opportunity. I did something kind of stupid, the inside dogs were going nuts again and my husband scoped the area but couldn't see squat. The one dog that is the most aggressive was doing the window thing, barking, growling, staring at a specific area, the husband scoped it and again didn't see squat. So I opened the door and out she flew, straight towards where she was growling at, same place that my husband didn't see squat with the scope, right through the back paddock and into the woods and then not a sound. I was screaming like an idiot to get her to come back and when she did all was good, no more oddness with the dogs through the night. This morning the horses started acting up but not the dogs. Sooo, I'm really starting to get annoyed, lol.