Apes, Grooming and the NAWAC Self-Tagging Experiment

[SWWASAS]

Perhaps we need to find some object (BF stuffed toy?) that is interesting enough that if found, BF would carry it back to its den or camp.     I know they do it because of this one in the attached picture.    The story behind it is that I was setting up on a ridge with a spotting scope for several days looking at the valley below, trying to pick up movement in the valley below.   One day when I got there to set up, this had been placed at the exact location where I normally set up.     It was not thrown out of a car (the road was too far away) and it is impaled to the ground with that stick.  Notice how the little guys hand is attached to the stick.  (There is a back story about that fact that I cannot discuss on open forum that I would put in the Woo category unless it is pure coincidence.)       Anyway some BF seem to have interest in our stuff, and carry it around.    Have one pick up something like this, that has a transmitter, and we should be able to track it.    When it stops moving, it has either been abandoned or is in some den or camp location.   But they might be very careful too.    This one appears to have been opened up and most of the stuffing was gone.  Would they inspect and find a transmitter?  

[Huntster]

^^^^^ Your doll story is most interesting, and I've commented on it in the past. I still wonder if it was a Homo sapien that left it for you instead of a sasquatch. 

 

This time I notice the anatomical location where the doll is impaled by the stick. That increasingly indicates "man" to me.

 

But your idea about a bugged "toy", food cannister, or other possible attractant is a very good one.

[SWWASAS]

You could be right.   Certainly a few log truckers may have seen me sitting on that ridge.   But how would they know I am not looking for elk?    I don't put stickers or anything indicating what I am up to on my truck.    As you will recall that same location interested a military helicopter when I was watching it conducting some kind of shuttle operation.   Thats it,   the chopper noticed me and a special forces guy got the toy and planted it there as a warning.      Donning my tin foil hat now.   LOL     

[Huntster]

53 minutes ago, SWWASAS said:

.......Certainly a few log truckers may have seen me sitting on that ridge.   But how would they know I am not looking for elk?........

 

It didn't likely make a difference what you were looking for. In fact, whoever did it might not want elk or deer hunters there. Putting a doll there with a stick through its gonads is a pretty good message without actually going to the illegal extent of attacking you physically, assaulting you verbally, or leaving a written note. Or it could be a sick gag.......like vvvvvvv

 

.........As you will recall that same location interested a military helicopter when I was watching it conducting some kind of shuttle operation.   Thats it,   the chopper noticed me and a special forces guy got the toy and planted it there as a warning.      Donning my tin foil hat now.   LOL

 

No accusations of "woo" from me on that account. Indeed, I've been mocked "strafed" by an A-10 while walking a dozer on a military post. The pilot saw me and used me for practice strafing runs. I get it, and I'm pretty sure he was unarmed (although I did find a 20mm round impaled in a railroad rail once, which indicates to me that a pilot was doing the same thing to a train, but still had ammo in his gun.......whoops!). You're a former military pilot. C'mon.........it might have been you strafing me! 🥴

 

Imagine a chopper dropping a special ops squad on some practice maneuver and seeing the glint of your scope lens in the sunlight. They flew by to check you out, then radioed the squad to tell them what they saw. The squad decided that their practice would include a real-life search operation on "the unfriendly spotter" who caught their insertion. They got to your location after you left, and they left you a surprise...........

 

If it was me in that squad, I would have done it..........

[SWWASAS]

I bet you would have done it too.   Not me in the A-10.     Have scared of few truckers and people in cars flying low level in the B-52.   That thing is loud flying over you at 500 feet.  If they knew how many parts it sheds flying they would not be driving there.    One of the most interesting buzz jobs I did was officially sanctioned.    There was a Russian Cruiser out in the middle of the Atlantic.    The powers at be decided the US military should let them know we can find them anywhere on the planet.  My crew was Harpoon qualified.   So we went out to the last known position of the cruiser, located it on radar 100 miles away,  and made a flyby at 200 feet above the water  just off its beam.       Our ECM gear all lighted up,  with fire control radars,  and when we were abeam we opened the bomb bay doors.   We had no weapons to drop, but some nervous kid on missile launch or gun trigger could have made a bad day for us.   I always wondered how many pants we soiled when the bomb bay doors opened.  

[Huntster]

Reminds me of the stories (photos, of course, were classified and well controlled, unlike "leaks") of Soviet Bear bombers with cruise missiles openly carried on wing pylons being intercepted over the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean by U.S. fighters. 

 

These are instances of unofficial language that are well understood...........

[Incorrigible1]

Do, or will, Chinese pilots / sailors understand as well as their European / American counterparts?

[Huntster]

Good question. I doubt it.

 

And the "games" between Soviets and Americans were sometimes deadly. Two civilian airliners flying between Alaska and Japan/Korea were attacked over the years; one strafed, and one shot down with all killed.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Huntster

[SWWASAS]

At last count the Russians have shot down several airliners.   One fairly recently over one of the "Stans"   Of course I think our Navy downed one off New York too.     Flight 660.   I don't recall the carrier.       Now there is a real coverup.   Multiple witnesses saw a missile rise from the ocean off the coast of New York and hit the aircraft.     But the official explanation was that it was debris falling from the exploding aircraft.   People were let into the hangar with all the debris during the night and they carried off a lot of evidence.   Multiple federal agencies were involved in the coverup.   Those that think our government is a benign Santa Claus are very wrong.   Give them single payer government healthcare and they will pick and choose who lives and dies.  

[Huntster]

1 hour ago, SWWASAS said:

At last count the Russians have shot down several airliners.   One fairly recently over one of the "Stans"   Of course I think our Navy downed one off New York too.     Flight 660.   I don't recall the carrier.........

 

TWA 800:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

 

The Alaskan events were both due to the aircraft veering into Soviet airspace over or near Kamchatka, which U.S. spy planes (based upon the same airframes as civilian airliners) routinely test. That is no excuse for the Soviet attacks, but at least the Soviets had excuse material to use. I can't imagine how a U.S. navel vessel could have mistaken TWA 800 for a foreign spyplane, or in the case of the U.S.S. Vincennes downing that Iranian airliner, a foreign warbird. 

[CallyCat]

They tracked a bigfoot for ten months with a microchipped homemade cockleburr? I haven't read the pdf, but did it say there was any kind of pattern to the movement to indicate territory? I can't imagine not going to look for physical evidence if you tracked something for that long.

[NatFoot]

49 minutes ago, CallyCat said:

They tracked a bigfoot for ten months with a microchipped homemade cockleburr? I haven't read the pdf, but did it say there was any kind of pattern to the movement to indicate territory? I can't imagine not going to look for physical evidence if you tracked something for that long.

 

Read the PDF.

[WSA]

On ‎8‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 11:53 AM, Huntster said:

 

Maybe. But as time progresses, and as I think about it more and more, I'm thinking that biological data (range, density, movements, etc) acquired without killing them is much safer legally. If conducted under commonly accepted biological standards and recorded likewise, and especially if conducted in areas outside of the PNW, government might like it very much (free data.............thank you).

I'm not willing to believe that Huntster. As we often debate here, I believe nothing is going to appreciably move the needle except a body/body part. The boys and girls of the NAWAC have remarkable dedication to their mission, and they expend untold hours and personal funds just to accomplish what they have accomplished. I don't see them hoping that if they collect enough data points (even if they had the resources to do that) the scientific community will suddenly rally to their support and assistance.  Even with the number of proponents we have here did we get much more than a yawn to this recent research...something that I think is astounding, but nevertheless seems to have underwhelmed a lot of us here and garnered some out-and-out skepticism as well.  Given that, do we really think more data collection is the answer?  (Put me in the firm "Never Happen" column)

Edited August 26, 2019 by WSA

[Huntster]

2 hours ago, WSA said:

.........I believe nothing is going to appreciably move the needle except a body/body part..........

 

That depends on what needle you want moved. There is no doubt that the only way to satisfy most people on the existence of these creatures is a carcass, but for those of us who already accept their existence, no carcass is needed. What is needed is more biological information: movements, social/familial bonds, reproduction, diet, movements, behaviors, interaction with other species, etc. 

 

If one subscribes to the theory that government has taken a silent stance on the issue (that seems pretty apparent), accepts that the reason why they have done so is to discourage "discovery", and accepts that killing one is illegal (that is black letter law), then study without killing is clearly the way to go. Another positive aspect is that permitting to conduct such research on public lands would be much easier to obtain from government if it is clearly non-lethal, and my suspicion is that government would be very interested in such efforts.

 

........

do we really think more data collection is the answer?

 

Of course. Government spends millions (if not billions) on studying other species every year, including homo sapiens.

[WSA]

The only needle that matters to 99%  of the public at large...if they think about it at all: From mythical animal to classified species. Capturing piles of purported data on an unknown species is not going to capture anyone’s attention. That is not just an opinion, it is a demonstrated fact. We have a high-def b&w film of one, for chrissake, bundles of eyewitness accounts, rooms full of casted footprints, thermal images, dashcam footage, sound recordings, and historic accounts going back to pre-European settlement. So a tracking device and the information it captures on an unseen and anonymous subject will somehow tip the balance?  Errr...let me just say I am just a little dubious, sorry.