Bigfoot caloric intake.

[JKH]

^Good example, and yes lots of reports from pickers of all kinds. BTW, there's plenty to learn about behaviors from select podcasts. I recently listened to an interesting report from a mushroom picker who was picking to make money, and had hired a whole crew to help. They got an aggressive confrontation in which the man's dog tried to attack and was killed by the big guy. I got the impression that the people had really messed up by overharvesting. That one starts about 50:00 in the first video. The second one I haven't entirely listened to but the title is on-topic.

 

 

 

 

 

[Backdoc]

1 hour ago, norseman said:

You talked about Bigfoot needing to leave cover and be out in the open to forage. That’s a false assumption.

 

Not really.  I talked about the need to "graze" based on the limited diet would increase the need for Bigfoot to expand its food search area as a practical matter.  Any time where Bigfoots needs can't be met locally it would force bigfoot to be on the move until its needs can be met.  We don't know the specifics of those needs.   

 

"Grazing" as a concept means the active searching or Movement for food esp. plant foods.  This doesn't mean we are talking about cows eating grass out in the open field in Nebraska. 

 

It's conceptual.  It's simply a matter of degree.  

 

If we want to say Bigfoot eats fish (and I imagine they do) I do have to wonder, why they are not spotted around salmon streams on a regular basis.  Other than small numbers of bigfoot in existence, I can't think of any other major reason.   There are plenty of food available for the taking.  

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, norseman said:

 

 

I have picked huckleberries under a lodgepole pine canopy in Ferry county. Stuff grows IN the forest.

 

 

Stuff grows IN the Forrest for anyone who hasn't been made aware.   

 

Since most issues of Bigfoot are conceptual (since we don't have a body on a slab to study) BFF postings on the issues are meant to be conceptual.   

 

If what Bigfoot needs is close by, bigfoot is likely to stay close by.  If not, Bigfoot would have to be on the move.  

 

If Bigfoot's has a very limited diet, Bigfoot has fewer options to fulfill that diet.  If Bigfoots diet is more flexible it should be easier to meet it's food needs.

 

It's well and good if there are berries and mushrooms available.  This assumes Bigfoot would eat them and can eat them.  If not, it's useless to the direct needs of bigfoot.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Huntster]

2 hours ago, Backdoc said:

.........If we want to say Bigfoot eats fish (and I imagine they do) I do have to wonder, why they are not spotted around salmon streams on a regular basis.  Other than small numbers of bigfoot in existence, I can't think of any other major reason.   There are plenty of food available for the taking.  

 

 

 

I happen to know where that pic was taken. It (and other such waterfalls along the Alaska coast) are almost all now within either national parks or other classified areas with human behavior restrictions because brown bears congregate there. There are a few in southeast Alaska like that where black bears congregate, too, but mostly under the cover of thick vegetation.

 

There are lots of rivers and creeks where bears fish. They might not do so in congregations like McNeil River or Brooks Camp, but they're there. One rarely sees them because they'll come out at night when we go to bed. I'm thankful for that. I let them have the night.

 

I think sasquatches have creeks where they like to fish, but they're almost assuredly in locations devoid of man. I think they know the dangers of mankind, and their priority is to avoid us. They do so even better than the bears.

 

 

[norseman]

2 hours ago, Backdoc said:

 

Not really.  I talked about the need to "graze" based on the limited diet would increase the need for Bigfoot to expand its food search area as a practical matter.  Any time where Bigfoots needs can't be met locally it would force bigfoot to be on the move until its needs can be met.  We don't know the specifics of those needs.   

 

"Grazing" as a concept means the active searching or Movement for food esp. plant foods.  This doesn't mean we are talking about cows eating grass out in the open field in Nebraska. 

 

It's conceptual.  It's simply a matter of degree.  

 

If we want to say Bigfoot eats fish (and I imagine they do) I do have to wonder, why they are not spotted around salmon streams on a regular basis.  Other than small numbers of bigfoot in existence, I can't think of any other major reason.   There are plenty of food available for the taking.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuff grows IN the Forrest for anyone who hasn't been made aware.   

 

Since most issues of Bigfoot are conceptual (since we don't have a body on a slab to study) BFF postings on the issues are meant to be conceptual.   

 

If what Bigfoot needs is close by, bigfoot is likely to stay close by.  If not, Bigfoot would have to be on the move.  

 

If Bigfoot's has a very limited diet, Bigfoot has fewer options to fulfill that diet.  If Bigfoots diet is more flexible it should be easier to meet it's food needs.

 

It's well and good if there are berries and mushrooms available.  This assumes Bigfoot would eat them and can eat them.  If not, it's useless to the direct needs of bigfoot.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’re hard to pin down. But since we have established that Bigfoot doesn’t need to leave the forest to forage or graze it you like?

 

They have 25 million acres to do it in, just in Washington and Oregon alone. And that’s not counting state land or timber company property. Just National Forest. 
 

Also we do have reports of them seen fishing. But salmon runs in the PAC NW are not what they used to be. Grand Coulee dam alone wiped out a large swath of salmon bearing streams and rivers.

 

https://alaskabeacon.com/2025/08/19/salmon-extinction-in-motion-in-washingtons-and-oregons-snake-river/

[MIB]

4 hours ago, Backdoc said:

If we want to say Bigfoot eats fish (and I imagine they do) I do have to wonder, why they are not spotted around salmon streams on a regular basis.

 

Read this section from the regulations, especially the highlighted part.

 

 

Do you know anything at all about salmon .. salmon fishing, etc?    The places most people fish for salmon are main stem rivers, water 5 feet to 30 feet deep, and often a couple hundred yards wide.   As shown above we are not allowed to fish for them in the kinds of places a sasquatch might attempt to catch them .. the spawning areas.    The bulk of those are in places quite inaccessible to humans.   Not impossible, but difficult, and it is highly improbable that an average urban person is going there.

 

There isn't the overlap between humans and salmon vulnerable to bigfoot predation that you seem to assume there is.    

 

The literature says they DO eat salmon.     Consider the Olympic Project "nests" area.     Little finger ridges in horribly dense huckleberry brush over spawning streams.    Same thing occurs in the northern Oregon coast range based on reports I've taken and also in the mid and south coast areas.     Or consider what David Paulides reports learning from the lower Klamath River tribal people regarding "things" stealing salmon from their nets at night.     

 

 

 

[NathanFooter]

17 minutes ago, MIB said:

 

Read this section from the regulations, especially the highlighted part.

 

 

Do you know anything at all about salmon .. salmon fishing, etc?    The places most people fish for salmon are main stem rivers, water 5 feet to 30 feet deep, and often a couple hundred yards wide.   As shown above we are not allowed to fish for them in the kinds of places a sasquatch might attempt to catch them .. the spawning areas.    The bulk of those are in places quite inaccessible to humans.   Not impossible, but difficult, and it is highly improbable that an average urban person is going there.

 

There isn't the overlap between humans and salmon vulnerable to bigfoot predation that you seem to assume there is.    

 

The literature says they DO eat salmon.     Consider the Olympic Project "nests" area.     Little finger ridges in horribly dense huckleberry brush over spawning streams.    Same thing occurs in the northern Oregon coast range based on reports I've taken and also in the mid and south coast areas.     Or consider what David Paulides reports learning from the lower Klamath River tribal people regarding "things" stealing salmon from their nets at night.     

 

 

 

 

 Yes, stream pathways that branch off are harder to access and have restrictions but I think equally important is the overwhelming record of sasquatch doing this activity at night.  This reduces exposure and therefore sightings, what few are by the river are majority at night by campers or night fisherman on reservations.

 

I do have several dusk vocalization events close to salmon pathways at dawn and dusk and one very up close sighting ( 20 feet under a high powered flashlight ) in the parking lot of salmon fishing area. 

[Backdoc]

All of our assumptions about Bigfoot's diet are guesses.   They are educated guesses, but they are guesses.  Even if we knew for sure, is what Bigfoot eats universally true among all Bigfoot population?  Then there is even the issue of how much Bigfoot eats.

 

I doubt there are subclasses of Bigfoot since I don't think there are enough to have too many varieties of Bigfoot.  Like most things Bigfoot I don't have anything to really prove that other than just assumptions.   If there are very few, I would think whatever bigfoot's needs its nearly common among all of them (those few).   If somehow there are many, there might be more variation in what they eat.  That might be further affected by where they live.   A Northern California Bigfoot might have different options and likes vs some Canadian bigfoot.   

 

If we see Bigfoot, then we know bigfoot had to get their food somewhere.   I don't suspect Bigfoot hibernates. We do see instance tracks some find in the snow.  Yet Bears hibernate and they leave snow tracks, don't they?   All snows are not created equal, and some might be minor snows vs some deep long cold winters.   This all means its maybe simple and complicated at the same time. 

 

There are just so many factors to consider.   All living things eat, rest, reproduce, excrete waste, move, or whatever the common traits we all remember from high school biology class.  

 

My hope to nail down Bigfoot's diet.  I don't say this because I want to feed Bigfoot.  I just hope the knowledge will make it easier to capture or film a Bigfoot.  Roger got lucky.  I want to increase our luck. 

[MIB]

5 hours ago, Backdoc said:

They are educated guesses, but they are guesses.

 

No.   For some people they are OBSERVATIONS.    The difference is huge.

 

MIB

[Huntster]

5 hours ago, Backdoc said:

All of our assumptions about Bigfoot's diet are guesses.   They are educated guesses, but they are guesses.........

There are also deductions.

"If", "then".

[Trogluddite]

On 10/17/2025 at 12:48 PM, norseman said:

It’s always this time of year that I wonder what they do in winter. We get typically four feet of snow here in the valleys.

 

Do they migrate to the coast? Do they stockpile and hunker down? Do they migrate south? Do they retreat down low in elevation and hunt?

 

I saw tracks in December. Those tracks were heading south for whatever that means.

 

Norse, can you give a general area (again, I know) as to where you saw those tracks?  Nothing that would dox yourself, but some major landmark in the area?  Any idea of what would be drawing a Bigfoot (or other large animal) south - farmland, elk migrating in that direction, getting to lower elevation?  Just curious.  Also, love your driveway (and the fact that I'm not the one who has to clear it in the winter!). 

 

 

On 10/17/2025 at 2:41 PM, Huntster said:

 

In both the Sunnyslope trackway find in 2017 and the Bossburg cripple trackway of 1969 the trackways were headed northwards. 

 

If the creatures are in the coast range (which is almost certainly higher population densities and better range), I'm pretty confident they head for the coast to forage for the winter. Primary seasonal movements would be up and down in elevation. Farther inland, I believe densities are lower and movements would still be primarily up and down in elevation.

 

Norse and Huntster, 

 

Is it safe to infer behavior from a limited number of trackways, no matter how long?  Someone upthread mentioned meta-populations of animals that are well spread out and have wide home ranges (for lack of a better word).  So even a long trackway of over a mile could be just a day trip to the grocery store for Bigfoot.  It's not necessarily an indication that Bigfoot populations are making like snowbirds and heading south.  

 

In the northeast US and Canada, there are 51 reports from December, January, and February where the report either stated direction of travel or was detailed enough to allow a reasonable approximation of direction of travel.*  Only 14 of those were traveling in some southerly direction; 25 were heading in a northerly direction.  However, that doesn't tell the whole story.  I crunched numbers that I had in 2017 and there was a visible southward movement (between 160 and 200 miles) in the number of reported encounters. 

 

* Normal disclaimers apply - small sample size, room for witness error, room for error in analysis, &c., &c., &c. 

 

[norseman]

1 hour ago, Trogluddite said:

 

Norse, can you give a general area (again, I know) as to where you saw those tracks?  Nothing that would dox yourself, but some major landmark in the area?  Any idea of what would be drawing a Bigfoot (or other large animal) south - farmland, elk migrating in that direction, getting to lower elevation?  Just curious.  Also, love your driveway (and the fact that I'm not the one who has to clear it in the winter!). 

 

 

 

Norse and Huntster, 

 

Is it safe to infer behavior from a limited number of trackways, no matter how long?  Someone upthread mentioned meta-populations of animals that are well spread out and have wide home ranges (for lack of a better word).  So even a long trackway of over a mile could be just a day trip to the grocery store for Bigfoot.  It's not necessarily an indication that Bigfoot populations are making like snowbirds and heading south.  

 

In the northeast US and Canada, there are 51 reports from December, January, and February where the report either stated direction of travel or was detailed enough to allow a reasonable approximation of direction of travel.*  Only 14 of those were traveling in some southerly direction; 25 were heading in a northerly direction.  However, that doesn't tell the whole story.  I crunched numbers that I had in 2017 and there was a visible southward movement (between 160 and 200 miles) in the number of reported encounters. 

 

* Normal disclaimers apply - small sample size, room for witness error, room for error in analysis, &c., &c., &c. 

 

I don’t mind if people know where I was raised. Elk were not prevalent in the area when I was a child. They are more so now. If you follow the Columbia River south you run into the Palouse. Which is all farms and wheat. Doesn’t seem like a likely route for something seeking to remain hidden.

 

The Columbia River also represents a pretty major obstacle. Singer bay which is above the tiny peninsula that looks like the coast of Washington state is 2 miles wide. There are narrower places to cross but then the current is much stronger typically.

 

All I can say was the tracks were not meandering or in search of something. They came off the bank, hit the logging road we were on and was trucking with long clean strides. Even though the snow was deep and we were struggling.

[Backdoc]

Unless the “Bigfoot Calorie intake “ issue is used to capture (in body or film) bigfoot the issue is useless.  
 

It only matters if it leads to an encounter.   Otherwise it doesn’t matter.  
 

 

[Huntster]

11 hours ago, Trogluddite said:

.........Is it safe to infer behavior from a limited number of trackways, no matter how long?........

 

..........* Normal disclaimers apply - small sample size, room for witness error, room for error in analysis, &c., &c., &c...........

 

I believe that the limited like evidence can be safe food for inference, but not solid enough to establish behavior. In the two examples I used above (Sunnyslope and Bossburg), both were in mid-winter, both were in central or east Washington (on the east side of the Cascades, and thus not in the coast range), and both left a long trackway (miles). As Nathan correctly clarified about my post on sasquatches in the Coast Range moving towards beaches to utilize beach foods, this is not likely at all of sasquatches in mountain ranges east of the Coast Range, like the Rockies, Blues, Cascades (south of the Columbia River), Sierra Nevada, etc (although sightings and trackways found in California's Central Valley in winter even infers that they might migrate to the Coast Range from the Sierras, or vice versa, on occasion).

 

Peter Byrne once found a trackway in snow. I forget where regionally. He followed them through difficult terrain for miles. I don't think he theorized a general direction or motivation for the travel. The most notable thing I remember about his account was, at one point, the tracks walked atop a large fallen log covered in snow, and then the track maker jumped several feet to another snow covered fallen log. He was impressed, writing that such a jump was not possible by a hoaxer. What I find disappointing about his account is that his report on it, from his personal experience, is recorded in one of his books, but otherwise is lost to a queryable database search so that it might be available to help alleviate one of your recognized disclaimers (small sample size).....................

[Huntster]

10 hours ago, Backdoc said:

Unless the “Bigfoot Calorie intake “ issue is used to capture (in body or film) bigfoot the issue is useless.  
 

It only matters if it leads to an encounter.   Otherwise it doesn’t matter.  

 

Not necessarily. For example, I'm a bear hunter, but I rarely shoot them. My wife doesn't want me to, and I've grown to appreciate just watching them with optics. I enjoy just knowing as much about them as I can, but especially experiencing them personally in the wild with the rest of God's Creation all around.

 

As I type, I recall watching a sow bear walking up a huge, old landslide on the opposite  side of the Chulitna River from me as I was glassing during a moose hunt. As I recall the experience, I can clearly remember the strong breeze blowing up the river valley, the daily view of Denali nearby, and the giant boar bear prints that we find near camp as we left at the end of hunt. That old boar walked around our camp the evening before we left and left great prints in the mud of the trail for a couple miles. I took pics of a really good rear print. It was a foot long. A few days later, recounting the experience at work, another guy who had hunted that valley (and had shot a very interesting grizzly, which had a smashed face) told he he had seen that bear with his binoculars the year before. He was likely a 9 footer. 

 

Yeah, "an encounter" can mean different things to different people......................

[MIB]

13 hours ago, Backdoc said:

Unless the “Bigfoot Calorie intake “ issue is used to capture (in body or film) bigfoot the issue is useless.  
 

It only matters if it leads to an encounter.   Otherwise it doesn’t matter.  

 

You're probably going to start thinking I'm picking on you .. I'm not trying to.    a) you have to ask "useless to whom?"   b) who gets to define "encounter"?    

 

I absolutely look at food availability, location, season, type, effort to extract, etc. when I think about looking for bigfoot.    It's far from the only factor but it does have to be consistent with the rest.   Where there isn't food enough, then we're looking at travel rather than occupancy.