Has Bigfoot Science Stalled?

[BobbyO]

 

 

My research here has been a bit frustrating for my target area which is why I thought you "locals" might have better luck finding animal sighting/monitoring info between say exit 52 to maybe exit 59 on I-5? For me anyway the route from Mt. St Helens to the Pacific and/or northward lies South of Toledo not North.  

 

Maybe it is H, maybe it is, but i'm adamant that there is a population of them a little further north just as there might be in the GPNF area where you are talking of in general. 

 

I don't think we are taking of a mass migration of hundreds of animals all across the South Cascades Geographical Zone. I think we're talking about little groups moving for whatever reason towards or from the Olympic Peninsula and the numbers seem to suggest that this happens, a little further north than what you're saying, in the Spring time.

 

This may coincide with the lack of South Cascade Geographical Zone reports in the Winter and sees animals returning to there from the Olympic Peninsula in Spring, or it might see animals going to the Olympic Peninsula for what could be mating purposes.

 

Small populations of any animal would have to travel fair size distances to find mates and as per what some locals in that general area have gone on record in saying, their belief due to certain factors including extreme vocalizations that don't happen at any other time of year, is that Sasquatches do mate in the general area south of the Capitol State Forest.

 

Of course what i've written may be well wide of the mark and we're nowhere near on the right track, but i will always side with what the numbers are telling us and will always attempt to look to breaking them down and finding genuine, logical reasoning for them. where possible

[BobbyO]

Hmmm. I've often, and I mean OFTEN, wondered if what I had said before a few posts back could be somewhat true. That what we have for sightings is somehow filtered to draw our attention away from what is. It's like when I hear a politician speak I focus more on what ISN'T being said. I cannot help but think that could be the case here too. In other words, what we don't see may be more important than what we do. The focus on I-90 taking center stage being a case in point. Sure that animal bridge is great and it's also very important but it seems that there is just too much about it's press and internet coverage. For the subject of our interest the diversion may be  very telling.  

 

In truth I really have looked very closely at possible pinch points with great care. Some of the suggestions here are pretty good but since animals are nothing if not habitual and efficient in their activities I haven't been too swayed by many other pinch points. Many times I have zeroed Google Earth in on what might be available and then zoomed out to carefully look at the surrounding terrain on both sides if I-5. I think you will agree there's not much in the way of safe and secluded crossings spots. My focus has been on the Southern Cascades around Mt St. Helens as you know and I just don't see anything that shows me a better way to Gray's Harbor, Aberdeen or northward into the Olympics so I think we have a winner to the South of Toledo.

 

There is one and only one problem that I can see about that though and that is researcher access without the researchers themselves getting monitored. That could be a touchy and very real possibility. Maybe some added dialogue on how to approach that might be good- although NOT discussing it may be even better.

 

H, if between us all we've got it down to three potential crossing points in this stretch of the I-5 then fear not about who's on the money and who's not as we all are and have got there between us and it's happy days all round.

 

We've done that through good correspondence and intelligent discussion.

 

But as always in anything, it's all about how the end game is executed.

 

I agree with everything you say about the monitoring stuff too.

[hiflier]

Thank you for the encouraging comments. And yes, no one can do this alone. I found this a few minutes ago because I haven't finished digging into this subject. I'm reading through it now- looks interesting:

 

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/777.1.pdf

Edited June 20, 2016 by hiflier

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

Edited June 20, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[hiflier]

I don't see a thing about I-5.......strange. At least it is to me. It would appear from the paper then that there is absolutely no concern regarding animals crossing I-5. Again, what? no animals South of Olympia, Tacoma, or Toledo that want to get from one side of I-5 to the other? This is turning even more interesting.

[BobbyO]

Haha I just flicked through also and noticed there wasn't anything. Some info on the 90 again and bits in Oregon close enough by, by nothing on the 5.

Got enough Elk in this area to warrant something in the way of safe passage anyway.

Looks to me however that our three crossing points are represented here too ?

Edited June 20, 2016 by BobbyO

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

What areas is everyone looking for maps for?

In scientific methods I gave a method for loading topo maps on google earth this week.

I have a shape file in a zip file I can email if anyone wants to load it in QGIS or ArcGIS labeled by year and month.

It is BFRO class a sightings data.

In QGIS you can load a bing, google, or other image layer.

If you want hi res imagery and topo try out JOSM (download) it is a java based editor for openstreetmap but has hi res layers for

imagery in the usgs large scale imagery, topo layer and USFS forest service roads layer.

Give it all a whirl, you can even do some mapping to an open source database.

JOSM is pretty easy to use for visualizing.

Topo on google earth is pretty handy as well.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[georgerm]

The map below shows possible Oregon travel routes of bigfoot when crossing I-5. This highway is four lanes of solid  fast traffic. Some bigfoots probably knows how, when, and where to cross while others are impeded.

 

Does the highway prevent migrations or mate seeking?

 

What are the effects on bigfoot populations?

 

My theories are running thin as to why bigfoot would want to cross the highway to begin with.

 

The areas by the red arrows are densely forested  and have many reported BFRO sightings. It would be cool to show dots where there have been sightings. This would be quite a university science endeavor and interesting.

[BigTreeWalker]

Thank you for the encouraging comments. And yes, no one can do this alone. I found this a few minutes ago because I haven't finished digging into this subject. I'm reading through it now- looks interesting:

 

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/777.1.pdf

Hiflier, after reading that or at least skimming it (long report), you are right, there is little to no mention of I-5 in that report. It is surely an impediment to larger animals.

Haha I just flicked through also and noticed there wasn't anything. Some info on the 90 again and bits in Oregon close enough by, by nothing on the 5.

Got enough Elk in this area to warrant something in the way of safe passage anyway.

Looks to me however that our three crossing points are represented here too ?

image.jpeg

There is one we have discussed that is obviously missing, the Nisqually river. After reading the report hiflier posted it appears elk have problems with everything but the largest open structures. So the obvious location of that crossing on the portion of I-5 just south of the Chehalis area is the Cowlitz river bridge crossing.

[daveedoe]

The I-5 corridor is very populated except for the area north on Castle Rock WA to just south of Chehalis WA. that would be the most likely crossing for any Bigfoot's if they did decide to cross I-5 in my opinion. Plenty of forested area from the foothills of the cascades to the coast range. The crossing would have to be at night. Just to much daytime traffic.

 

I have never done any research but I just assumed Bigfoot families would not range across I-5. The coast Bigfoot families separate  from the Cascade Families. 

 

On Bobby's map I checked off / on the layers to see from one set years to the next set of years, It appears as a group may be in an area for a time then move. It does appear to me each might be the same family in the same areas over the years.

 

Good thread. 

Edited June 20, 2016 by daveedoe

[hiflier]

Yes, BTW, the report mentions that Elk seem to prefer wide openings even if they are not very tall as opposed to the other way round. Could be a reaction to being preyed upon via ambushes. Good thoughts too, daveedoe, about families and extended families/clans. My focus has not been on road surface crossings as much as under-bridge/culvert crossings which could be day or night if good cover is available along the route either side of the highway for a few hundred feet at least.

 

Cryptic Megafauna, I like where you're going with the from the software angle. The reason is that this discussion is really narrowing things down to a manageable level where searching isn't over thousands of square miles and in difficult terrain or places that are inaccessible. This may help to bring it all closer to home and at a level that may be easier. It does make good sense that movement even over a distance of a hundred miles will have to have at least some safety where Human structures and/or barriers exist. If the layering software you've been speaking of can be brought to bear on the issue as well then those patterns of movement may become more defined. Even 30-40 miles either side of that highway may hold a group that has been moving back and forth at will and also may utilize those access points in winter for ambushing or even just watching for game.  

 

As seasons change along with the food supply and therefore elevation factors movement back and forth between mountains and valleys could become a real issue at these pinch points. What's good about I-5 is that there aren't but a hand full of possibilities and of those possibilities only a couple may be all that's really employed depending on natural or manmade upheavals. On Google Earth I was looking at one area and moving a slider back and forth to see the history of vegetation in a given are over time. Doing that for the different locations may shed some light on why sightings seem to move around some. One area showed logging and is now growing back. Good information if we can figure a way to use it. Some images only go up to 2012- 4 years ago and we know that nature doesn't stop growing so some areas may have even more foliage today than what the images are showing. I think when looking it may be good to note the year of the images in the GE program.

Edited June 20, 2016 by hiflier

[hiflier]

Interesting tidbit from the report: at the mile post 29 culvert on I-90 bears used the culvert as a crossing point in the daytime 60% of the time. This was over a 120 day period in which 31 bears were detected using the access. What comes to mind here is in regard to Elk. The question I have is that bears, other than a sow with cubs, are solitary animals but Elk are herd animals so how large are the groups that pass through a large passage way in the areas that they live in? Two? Five? Ten? Thirty? And at what time of year? I think we need someone on the inside at the WA DOT to help answer some of this. Too bad we can't find a student at a university somewhere who's going into that field that we could "groom" to help us out once they are "in the system"

Edited June 20, 2016 by hiflier

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

Yes, BTW, the report mentions that Elk seem to prefer wide openings even if they are not very tall as opposed to the other way round. Could be a reaction to being preyed upon via ambushes. Good thoughts too, daveedoe, about families and extended families/clans. My focus has not been on road surface crossings as much as under-bridge/culvert crossings which could be day or night if good cover is available along the route either side of the highway for a few hundred feet at least.

 

Cryptic Megafauna, I like where you're going with the from the software angle. The reason is that this discussion is really narrowing things down to a manageable level where searching isn't over thousands of square miles and in difficult terrain or places that are inaccessible. This may help to bring it all closer to home and at a level that may be easier. It does make good sense that movement even over a distance of a hundred miles will have to have at least some safety where Human structures and/or barriers exist. If the layering software you've been speaking of can be brought to bear on the issue as well then those patterns of movement may become more defined. Even 30-40 miles either side of that highway may hold a group that has been moving back and forth at will and also may utilize those access points in winter for ambushing or even just watching for game.  

 

As seasons change along with the food supply and therefore elevation factors movement back and forth between mountains and valleys could become a real issue at these pinch points. What's good about I-5 is that there aren't but a hand full of possibilities and of those possibilities only a couple may be all that's really employed depending on natural or manmade upheavals. On Google Earth I was looking at one area and moving a slider back and forth to see the history of vegetation in a given are over time. Doing that for the different locations may shed some light on why sightings seem to move around some. One area showed logging and is now growing back. Good information if we can figure a way to use it. Some images only go up to 2012- 4 years ago and we know that nature doesn't stop growing so some areas may have even more foliage today than what the images are showing. I think when looking it may be good to note the year of the images in the GE program.

One thing about dates is often it is the last time an algorithm processed the imagery for increased accuracy and not the date the image was taken.

With the PNW file that loads the dates you can see trends over time such as sequential sightings along a mountain ridge as the years change.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

PS a study you could do is find a region of interest say a watershed, mountain range, anything that forms a natural bigfoot regions that family groups or the same individuals might be sighted repeatedly as they move.

Group sightings by year in a GIS system, find the centroid to the grouped sightings, and find the trend of centroid movement over the years. That would give you an accurate idea of population movement of related groups.

Of course since you are not in reality tracking verifiably it would not be pure science but a way to look deeper into the pattern.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[hiflier]

That too is a good approach and it certainly would look deeper AND wider into the problem But in hindsight, looking at the idea of animal passageways under roads there's one thing that could be said. And that is that one doesn't need to worry if the BF report data is skewed because a couple of witnesses mistook or lied about what they had seen. Culverts, bridges, and other similar structures are real world artifacts. They are known barriers but they do have different sized and shaped accesses under them which allow animals to flow through. And it is a fact that animals DO flow through them. Question then: does Sasquatch flow through them too?

 

Depending on the size and construction and congestion of/on the road or highway there may only be very limited places where the flow actually happens. Now as helpful as software is there's no learning curve when it comes to simply taking a drive to a culvert because one knows it could have a chance of being a good access point for Sasquatch to maneuver unseen- day or night. And if there is ample protective cover on both sides of the road then it's even better. And there are more factors too that might make some locations more likely than others. Software notwithstanding there's nothing like hands on, boots on the ground field work the at the end of the day to offer the best chance for discovery. I only say that because we Humans have built structures that animals must navigate somehow- somewhere. All we need at this point is to know where that "somewhere" is and if possible just keep an eye on it.

Edited June 21, 2016 by hiflier