BigTreeWalker Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 Been out about a dozen times in the last couple years. Been knocked at in two different locations, found tracks in two different locations, found two bone stacks miles apart, and been growled at (not sure what that was ). Now all I need is a sighting. That would be icing on the cake. But, I would be OK with more of the aforementioned. 1
SWWASAS Posted January 31, 2016 BFF Patron Posted January 31, 2016 (edited) I don't think it takes a genius to understand that with increased presence in an area there will be increased odds of an encounter. My question is actually quite simple. Who, except the unemployed or retired, has a few days every week to be searching? How many married people, who wish to stay out of divorce court, are going to be out in the woods a few times every week? Answer....nobody. You have a good point and my observations of researchers who have been at it a very long time seem to confirm your divorce court allegations. Some that have understanding spouses avoid that. But those that move on, find partners that are as into BF research as they are. We all make life choices and if BF research becomes too high a priority, relationships often pay the price. In my posting I implied that it was all pure chance. Certainly chance is involved but I started research looking at clusters of sightings and visiting each sighting location. By going where activity had been previously reported, trying to determine what BF were up to when sighted and guessing where they might have been headed, I sort of vectored in on the active area. That may have increased the chances for contact. Intuition and hunches are not a bad thing. Finding an active area and just sitting around is not a bad tactic either. But I find that boring and you certainly are not likely to find many footprints that way. If nothing else footprints are an indicator you are in an active area. Edited January 31, 2016 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT 1
Explorer Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 Wiiawiwb and SWWASP, I agree with you both. The odds are long and most people don't have that kind of free time to spend looking. Moreover, spending lots of time searching for BF is no guarantee. I recall reading about Cliff Barackman spending full summers camping in Bluff Creek Area (Six Rivers NF) and other places in Oregon (when he was unemployed or in job transition) and he did not have a sighting. I also recall reading about researchers from the 80's and 90's who went deep into the WA forests (Olympic and Cascades) for weeks on end and got no hits. It makes me wonder about the futility of that full immersion strategy (spending 2-3 months in a hot-spot looking does not seem to be a high payout option). Certainly it is not good if you are married or have family and work commitments. Of course, there are exceptions like the Rory Zoerb story who went to Bluff Creek and got his personal encounter (there is a BFF discussion topic about that story). http://www.bigfootencounters.com/stories/rzoerb.htm Then you have the Bluff Creek camera project and the Olympic project that have close to 365/24/7 deployment of cameras in hot spots and they don't pick up anything. How can a human beat that availability in the field? The NAWAC experience, where BF comes to them and most of their 40+ visual sightings happened around their main cabin is bizarre and not common (specially when it happened year after year). Nonetheless, it supports the belief that you don't go finding BF, BF finds you.
SWWASAS Posted January 31, 2016 BFF Patron Posted January 31, 2016 There are no guarantees. Peter Byrne has spent his lifetime looking and never had a sighting. Cliff has not either as I remember. But both have found footprints and other evidence. I found one footprint that was so fresh that dirt was still falling down the sides of he impression. A couple of minutes earlier I could have had a sighting. So they have had similar chance but bad timing like I did in that case. Then there are the methods and sighting reports. Bluff Creek may be holy ground for BF researchers but is it really that active?. I suspect that the area is overrun with BF researchers in the summer and any BF in the area are very elusive or just move away. I have never been in the field with Cliff. We have talked but he barely knows me. I do not know if he uses the same methods away from the "Finding bigfoot" show that he uses in the show. I have been pretty vocal about what I think is wrong with the methods used on the show and by a lot of BFRO people in general. Too much of what they do is promoted by "experts" who really have no scientific basis for what they are doing. Much of it flies in the face of logic and of what successful deer and elk hunters do in the field. Successful hunters do not wander around in groups making a lot of noise. If one of your objectives is to get video or photographs of a BF in the field, why in the world would you emphasize night investigations? Night video or photography is very difficult. If you insert yourself into a non active area you could indeed spend months and never have a contact. And once you are there, even if BF was there when you got there, they will observe your behavior, and it becomes pretty easy for them to avoid you if that behavior is predictable. They could get very tired of avoiding you, and their restricted movement during daylight hours, and by moving several miles away, they have solved their avoidance problem. So static presence in an area may be less effective relative to days spent in the field getting contact, than periodic insertion into their active area and spending less days doing it. Yes you can wait for BF to find you. But for that to happen you have to insert yourself into a location where they are active and wait for them to find you and make a mistake and show themselves. I prefer to make it easier for them to make mistakes by trying to have them unsure of where I am as much as possible. What I do may not work for others but it has for me. 2
Explorer Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 Out of the 610 BFRO reports in Washington, 219 are Class A quality. Of these Class A reports, only 3 were obtained from people who were actually looking for BF. The rest were just random encounters. Thus, looking for BF in hot spots does not have zero probability. But as SWWASP noted, the low odds will increase if you know that the area is indeed a hot spot and the last 2 reports indicate that the BFRO folks who were involved knew the area had potential. Nonetheless, how many BFRO expeditions and research trips have occurred over the last 20 years in WA with no visual sighting to report? I guess thousands and thousands of man hours. Below are the 3 BFRO Class A reports in WA from people that were searching for BF (that I am aware of). 2002, in the Cascades near Randle, WA (Skamania County) http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_report.asp?id=4779 2007, east of Mt. Rainier in the Wenatchee National Forest (Bart Cutino’s thermal image) (Yakima County) http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=26065 2012, near Morton, (Lewis County) http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=35812
BigTreeWalker Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 I can understand how bigfooting could affect a marriage. Especially if a person becomes driven by it. In my case my wife encouraged me to be out, because it's something my son and I do together. She doesn't mind going for a drive now and then but she would rather let my son and I do the tramping around the woods. I work four on and four off and he's self employed with a flexible schedule. So all in all it works out great. Explorer, Clark and Cowlitz counties are also in that cluster of counties you mentioned. Although some of the Cowlitz County sightings were actually in Skamania County. Some of the BFRO reports aren't very good at getting the county right. And there have also been some class A reports in those two counties as well. Being a hunter as well as a biologist I look for animal sign whenever I'm in the outdoors. Tracks, scat, sign of feeding, etc. It is no different for bigfoot. If they are in the area you may find some sign of their passing. Whether they migrate or not, I don't know. But I do know that they move around through large areas. Much the same as many other apex predators do. Those that wonder why you can't track a bigfoot to confrontation aren't familiar with the problems encountered when tracking any animal. I've followed cougars for miles on hiking trails to lose them when they jump from the trail to a log and disappear into the forest. I plan to continue has I have. Some of my work is in the field. Some of it is at my computer or face to face to encourage interest in what we have found. I can understand why there are so few field science Phd's out there. They just don't have the time. And they go where the money is, which isn't in this field.
Redbone Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 Nonetheless, how many BFRO expeditions and research trips have occurred over the last 20 years in WA with no visual sighting to report? I guess thousands and thousands of man hours. I can't speak specifically to what is going on in Washington but there are other factors. Sightings, encounters, wood knocks, and track finds that happen on BFRO expeditions and scouting trips don't end up as public BFRO reports. If public, those reports could expose locations that the BFRO would prefer not to disclose. To find out all that happens during those trips you either need to read through the public BFRO Expedition reports where location is not specified, or be a part of the actual expedition. Here is a link to past expedition reports. http://s2.excoboard.com/BFRO/150505 It seems that not every expedition gets a report. I suppose it depends on the organizer.
Lake County Bigfooot Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 (edited) My suggestion is that you incorporate research into more daily routines, if you walk, then plan to walk near rivers or streams in the area. If you ride bikes, well that is about the same trails. Record in areas close to home, as I do often. Best of all, move to a home that abuts a wilderness area, this does not have to be a huge wilderness, or even strictly a true wilderness. I live on a marsh close to a river and I have had activity around my property. I think you would be surprised where these creatures will venture, many reports occur just outside of towns and slightly further out on the edges of large cities. My area has had repeated sightings at about 50 miles distance from Chicago, with many even closer to that in the large forest preserves of the south, some sightings in developing suburbs that still had farms and streams available. Start thinking outside the box, it is not always on some mountain, or in some vast wilderness that these creatures can be found, food, water, and cover, these are the only requirements, and cover can be darkness as well. I plan on proving bigfoot exists only to myself and in my situation, having a sighting, finding prints, and more recording evidence. As far as the world knowing, well I will leave that to those who might be after a specimen, without actually seeing the creature, you first have to prove to yourself that they actually exist, and that is my priority. If I can find solid print evidence I will be convinced to a much greater degree about their presence in my area. I had a very amazing vocal encounter, and one I think must be pretty rare, a juvenile going off whooping, and nothing you could confuse with a canine, it was purely primate, so much so you might think human, but it was not a human being running around whooping in my marsh after some fireworks. Then 8 days later the same individual, and I mean I knew it was the very same individual, whoooooeeeeep whoooooeeep, and then a deep response from farther into the woodline, whooooooo whoooooo, this was right in my yard, which also has a nice apple tree. When you hear them it will not be a question, because it is something you have absolutely never heard before, and it will astonish you to no end. Then you start recording and turn up woodknocking and other strange vocalizations, well it becomes more and more convincing that they are using an area. My suggestion is to think locally if that is at all a possibility. Illinois, and unlikely state, few trees per acre, and far less hills or mountains, and yet it is in the top 4 states in the country for sightings, figure that one out, but equate the steams and farms and deer presence, and bingo.... Edited January 31, 2016 by Lake County Bigfooot 1
Oonjerah Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 My hiking-camping days are way-long over; I don't miss them. ARMchair Footer here. If I am in the woods & BF is near, my assumption is that he knows I am there and where as soon as I'm within his hearing. His backyard, he's far more aware of me than I am of him. Dad taught me to fish, not with lures or flies, but with bait. Salmon egg, worm. Fish like those. I've heard that BF are usually hungry. I've read on BFF that habituators often gift them food. Smelly food hanging where BF can reach it? Will one of you enlighten me about this? Is it standard practice?
Explorer Posted January 31, 2016 Posted January 31, 2016 Nonetheless, how many BFRO expeditions and research trips have occurred over the last 20 years in WA with no visual sighting to report? I guess thousands and thousands of man hours. I can't speak specifically to what is going on in Washington but there are other factors. Sightings, encounters, wood knocks, and track finds that happen on BFRO expeditions and scouting trips don't end up as public BFRO reports. If public, those reports could expose locations that the BFRO would prefer not to disclose. To find out all that happens during those trips you either need to read through the public BFRO Expedition reports where location is not specified, or be a part of the actual expedition. Here is a link to past expedition reports. http://s2.excoboard.com/BFRO/150505 It seems that not every expedition gets a report. I suppose it depends on the organizer. Redbone, One statistic that I would love for BFRO to publish, is the % of BFRO expeditions (public and private) that had Class A visual sighting (at least by one person) in the last 20 years. There is no need to disclose location. Two of the cases listed above did not disclose location. Therefore desire to keep location secret does not prevent BFRO from publishing good reports. Or how about the number of visual sightings obtained per man-hours of field work for all their expeditions (private and/or public) in a given state. It does not take much to reach thousands of man hours given that many of the BFRO expeditions have 30 people looking around for 3 days for at least 12 hour (that is 1080 man hours). I understand your point that there are also reports of footprints, whoops, weird sounds, wood-knocks, etc, but the question at hand is how to get confirmation of their reality with a visual sighting that is unambiguous. I am sure the stats will look ugly and that is why the are not published. However, that should not surprise anybody, because we all know that the odds of visually seeing one these creatures by just going into a forest is very low. BTW, this is not a negative comment on going on BFRO expeditions. They still have many pluses as you listed above. People just need to be realistic about expectations.
ShadowBorn Posted February 1, 2016 Moderator Posted February 1, 2016 Being a hunter as well as a biologist I look for animal sign whenever I'm in the outdoors. Tracks, scat, sign of feeding, etc. It is no different for bigfoot. If they are in the area you may find some sign of their passing. Whether they migrate or not, I don't know. But I do know that they move around through large areas. Much the same as many other apex predators do. Those that wonder why you can't track a bigfoot to confrontation aren't familiar with the problems encountered when tracking any animal. I've followed cougars for miles on hiking trails to lose them when they jump from the trail to a log and disappear into the forest. In certain areas I would always find tracks, but this time or year I plan on looking for new tracks around this time of year. It has not snowed much In Michigan or at least the lower part. Just planning on spending time with my 12 year old son scouting. You should see my GPS some times when I find a print and start tracking it, you see a straight line then a bunch of circles then another straight line then again with a bunch of circles. Anyhow I have great blood pressure and it is a great work out tracking them. So tell you what if I ever catch up to one I am going to thank the cr*p out of it for keeping me in shape.
SWWASAS Posted February 1, 2016 BFF Patron Posted February 1, 2016 Out of the 610 BFRO reports in Washington, 219 are Class A quality. Of these Class A reports, only 3 were obtained from people who were actually looking for BF. The rest were just random encounters. Thus, looking for BF in hot spots does not have zero probability. But as SWWASP noted, the low odds will increase if you know that the area is indeed a hot spot and the last 2 reports indicate that the BFRO folks who were involved knew the area had potential. Nonetheless, how many BFRO expeditions and research trips have occurred over the last 20 years in WA with no visual sighting to report? I guess thousands and thousands of man hours. Below are the 3 BFRO Class A reports in WA from people that were searching for BF (that I am aware of). 2002, in the Cascades near Randle, WA (Skamania County) http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_report.asp?id=4779 2007, east of Mt. Rainier in the Wenatchee National Forest (Bart Cutino’s thermal image) (Yakima County) I 2012, near Morton, (Lewis County) http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=35812 Do not get me started on the BFRO. I have no idea what problems that organization has. But I have submitted 3 reports that are not in the Washington data base. One would think a picture of a BF during an encounter would be a Class A report. But I have not even been contacted by an investigator. The only contact I have had with BFRO was a "Finding Bigfoot" producer that wanted me to come to a town hall in Washington. Just tonight on Finding Bigfoot they had a supposed Town Hall in Oregon conjunction with Hopsquatch. I am a member in good standing of Hopsquatch. And have attended all the public meetings of Hopsquatch in the last two years. There was no such public meeting at the location they mentioned on Finding Bigfoot. The event had to have been by invitation only and had nothing to do with Hopsquatch. . I did not recognize anyone but Guy Edwards the organizer of Hopsquatch and the cast of Finding BF. I did not recognize anyone in the audience from the Hopsquatch meetings. This is the kind of crap they are putting out as legitimate research. Guy Edwards has no idea of the experience of the people who come to his own meetings. He is too busy commiserating with those who have written books, speak at conferences, and have some level of celebrity in BF as if he is one of them. No wonder BF research does not get anywhere. 2
norseman Posted February 1, 2016 Admin Author Posted February 1, 2016 I think the grass roots approach is the only way to go in proving the existence of Sasquatch. Ordinary people need to get involved and go about their daily lives prepared. Many of us drive to work or play in some really good habitat DAILY. Its an odds game and one I think we can win if we get involved and have our eyes peeled. Pro kill people can either pack a appropriate large game firearm or if that makes them squemish personally, support the groups that do. Its not all about money, we need people on the lookout, and crunching sightings reports so we can predict seasonality behavior. Non kill people need to invest in a air gun and a biopsy dart, or a evidence kit to collect hair or stool samples. (Im going to invest in one as well) Dental resin and photographs just do not cut the mustard anymore. Nobody cares. This has gone on long enough and we need hard data. If you do not care about proving this species to science then disregard...... I hope someday you will reconsider.
SWWASAS Posted February 1, 2016 BFF Patron Posted February 1, 2016 Nonetheless, how many BFRO expeditions and research trips have occurred over the last 20 years in WA with no visual sighting to report? I guess thousands and thousands of man hours. I can't speak specifically to what is going on in Washington but there are other factors. Sightings, encounters, wood knocks, and track finds that happen on BFRO expeditions and scouting trips don't end up as public BFRO reports. If public, those reports could expose locations that the BFRO would prefer not to disclose. To find out all that happens during those trips you either need to read through the public BFRO Expedition reports where location is not specified, or be a part of the actual expedition. Here is a link to past expedition reports. http://s2.excoboard.com/BFRO/150505 It seems that not every expedition gets a report. I suppose it depends on the organizer. Just guessing based on my experience or lack of it with BFRO expeditions if expeditions had BF contact they would be posted on the BFRO website. They do not need to disclose locations to do that other than specify which expedition it happened on. Now and then they report finding a footprint or hearing a tree knock on an expedition. If someone had a sighting or got a picture it would certainly be posted on their website trying to encourage others to sign up for expeditions. One of my footprints finds was the result of a Matt Moneymaker posting on their website. He reported a BF campground stalker at a nearby Washington campground. I went up there a couple of days later and found a BF footprint along the shore of the nearby lake.
ShadowBorn Posted February 1, 2016 Moderator Posted February 1, 2016 crunching sightings reports so we can predict seasonality behavior Norseman Are not Wolverines rare to see as well, I think that they have only seen one here in Michigan in so many years but a picture was taken of it. It was in the thumb part of Michigan and that was the last time it was seen. So if I was to guess I would be looking for patterns of movement and see if it can be predicted by seeing if a report pops up in that given area . Once that's happens then you are on them. With me, they actively search me out and I am not sure how or why. I have been wanting to PM you for awhile , just not ready yet. But I will soon very !
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