Bigfoot caloric intake.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

I've seen 15 bears so far this year up in the N.H.

Admittedly six may have been the same one, six cubs.

Due to the mild winter I think, and the lack of good food due to an extremely bad drought makes them adventurous.

[FarArcher]

On 9/1/2016 at 10:48 AM, Yuchi1 said:

FWIW:

 

Calories in a pound of venison, ~850....protein (grams), ~139

 

Calories in a pound of pork, ~1217....protein (grams), ~123

 

Calories in a pound of chicken, ~1085....protein (grams), ~123

 

Venison appears to be a more efficient fuel.

 

In hard times, huge grizzly bears eat and eat well on moths.

 

Seems moths by the billions take refuge under rocks on bare talus slopes in Jellystone - and the bears are bagging thousands of calories just off moths.

 

Nature has its way, while we do arithmetic that may or may not have anything to do with what something eats - and when.

[norseman]

Its not hard times but a seasonal food source.

 

http://www.yellowstonepark.com/bears-eat-moths-in-august/

 

Some Griz eat 20,000 calories per day of moths.

 

Makes my arthimatic look rather modest by comparison.

[Yuchi1]

Per the article, in that part of the world looks like August is the "time" for the bears to go after the moths. Apparently, there aren't better food sources available during that period.

[FarArcher]

Toughing it out on a bare slope of talus is probably not their first choice - but when times are a bit difficult for their preferential foods - this is available.

 

Point being, we don't know all there is to know about how animals or critters can rack up tons of calories.

 

Obviously, critters know where the necessary calories are.

[PhloydPhan]

Great apes' diets don't vary much from species to species. Gorillas, orangutans, chimps, bonobos, and even (as far as we can tell) pre-agricultural humans all eat/ate diets of mostly fruits and vegetation (leaves, nuts, tree bark, etc.), with protein playing a smaller - although certainly important - role in their diets. While I'm sure that a sasquatch could kill and eat larger animals like deer, and probably do so from time to time, I don't see why we should expect them to be different from other great apes in terms of diet. I'm not aware of many accounts that describe the eating habits of alleged sasquatch, but one of the more famous accounts that does, the William Roe account, describes an animal which is sitting and eating leaves in much same manner as orangutans do. 

 

While many other posters are using examples of estimated caloric requirements - and are making strong cases for the manner in which they are making those estimates - I think we should remember that the caloric requirements of great apes can be quite seasonal. This paper (note: hyperlink opens a PDF) describes how orangutans have been observed to gorge themselves on fruit during seasons when fruit is plentiful, consuming some 8,422 calories a day for males and 7,404 calories a day for females. In seasons when food is less readily available, the orangutans consume foods like bark and consume far fewer calories each day, 3824 calories for males and 1793 for females. These periods of low fruit availability can last for years, and this article describes how orangutans' bodies consume their fat reserves and muscles during lean years. 

 

 

Given these examples, I don't find it difficult to imagine a sasquatch eating a diet composed mostly of fruits, vegetation opportunistically eating other proteins (grubs, insects, small mammals, fish, and even occasionally things like deer), gorging on those foods in the flush spring and summer months, eating the more readily available foods like nuts, bark, and perhaps roots like cattails in the autumn, and then drastically limiting its physical activity and living off fat and muscle reserves through the winter.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

I'm liking it, a BFFer after me own jaded heart.

[norseman]

On 9/18/2016 at 6:23 AM, PhloydPhan said:

Great apes' diets don't vary much from species to species. Gorillas, orangutans, chimps, bonobos, and even (as far as we can tell) pre-agricultural humans all eat/ate diets of mostly fruits and vegetation (leaves, nuts, tree bark, etc.), with protein playing a smaller - although certainly important - role in their diets. While I'm sure that a sasquatch could kill and eat larger animals like deer, and probably do so from time to time, I don't see why we should expect them to be different from other great apes in terms of diet. I'm not aware of many accounts that describe the eating habits of alleged sasquatch, but one of the more famous accounts that does, the William Roe account, describes an animal which is sitting and eating leaves in much same manner as orangutans do. 

 

While many other posters are using examples of estimated caloric requirements - and are making strong cases for the manner in which they are making those estimates - I think we should remember that the caloric requirements of great apes can be quite seasonal. This paper (note: hyperlink opens a PDF) describes how orangutans have been observed to gorge themselves on fruit during seasons when fruit is plentiful, consuming some 8,422 calories a day for males and 7,404 calories a day for females. In seasons when food is less readily available, the orangutans consume foods like bark and consume far fewer calories each day, 3824 calories for males and 1793 for females. These periods of low fruit availability can last for years, and this article describes how orangutans' bodies consume their fat reserves and muscles during lean years. 

 

 

Given these examples, I don't find it difficult to imagine a sasquatch eating a diet composed mostly of fruits, vegetation opportunistically eating other proteins (grubs, insects, small mammals, fish, and even occasionally things like deer), gorging on those foods in the flush spring and summer months, eating the more readily available foods like nuts, bark, and perhaps roots like cattails in the autumn, and then drastically limiting its physical activity and living off fat and muscle reserves through the winter.

 

A couple of problems I see. What natural occurring fruits and vegetables did Sasquatch encounter on its way over from Siberia to North America? Not many.

 

The same as many pre agricultural humans who ate almost a exclusive meat diet except for the short summer months in which berries and roots became available.

 

I don't think with the long winters of many areas in North America you could simply live off your fat stores as a 800 lbs primate.

[BigTreeWalker]

On 8/23/2016 at 0:31 PM, MIB said:

I think you're reading things into BTW's work that is not there.     Did they not find indications of more than one individual because there were separate, distinct, bite widths?   (I don't recall if that was within a single bone stack or at different stacks.  Hopefully he will chime in.)   The important thing to remember is that finding a "single kill" does not preclude multiple-kill finds.    For instance, if I catch one fish and eat it myself, it does not preclude catching a second and bringing it home.   

 

His finds, if valid (and I assume they are), support existence and suggest "sometimes" behavior.   Not absolute or always behavior... 

 

 

 

... There's a lot of variation going on out there ... tendencies exist, absolutes seem not to.   Trying to force exact uniformity of data or behavior seems predestined to fail.   That's to be expected with a real live species.

 

MIB

 

MIB suggested that I chime in on this discussion. I've been busy with various pursuits for the last month or so. But I can now 'chime in'...

 

Clarification on the bones is that yes we did find a single bone with both adult and juvenile teeth impressions on it. Other work we have done in the last year also supports the evidence of small family units. We have seen no evidence of large groups. What we have found also shows that when feeding on the meat of an animal, it is done in the location of the kill site. It has been suggested that there should be a swath showing their feeding behavior. In the case of this kind of feeding on meat, it is scattered and not necessarily easy to find. Just as the case is with any other animal kills. 

 

The thing is, if bigfoot exists, it has existed in the ecosystem for millenia. Most agree that it is an omnivore. So when we look for that so called swath of feeding behavior how do we know whether it was chipmunks, bears, coyotes or bigfoot that cleaned out that field of huckleberries. What turned all those rocks over looking for insects? Or tore apart those logs and stumps that you find throughout the forest? What browsed all the leaves off the salmonberries and blackberries along that forest edge? Elk, deer, rabbits or just maybe bigfoot?

 

We have found evidence that they feed on larger animals. The argument here is not whether they killed them, although the possibility exists, because we have also found evidence of confiscation of cougar kills. It also appears to be seasonal, late winter and early spring; the lean times in the forest. Just as the aforementioned seasonal feeding of bears on moths. So their diet varies over the year. 

 

Some may think there are few animal kills in the forest. In one 30 acre clearcut we found 2 dead elk, a cow and later a calf, in one week's period of time. Both fresh kills. The cow was feed on by 2 bears and went from a whole elk to a pile of bones in three days. Nothing goes to waste in the wild. Within a mile of there was another fresh kill although I couldn't find that one. It was definitely there. 

 

The point is the evidence is there but are we able to differentiate and interpret what did it? 

[1980squatch]

On 9/18/2016 at 9:23 AM, PhloydPhan said:

I'm not aware of many accounts that describe the eating habits of alleged sasquatch...

 

Here is another account, skip to paragraph 6.

 

http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_report.asp?id=38155

 

I can vouch for this report.

[BigTreeWalker]

Here's some food for thought, logically followed through and pertinent to the subject. 

 

 

[norseman]

On September 26, 2016 at 3:55 AM, BigTreeWalker said:

MIB suggested that I chime in on this discussion. I've been busy with various pursuits for the last month or so. But I can now 'chime in'...

 

Clarification on the bones is that yes we did find a single bone with both adult and juvenile teeth impressions on it. Other work we have done in the last year also supports the evidence of small family units. We have seen no evidence of large groups. What we have found also shows that when feeding on the meat of an animal, it is done in the location of the kill site. It has been suggested that there should be a swath showing their feeding behavior. In the case of this kind of feeding on meat, it is scattered and not necessarily easy to find. Just as the case is with any other animal kills. 

 

The thing is, if bigfoot exists, it has existed in the ecosystem for millenia. Most agree that it is an omnivore. So when we look for that so called swath of feeding behavior how do we know whether it was chipmunks, bears, coyotes or bigfoot that cleaned out that field of huckleberries. What turned all those rocks over looking for insects? Or tore apart those logs and stumps that you find throughout the forest? What browsed all the leaves off the salmonberries and blackberries along that forest edge? Elk, deer, rabbits or just maybe bigfoot?

 

We have found evidence that they feed on larger animals. The argument here is not whether they killed them, although the possibility exists, because we have also found evidence of confiscation of cougar kills. It also appears to be seasonal, late winter and early spring; the lean times in the forest. Just as the aforementioned seasonal feeding of bears on moths. So their diet varies over the year. 

 

Some may think there are few animal kills in the forest. In one 30 acre clearcut we found 2 dead elk, a cow and later a calf, in one week's period of time. Both fresh kills. The cow was feed on by 2 bears and went from a whole elk to a pile of bones in three days. Nothing goes to waste in the wild. Within a mile of there was another fresh kill although I couldn't find that one. It was definitely there. 

 

The point is the evidence is there but are we able to differentiate and interpret what did it? 

 

We should be able to based on tracks and scat. Tracks can be hard to come by in heavy vegetation and fir duff. But the scat SHOULD be there.

 

If your right and their behavior is more like a small family of roaming Bears verses a Homo species, that uses a cave or sheltered area as a prolonged lair? Then we should be finding random scat close to kill sites.

 

I know with tree breaks I'm intrigued when it's a fresh tree with no identifiable scat or tracks of a known species. Moose like to ride down and terrorize trees and brush but usually leafy stuff.

 

But I tracked a medium sized black bear all over the ranch tonight. His tracks were in my UTV tracks from yesterday. As many tracks as I saw you would think I would have seen some scat as well, but nada.

 

If it eats it has to go poo, we need some way of easily segregating out Bear scat. It's the million dollar question.

[norseman]

9 hours ago, BigTreeWalker said:

Here's some food for thought, logically followed through and pertinent to the subject. 

 

 

 

The one glaring problem with a alpha predator during winter....where are the tracks? I mean the AMOUNT of tracks to hunt and kill animals to sustain a 8000 calorie per day diet. Yes we find tracks in winter, but not nearly enough.......

 

I would guess some sort of migration is going on to warmer weather or food stores are squirreled away.

[MIB]

Agreed and plussed.    There should be more snow track reports than there are if the BF population is as large as some claim, at least in the interior west where there is seasonal snow pack even to the lowest elevations.    My experiences from about 2005 on initially seemed to be pointing towards a fall migration towards lower elevations canyons of coastal rivers where there would be no snow but I'm backing away from that conclusion now, simply stuck with "I don't really know."

 

MIB

[BigTreeWalker]

1 hour ago, norseman said:

 

We should be able to based on tracks and scat. Tracks can be hard to come by in heavy vegetation and fir duff. But the scat SHOULD be there.

 

If your right and their behavior is more like a small family of roaming Bears verses a Homo species, that uses a cave or sheltered area as a prolonged lair? Then we should be finding random scat close to kill sites.

 

I know with tree breaks I'm intrigued when it's a fresh tree with no identifiable scat or tracks of a known species. Moose like to ride down and terrorize trees and brush but usually leafy stuff.

 

But I tracked a medium sized black bear all over the ranch tonight. His tracks were in my UTV tracks from yesterday. As many tracks as I saw you would think I would have seen some scat as well, but nada.

 

If it eats it has to go poo, we need some way of easily segregating out Bear scat. It's the million dollar question.

I find plenty of scat but without a DNA test is it bear or bigfoot? It's not much use even trying for a DNA test if it's more than a few days old. Which is usually the case with most scat I find. So I agree, how do you know for sure? 

 

As for the snow issue it really isn't a problem on the west side of the Cascades. The elk follow the snow line. Not usually much snow below 2000'.  Not sure what the deer do, just tough it out? That leaves a lot of real estate in western Washington and Oregon. That's just a matter of a few miles in most cases. Not really a migration. However, I do understand the issue in other parts of the west with year round snow pack. Still there are occasionally tracks found in the snow. To me that begs the question: do they just hang out in areas that are less accessible to us in the winter? If they do use meat as a large percentage of their diet in the winter. Then we could look wherever the largest number of other animals are wintering. 

 

Again, another problem we don't have the answers to.