BF getting hit by Motorcycles, Cars, Trucks and Trains

[ShadowBorn]

I am not sure but I think that some of the reason why we see these creatures crossing roads and train tracks is? that they use these roads and tracks as land marks or nav tools as they travel through the woods. It is not like they have a compass but they must have a great memory and how which way these roads and tracks travel. So they use them as crossing points on directions of where they are going. It is like if they are on a ridge and they see a road or tracks at a distance they set them selves up on a travel route to their destination. If they happen to get hit by a car it might be due to that they are so focus of where they are heading too.

 

I am not sure that they are really worried about the car,truck or train seeing them or them seeing the car, truck or train. They are just focus on their destination. Just my own opinion.

[Explorer]

The links below are blog articles by a scientist who was trying to calculate the expected number of bigfoot roadkill per year.

The first article estimated the BF roadkill probabilities using US statistics from car accidents with human pedestrians.  However, because some issues with this data (for example, car pedestrian accident data is weighted towards urban areas) the author wrote the 2nd paper using larger mammal hit and kill rate statistics.

 

http://thoughtsonscienceandpseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/11/does-bigfoot-exist-statistical-evidence.html

 

http://thoughtsonscienceandpseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-updated-analysis-of-animal-roadkill.html

 

Both papers are interesting and worth the read.  I also suggest to read the comment section that points out some of the flaws with the assumptions.

While people can disagree on what is the appropriate population statistic for comparison (bear or human or other) and what adjustments to make to the estimates, the bottom line message from the author is that as long as the hit-kill rate probability for a bigfoot vehicular collision is greater than 0.02% of the BF population and if the population of BF in north America is at least 5,000 then there should be at least one bigfoot roadkill per year (or 60 in the last 60 years).

This is a low threshold compared to other big mammals in the USA (per the statistics that the author collected).

 

The author found a paper that studied roadkill statistics for wildlife at Yellowstone NP (1989 to 1996) study).  The annual roadkill rates per animal population is summarized below:

• Antelope (1.1%)
• Bighorn Sheep (0.2% to 0.3%)
• Bison (0.5%)
• Black Bear (0.1%)
• Coyote (0.8 to 1.0%)
• Elk (0.2%)
• Grizzly Bear (0.05% to 0.12%)
• Moose (0.95%)
• Mule Deer (1.8%)
• Wolf (1.6%)

While the author used a much higher kill rate statistic (1.6%) based on the median from numerous large mammals in the USA, he could have made his point using the Black Bear roadkill estimate from the Yellowstone study (0.1%).

 

Several of the commenters wrote that bigfoot roadkill has happened but that the other bigfoots take the body away for burial. 

While that is a possibility, it is mainly speculation and an excuse for lack of evidence.

 

I think a better probabilistic model could be built around a smaller region that has better estimates of the bigfoot population (because of more research attention), has known wildlife road-kill rates, and has good road traffic statistics  (for example the Olympic Peninsula).

But that will be an intellectual exercise that will probably not change the conclusion from the author - that we should have seen roadkill evidence. 

 

Another potential exercise is to look at the near miss-statistics (which are more numerous compared to the hit statistics) and to try to understand the circumstances that lead to near misses.  Are there any common parameters for cases where there is a near miss with a bigfoot?  Type of road, curved vs. straight road, line of sight of road, speed of vehicle, seasonality, light conditions, weather, bf was distracted because it was hunting, or just random?

[Talmadge Mooseman]

I was in a small county park in a touristy area in Wisconsin (Door County) - not a particularly squatchy county.  I had a few minutes, so I thought I'd walk the trails looking for structures.

 

I found nothing until I stopped at the intersection of the trail and and exit loop of the access road.  Then, there it was, a typical "hoop", top end tucked under a 

downed tree, a very common site in Wisconsin, and imo very rare for nature to duplicate.

 

I think this might give credence to the theory that they are marking roads as a warning.  Almost like a "caution" sign that a car could be approaching.

 

On a side note, it will be interesting, as more cars go electric, to see if there aren't more reports of squatches getting clobbered.

[SWWASAS]

When you are in an isolated area you can hear a car coming for a long time.     But the problem is that it is difficult to know when you have time to cross or it is going to come around a bend and hit you or have the occupants see you.    An electric car would cut down on your time to safely cross.  I would suspect that electric cars will increase the reports.     And as I have mentioned,  without antibiotics, some BF may have lost their hearing at some point in their lifetime.     For those,   unless they see lights at night, it might be a total surprise to encounter a car when they cross a road.  

[NatFoot]

Why do you say that re: antibiotics and hearing?

[SWWASAS]

You must not have small children.    In their childhoods most human kids get middle ear infections several times which have to be treated with antibiotics.   Without that treatment in pre-antibiotic days,   a lot of kids ended up deaf or hearing impaired.    BF in the wild would be pretty much the same.   That and parasites could be a source of deafness for BF.    Just aging causes hearing problems in humans.    We would expect the same in senior citizen BF who might not hear and approaching vehicle.   .   

[NatFoot]

I actually do...just never worried about him going deaf...

 

...I guess because of antibiotics! 

[bipedalist]

Several things, nothing we know of tells us how the eustachian tubes are configured in a Sasquatch we can hypothesize all we want.  

 

It is with the advent of bottle feeding that middle ear infections became very prolific in humans.  Bottle feeding children in an inclined position leads to

a goodly proportion of those as infant eustachians have a different morphology making it susceptible to introduction of fluids that don't belong there. 

 

Sure, they can go on to be more problematic once you get one. 

 

Age-related hearing deficits are often high-frequency outside of the range of human speech (generalization but true)

 

Ototoxicity to drugs and chemicals and loud noises accounts for quite alot of heairng impairment as we age.   Age affecting primarily 

higher frequency as we lose hair cells in the cochlea. 

 

Personally I think most BF hearing loss is due to proximity to chain saws and all those loggers that don't report encounters. 

Edited February 16, 2018 by bipedalist

[hiflier]

And too, some tires coming down the road before a car is actually seen may get misinterpreted as just being the wind in the trees. For some BF's unfamiliar with vehicles at night headlights could look like large bright eyes and they go into their 'defensive freeze' as I call it until they assess the 'wind' and 'eyes' as being non natural/non animal. The encounter from a Sasquatch point of view may be interpreting things compared to what they know. We do the same thing when our brains reach to fill in the blanks during an unusual event in order to gain a sense of category.

 

So one might think Sasquatch, first hearing and then seeing a vehicle, especially ay night, first tries to make it mentally fit something they know and are familiar with. By the time they notice that it 'something else' it's too late and they are spotted. This may seem too simplistic but I don't think Sasquatch are all that complicated to begin with.   

Edited February 16, 2018 by hiflier

[SWWASAS]

Bipedalist you must be around a different bunch of senior citizen humans than I am.     Most have hearing loss in the human speech range.   They likely lost the higher frequencies first as you mentioned, but now in in their 70s and 80s have trouble with hearing normal (particularly male) human speech.     Since several are females I don't buy the chain saw,   lawn mower, or shooting guns theory either.   Women are less likely to use hearing aids because of vanity issues so I actually see more hearing loss issues in older females than men.      Two of them are relatives that had a childhood history of frequent ear infections.      I suspect the bottle feeding hypothesis, while it may be true, is more likely due to mothers immunity properties of breast milk than the angle of the infants head feeding.     Not sure that the angle difference is enough to promote ear infections.    And the methods used during breast feeding vary considerably depending on the mothers practices, some of which may not be much different than with bottle feeding.    But my point is hearing loss in older humans is common and I see no reason why we cannot expect the same in older bigfoot.  

[hiflier]

Whatcha say? Could you speak a little louder this time  

[SWWASAS]

The funny part of elderly hearing loss is when a person hears something but interprets it as something totally different than what was said.      Differentiation of sounds makes it difficult for older people to hear in noisy environments.    I have 40 years of professional aviation as my excuse.   

[NatFoot]

A deaf bigfoot would be a dead bigfoot.

 

Cull the old folks for the safety of the group.

[SWWASAS]

Is that cull human old folks or BF old folks?   

[NatFoot]

Hah, the BFs.