Active Proponents Do You Really Think Bigfoot Is Practically Everywhere?

[guyzonthropus]

Salient points there JDL! But there are other elements that factor into the equation as well....generally speaking, only a small percentage of an elusive creatures population is ever seen.."if you see one roach, you've got herself an infestation"...how many rats are there in NYC for every one that is seen? Sure, they're not 8' tall, and 700lbs, but the idea still holds, especially when one factors in the aspect of cognizant intelligence and a capacity for strategic behaviors.

Then there's the fact that on the whole, those of our society aren't always the most observant when it comes to things out where we don't expect them, when we don't believe they exist, and if they aren't presented to us on a display screen....And even then, they are seen, what, about one every other day somewhere across the continent, and that's not including the ones that don't get reported...

In line with the idea that they may be recovering from a population crash due to western diseases, another part to that could well be the exploding deer populations due to our extermination of nearly all the major predators(who are now also rebounding to some extent)leaving a considerable hole in the food chain that could easily become occupied be an apex predator capable of noteworthy stealth, and favoured by its mythological status, allowing it to fly under the radar of those responsible for taking out the competition without drawing much notice to themselves and their activities.

Just a thought......

[BigTreeWalker]

Some very good posts above. Another thing that most areas in the US have is riparian habitat. The areas along rivers and streams. In most places now logging and new development are limited along these streams. This habitat provides cover, transportation corridors for animals, and food sources for herbivores. Which also become food sources for predators. In a lot of these streams fish and freshwater shellfish are also available. The thing is these same streams also pass through some heavily populated areas while still providing adequate cover even for larger animals.

[MIB]

BTW -

 

Correct.  Put better than I would have.

 

Bigfoot are not plants, not sedentary.   They seem to migrate.   Assuming they can only appear in places they can live for long periods is utter foolishness.   Seeing a bigfoot in a particular location does not make it "habitat", it merely means it is, at least at the moment, travel corridor or better.    So far as them living everywhere, no.  So far as them potentially appearing almost everywhere and reports from almost everywhere being legitimate, seems much more likely, at least to me as someone with somewhat of a biology background.    The question, then, becomes how far do they comfortably travel? ... because that says something about how far from "habitat" their travels / migrations might take them.

 

Folks can yuck it up about Finding Bigfoot if they wish but I haven't seen them follow up on reports yet that didn't look like at least potential travel corridors if not seasonal habitat.   

 

MIB

[JDL]

From what I've seen they would migrate at least as far as the distance from the area around Lake Tahoe to Southern Idaho each summer.  If they came back down by the same route, I never saw any doing it, which implies that they might have swung West into Southeastern Oregon and back down through California.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

There is only one threat that could wipe out bigfoot as a species.  Disease.

 

Contentions that they are being forced into extinction by habitat loss are not based on either evidence or logic.

 

A spotted owl lives in a very specific habitat niche.  Damage that niche, you damage the species.

 

Bigfoot, however, are immensely adaptable.  They've been reported in every major terrain, and reported to take advantage of a wide range of food sources.  They can also apply intelligence to adapt to changes as neceessary.

 

Other, less intelligent species, both predator and prey, that are adaptive are bounding back and spreading into areas where they had once been hunted out.

 

I found, but have not been able to locate since, an oral history from a Southeastern Native American tribe that stated that bigfoot had once been numerous, but that when smallpox and other European diseases were introduced back in the 1500's the bigfoot population was hit even harder than the Native American population.  So hard that for generations the surviving Native Americans believed that the bigfoot had completely died out.

 

If this were the case, it might take centuries for their population to rebuild.  It could also result in isolated regional pockets, which could account well for the regional variations in both physical size and behavior.

 

It may be that they are just now, under the same conditions that allow other adaptive species to thrive, once again achieving larger populations.

 

If so, this will work against them, as internal population pressure drives them to expand into more areas, and inevitably into more frequent contact with humans.

 

I believe that there are more of them than most people think, and that their numbers are expanding at an accelerating pace decade by decade.

 

I also believe that they can and will go anywhere they want. 

 

I also believe that they will need to occupy more and more habitat as their population expands.

 

They're not being threatened into extinction, they being threatened by their own success and population expansion.

 

Because this is what will likely result in their "discovery".

Another threat is we are in the sixth largest extinction in history and if we have to many more runaway radiation events higher life forms will not live long enough to reproduce or have such significant genetic damage that they cannot reproduce or raise there young.

[FarArcher]

I tend to believe that a clan/family will have a yet-to-be determined territorial radius - it could be a five mile radius, it could be a fifteen mile radius - determined by available water, food, terrain, cover, and shelter.  I can certainly see them migrating to higher or lower elevations if all other needs are met, but for one of these things to go for a ten-mile hunting walkabout with the considerable gait they have would be - nothing.

 

If there is sufficient cover, shelter, food, water, and reasonably isolated terrain, it would be counter-intuitive to abandon their territory just for the sake of migrating.  Migration into unfamiliar territories has it's own problems - possibly encroaching on another clan's territory, and possibly not finding suitable food, shelter, water, concealment, and ideal terrain.  In addition, migrating for the sake of just moving would be quite a calorie expenditure - that may not pay off.

 

However, if within their own territorial home they have multiple shelters, multiple sources of water, plenty of game and suitable vegetation, comfortable terrain and concealment, it's much easier to stock the shelves of their shelter with multiple food sources for winters that are sure to come.

 

When the youngsters reach a certain age, they'll be wanting their own mates - and that would be a very strong motivator to migrate outside their familiar territory.  And after finding a mate, they'd probably wish to establish their own home territory.  This would maybe push them into currently "unoccupied" areas where other BF would have established themselves previously.

 

Thanks to the fact that there are very few small farmers anymore due to the economics, the fewer farmers plant thousand of acres of varying foods in significant portions of the nation, and those huge tracts of corn for example, can provide a lot of calories that don't require much hunting.  In the fall, orchards provide owners, deer, and BF's with yet another source of large amounts of calories - and even provide sufficient excess that can be stored in some of their multiple "shelters."

 

I just think they're aware of things around them, they know what's available when, they adapt their movements to maximize their own benefit, and have the foresight to store foods for winter, and what kinds of foods will actually "store."

 

Organisms are generally very efficient.  Maximum benefit with minimum risk, minimum effort.  I don't see these things being any different.  Migration for the sake of migration is not efficient. 

[Guest gershake]

I think the hypothetical number Saskeptic came up with a few years ago for a sustainable population of animals that are elusive enough to still be undiscovered was 12,000, about half of which would be in Canada and the other half in the US. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[norseman]

Mountain Gorillas have a population of like 800.

I find it very hard to believe that with 12000 of them out in north American forests that we cannot produce a body.......scat, something that tells us this creature exists.

Edited April 6, 2016 by norseman

[JDL]

 

There is only one threat that could wipe out bigfoot as a species.  Disease.

 

Contentions that they are being forced into extinction by habitat loss are not based on either evidence or logic.

 

A spotted owl lives in a very specific habitat niche.  Damage that niche, you damage the species.

 

Bigfoot, however, are immensely adaptable.  They've been reported in every major terrain, and reported to take advantage of a wide range of food sources.  They can also apply intelligence to adapt to changes as neceessary.

 

Other, less intelligent species, both predator and prey, that are adaptive are bounding back and spreading into areas where they had once been hunted out.

 

I found, but have not been able to locate since, an oral history from a Southeastern Native American tribe that stated that bigfoot had once been numerous, but that when smallpox and other European diseases were introduced back in the 1500's the bigfoot population was hit even harder than the Native American population.  So hard that for generations the surviving Native Americans believed that the bigfoot had completely died out.

 

If this were the case, it might take centuries for their population to rebuild.  It could also result in isolated regional pockets, which could account well for the regional variations in both physical size and behavior.

 

It may be that they are just now, under the same conditions that allow other adaptive species to thrive, once again achieving larger populations.

 

If so, this will work against them, as internal population pressure drives them to expand into more areas, and inevitably into more frequent contact with humans.

 

I believe that there are more of them than most people think, and that their numbers are expanding at an accelerating pace decade by decade.

 

I also believe that they can and will go anywhere they want. 

 

I also believe that they will need to occupy more and more habitat as their population expands.

 

They're not being threatened into extinction, they being threatened by their own success and population expansion.

 

Because this is what will likely result in their "discovery".

Another threat is we are in the sixth largest extinction in history and if we have to many more runaway radiation events higher life forms will not live long enough to reproduce or have such significant genetic damage that they cannot reproduce or raise there young.

 

 

I disagree with this.  It would take an extensive hostile nuclear exchange or the nearly simultaneous meltdown of every nuclear reactor in the world to achieve this. 

 

Evidence from the area around Chernobyl indicates an impact on individuals within a species, but the species survives.  The radiation does stimulate more rapid evolution in terms of the creation of healthy subspecies, however.

 

Our bodies have enzymes whose sole function is to repair genetic damage as it occurs.  And genetic damage occurs constantly from all sorts of sources.  Every time you fly on an airplane, for example, you are subjected to greater amounts of radiation than most people understand.  Flight crews do this many hours per day, most days per week.  Healthy people, whose immune systems are in good shape, tolerate daily genetic damage well enough, and their genes are ultimately the ones that are passed down.

 

I was once asked to perform a meta-analysis of the genetic impact of proximity to power lines for a military client with a facility located right next to a power substation.  Power lines themselves do not cause cancer, but if one remains sedentary within a strong magnetic field it interferes with the operation of the repairing enzymes.  The enzymes are polar, with positive and negative ends, and they orient to the direction of the field much the way a magnet does (this is, by the way, how liquid crystal diodes work).  If the repairing enzymes cannot rotate freely to orient themselves properly to the point they are repairing, then the genetic damage they are attempting to repair doesn't get repaired and propagates.  Move out of the strong magnetic field, or even move around within it so that the enzymes can rotate, and you are fine.  Don't sit in a recliner all day in front of a cathode ray television tube, for example.

 

There are plenty of other things that can affect the repairing enzymes, however, to include proper eating habits, exercise, etc.  These things influence whether or not your body is producing the enzymes in sufficient quantity.  As oncology has come to understand this and incorporate immune system boosting lifestyles into therapy, more and more dramatic recoveries are being seen.  The point of no recovery for some cancers has been pushed out to later stages significantly.  It would not surprise me to see drugs developed soon that artificially introduce repairing enzymes into the body.  This may be what chemotherapy evolves into.

 

The extensive use of chemicals in our food supply and in cosmetic products has far greater and sustained impact than radiation from the species perspective.  At high altitudes, where the water is purest, fish in our rivers are split 51%/49% female/male.  At sea level that changes to about 80%/20%, and many of the male fish exhibit female characteristics.  This is due to the constant wastewater runoff of estrogenizing chemicals used by people in every community along the river.  Other types of human usage chemicals in wastewater have various deleterious effects also.  There are specific families in areas around the country like Table Rock Lake where cancer is endemic.  The families with major cancer histories are those that subsist primarily on fish taken from the river systems.  Those families with a high use of tobacco products are even harder hit.

 

Waste chemicals in water have other impacts as well.  For example, in wetlands unaffected by methyl-mercury the incidence of male-male pair bonds in white egrets is 0%.  In wetlands that are contaminated, it is 11%.  The operating theory is that male-male pair bond attraction is a genetic defense within the species, that some genetic switch is tripped when genetic damage has taken place to cause behavioral changes which take the genetically damaged individuals out of the breeding pool.

 

I wouldn't worry about bigfoot being driven to extinction, unless you're male and the next time you see a male bigfoot it winks at you.

[Cotter]

To me, it doesn't take great numbers.

 

Maybe people are seeing them quite frequently per capita.  Of course, since no one believes them, they aren't taken seriously.

 

We've no idea of the distance they travel or are capable of traveling.  I look at the distance that cougars, wolves, bears, and wolverines can travel in a season and think that quite possibly, the same BF sighted in Oklahoma could be the same one sighted in Michigan....who knows?

[norseman]

Absolutely and plussed!

One cougar from south dakota was hit and killed in new jersey. No sightings between point a to b reported.

Something with ape like smarts could probably do a whole lot better.

[bipedalist]

Yup, they had another mtn lion go UP Michigan to get run over in Connecticut.  Don't think it was the same one but they migrate huge distances on a lark and turn around on a dime RT after exploring sometimes.  BF easily could do a moonless night and be booking half way across many of these larger Western states without a whimper.  

Edited April 6, 2016 by bipedalist

[Sasfooty]

And just imagine what they can do if those portals are real.....

[ShadowBorn]

To me, it doesn't take great numbers.

 

Maybe people are seeing them quite frequently per capita.  Of course, since no one believes them, they aren't taken seriously.

 

We've no idea of the distance they travel or are capable of traveling.  I look at the distance that cougars, wolves, bears, and wolverines can travel in a season and think that quite possibly, the same BF sighted in Oklahoma could be the same one sighted in Michigan....who knows?

Or even the same family unit, we do not have that data except in the reports.

 

And just imagine what they can do if those portals are real.....

Sasfooty

You know that they can move mass distances in hours with out portals. They have the physical capabilities to do so, we just do not know since one has not been tagged and I know it sound bad to say this. But you know that they are wild , and live with in their means so to speak. But they can cover land fast and it can be with hills or what ever they can do and we cannot catch them. If there are portals I do not think that it means much to them. They have legs and feet and two arms and I am sure that they can out run a horse and that's fast. 

[Sasfooty]

You're right that they can travel great distances without portals. And now that I think about it, this isn't the best place to discuss that. I shouldn't have mentioned it.