Correlations Between Seasons And Sighting Elevations?

[Guest]

I was wondering if anybody has ever compiled data for sightings based on the seasons/extreme weather, and the elevations they are sighted at? I've had two encounters in the GPNF, and both of them were in the winter time, and they were both at relatively low elevations compared to the surrounding areas. I have never had an encounter, or heard a knock outside of hunting season. Knowing that elk will move up/down in elevation based on the time of year, and if BF hunts elk, which I believe they do, then in theory they should also be at the same elevations that a majority of their food source is at. Is there data to support that? If that were true, then wouldn't the next couple of months be

the prime time to go Squatching? I've heard there was

some work done based on lunar phases, and time of year,

but I've yet to see it.

Researchers who write reports should always include certain Information.

Date, or as close to it as possible

Time of day

Weather

Temp

Elevation

Lunar phase that night, and the night prior

Cloud cover, or lack thereof

BF's position relative to witness..Higher, lower, or same

Method of retreat(To high ground, lower, or same)

Nearby water sources, and whether retreat was towards them

Terrain

Maybe some of those seem excessive, but if all researchers followed the same criteria we'd be able to compile better data, and be able to develop a better idea of the frequency of their patterns.

Edited November 3, 2011 by PacNWSquatcher

[Guest]

The information guidelines you've laid out here, are very good ones to follow, and should be included in all sighting or incident reports. Nothing excessive, IMO. The more data, the better. When I had my brief sighting at night, I tried to note everything.

I have wondered about lunar phases, myself... but have noted (from reading good reports with this data included) that there are sightings and incidents, during new moon, as well as during all of the moonlight phases. I will say.. if not for the just past full.. waning moon, I would probably not of seen anything.

In my area of research ( Northeast, mainly the Adirondacks ), it seems as though the mid- late summer through late fall is the best for activity. The spring, has thus far.. has produced very little in the field for me, personally. But there have been some exceptions, with others doing investigations that I've heard from.

Edited November 3, 2011 by imonacan

[bipedalist]

Personally I have probably had active months in both the fall to early winter and then mostly late spring-summer (April through July). Summer seems to be the greatest active period esp. late May into July. This in the Blue Ridge of NC.

I agree the info. outlined above is critical. Only elevation is a sensitive one for me as it would in some cases give away locations of areas which are "active" and research intensive on-going investigations are occurring. I think it's great though that gps coordinates can be thrown out for older sightings which are esp. not attributable to an active investigation.

A body of research (can't remember source) stated that the 2500 ft. elevation zone seemed to encompass a preponderance of reports in montane environments as I remember. Don't ask me for that reference it is long gone.

[BobbyO]

Have a read of this PacNW you'll like it..

& make sure you get involved, i need to too..

[Guest]

Exactly, Bobby! I never saw that. It would be so much easier to compile data if all researchers followed the same criteria when taking reports. I know there is an arrogance that cripples research, in that everybody thinks their methods are superior to anothers, and aren't willing to share certain information, or follow a certain criteria due to the mindset that they have a better system. I hope that everybody can agree that if everyone followed the same method in reporting, that we could start profiling their habits better, and start being able to predict things about them based on certain factors. Thanks, brutha!

[norseman]

Just some food for thought, Roosevelt elk in western Washington and Oregon are a different sub species from the rest of the West that is predominately Rocky Mtn. elk (California has another sub species called Tule that are endangered). Rocky Mtn. elk are much more migratory than Roosevelt elk with as much as one hundred miles seperating summer and winter ranges. Rocky mtn. elk tend to run in much larger herds than Roosevelts do as well.

I feel that if your having luck during winter down low, you may not have to travel very far to change your luck during the summer months (per your theory on them chasing elk). I'd bet that some of those Roosevelt elk may never leave that bottom ground during the summer months, they may very well stay put. Why not? With the high rain fall and warmer climate, the seasons are less distinct, and the growing season is much longer.

But I personally feel that squatch is migratory in a human bipedal sort of context that is different from other animals. What I mean by that is that they could winter 20 miles from where they were born or 2000 miles, depending on their choices and disposition. They may very well not be following around herds of elk, but instead have a vast cyclic range designed to utilize the resources of a particular region in a given year or years. Washington salmon and elk one year and Arizona prickly pear and mule deer in another.

[Guest]

You're right, Norse. In this area there are constant herds right down in the valley. Being in on some survey stuff, some of the collared elk never travel more than a few miles. There will be more from the 3000+ ft elevation in the summer, but there are always elk that are constantly in the valley. Maybe they just go down into the valley to pluck an elk every once in awhile, and head back up a little ways. If I could figure out how to post a PDF file, id post one of our surveys from a few years back. There's some pretty interesting elk info in this particular area of the GPNF. My brother went up in the chopper last month, and they counted 1200 throughout the valley, and the area isn't all that large. You're right about the ease into the GPNF too! It's one of those areas where you can take a paved road into it, then hit a logging road 5-10 miles, and you are in the middle of BFE, and a lot of the terrain is fairly easy to navigate, or there are great trail systems.

Edited November 6, 2011 by PacNWSquatcher

[Guest tracker]

I was wondering if anybody has ever compiled data for sightings based on the seasons/extreme weather, and the elevations they are sighted at? I've had two encounters in the GPNF, and both of them were in the winter time, and they were both at relatively low elevations compared to the surrounding areas. I have never had an encounter, or heard a knock outside of hunting season. Knowing that elk will move up/down in elevation based on the time of year, and if BF hunts elk, which I believe they do, then in theory they should also be at the same elevations that a majority of their food source is at. Is there data to support that? If that were true, then wouldn't the next couple of months be

the prime time to go Squatching? I've heard there was

some work done based on lunar phases, and time of year,

but I've yet to see it.

Researchers who write reports should always include certain Information.

Date, or as close to it as possible

Time of day

Weather

Temp

Elevation

Lunar phase that night, and the night prior

Cloud cover, or lack thereof

BF's position relative to witness..Higher, lower, or same

Method of retreat(To high ground, lower, or same)

Nearby water sources, and whether retreat was towards them

Terrain

Maybe some of those seem excessive, but if all researchers followed the same criteria we'd be able to compile better data, and be able to develop a better idea of the frequency of their patterns.

I like your parameters for the PNW . Some of the 411 in reports are usually generalized to protect the location. Also retreating or heading into or over challenging terrain may not be in the direction of their Hab site? Most likely it's just to make any pursuit near impossible. JMO, T

[Guest]

If you read Bartholemews "Bigfoot sightings in NY and New England" for instance, Vermont's 30 plus sightings almost all occur between 4:00 and nightfall during Autumn. Its easy to make charts from compiled sighting reports that will give you a pattern. I am not sure if it's because of the harvest, deer hunting season(rutting season)(which is right now), or Sasquatch is out harvesting food stores for winter. The latter having no real proof other than maybe one discovery of strange food caches.

[Guest]

Kearn...I agree. Whether there is evidence, or not, I believe they'd create a food cache for winter. Why wouldn't they? I'd imagine they are smart enough to think about the future, and if they're anything like a primitive version of us, we'd do the same thing. I wonder what plant foods, nuts, etc that would be good all winter? I'd imagine they'd have certain 'harvest' periods where they'd stock up, if they actually do it.

And my first encounter was about 30 mins before dark. I wonder if they move into areas at last light to spot the animals they want to hunt, then wait for nightfall to execute it. It's the only thing that would make sense about my encounter based on the elk population, and the close proximity to town.

Edited November 8, 2011 by PacNWSquatcher

[gigantor]

I was wondering if anybody has ever compiled data for sightings based on the seasons/extreme weather, and the elevations they are sighted at?

Good idea. I was working on getting data to calculate probabilities of sightings, on specific areas, based on Mangini's Google Earth data file and read your post.

I was able to extract the coordinates, time and sighting URL from Mangini's file. Then I added the altitude corresponding to the coordinates from NASA/GISS. I was disappointed to learn that there are gaps in the elevation database, specifically areas between 60° and 90° north or 56° and 90° south.

Anyway, I have an excel spreadsheet of the entire Mangini dataset with elevation! I'm going to use it for stats... any suggestions on how to use it in order to extract the data you want?

Edited November 9, 2011 by gigantor

[bipedalist]

Could you perhaps give us an average elevation for sightings for starters? I mentioned earlier in a thread that

a figure of 2500 ft. had been arrived at as I remember by another researcher....plus or minus 500 ft. as I remember.

That would be a helpful statistic to verify previous estimates. Perhaps that dataset came from the same source, I can't recall

where I got that data. May have been Ray Crowe's newsletter The Track Record.

Nice work btw.

[gigantor]

Thanks, I got 1882 feet. The elevation database is from the Shuttle ground radar, +/- 30 meters.

There are some gaps, I guess that a cell without a value is zero? that would bring the average down. I'll clean it up later, just got this thing done like an hour ago.

Edited November 9, 2011 by gigantor

[bipedalist]

Thanks, final avg elev data will prob. be somewhere between 2000-2500 ft. I'd imagine.

[gigantor]

Boy, it's nice having it in spreadsheet form...

Cleaned it up, only data with elevation, deleted maybe 60 records... 1,882.46 ft.

There is 7,282 records with elevation. This is gonna be fun!

Edited November 9, 2011 by gigantor