Daniel Perez: On The Trail Of Bigfoot
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on November 5th, 2007
Riverside man on the trail of Bigfoot
Daniel Perez lives in a tidy, two-story home on a quiet Riverside side street, far from the deep, dark backwoods where his real interest walks.
Or doesn’t, depending on what you believe.
By day, Perez toils as a licensed union electrician. But his life’s work is as a dogged researcher and investigator, hot on the hard-to-follow trail of Bigfoot.
Caitlin M. Kelly / The Press-Enterprise
Riverside resident Daniel Perez says he believes there may be more than 100,000 of the Bigfoot creatures in North America today but concedes that any such figure is a “guesstimate” at best. The creatures are also known as Sasquatch.
“It’s an ongoing investigation,” says Perez, 44, who has spent more than 20 years in his pursuit of the legendary creature.
Perez is editor and publisher of the monthly print and online newsletter Bigfoot Times and co-founder of the Center for Bigfoot Studies, both of which he operates from an upstairs study at his home that is packed with files and artifacts.
He is quoted widely in articles and books on Sasquatch, as the hirsute biped is more commonly known in Canada. He even coined some of the phrases that became part of the Bigfoot lexicon, including the term “Bigfooter” to describe devotees.
But perhaps Perez’s biggest claim to Bigfoot fame is as an expert on what is known in Sasquatch circles as “the Patterson-Gimlin film.”
The roughly minute-long 16-millimeter film was shot at Bluff Creek in Northern California in 1967. The film — in which a large, hairy creature turns to face the camera before striding off into the woods — is the most well-known footage and is upheld by many as proof of Bigfoot’s existence.
Perez’s booklet on the film, “Bigfoot at Bluff Creek,” is often cited as the “bible” on the subject.
On Oct. 20, he served as keynote speaker at a conference in Willow Creek, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the filming by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin.
“Daniel is a very dogged investigative researcher,” said Jeffrey Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University. Meldrum has written extensively on the evolution of primates and authored a recent book on Sasquatch.
“His forte is a penchant for detail. In his investigations he leaves very few loose ends.”
So how does a well-respected Bigfoot expert come to live in the Inland area, not exactly a hotbed of Sasquatch sightings?
It started with a movie, Perez says.
He was 10 when he first watched “The Legend of Boggy Creek,” a documentary-style movie about a Bigfoot-like creature.
“I just became hooked,” says Perez, a wiry fellow with long, black hair under a Bigfoot Times baseball cap. “I never grew out of it.”
Perez, who dropped out after a few months at Humboldt State University, is a self-taught researcher.
He has spent more than two decades researching the creature and investigating purported sightings.
He has journeyed to sites of Bigfoot spottings throughout the Pacific Northwest, in Georgia and Ohio and as far afield as Australia.
Perez has debunked false claims and defended what he believes to be solid evidence.
But he has never seen Bigfoot himself.
The closest Perez has come to a sighting are two tracks he found — the first in Hemet in 1980 and the second near Mt. Whitney a few years later.
Perez came across the Hemet tracks after he responded to reports of Bigfoot sightings in the area. In the woods near a creek, he found a 17-inch footprint.
“That was the first track I saw, and I was like, ‘It’s real!’ ” he said.
Since then, Perez has corresponded regularly with other researchers and with Bigfoot buffs.
In his study, two metal filing cabinets are filled with newspaper clippings, photographs and artifacts. Three bookshelves brim with texts on Bigfoot, cryptozoology and other topics. Plaster casts of Sasquatch and its footprints abound, and photos of Perez with notable researchers are alongside family pictures.
Perez acknowledges that little is known about Bigfoot, despite decades of reported sightings and research.
He says he believes the creatures may have come to North America via a prehistoric ice bridge. They might be descendants of a giant ape that once roamed throughout Asia.
Perez believes Bigfoot is a nocturnal creature that shuns contact with humans.
He believes there may be more than 100,000 of the creatures in North America today but concedes that any such figure is a “guesstimate” at best.
Perez takes heart, however, in the fact that skeptics have been unable, despite several attempts, to successfully duplicate the footage from the Patterson-Gimlin film using a man in a monkey suit as the subject.
He says he will continue on the trail of Bigfoot, investigating incidents such as the photographs shot in September by a hunter in the woods of Pennsylvania that some Bigfooters say could depict a young Sasquatch.
And Perez holds out hope that one day, he will have his own sighting.
“I think about it all the time,” he said.Gregor McGavin
The Press-Enterprise
100,000 Bigfoot in North America sounds on the VERY high side.
According to the IUCN redlist, there are only 30,000 to 50,000 cougars/mountain lions/panthers in North, South and Central America.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Daniel Perez is one of the great people in this field at present time! Keep up the good work! 100,000 is high, maybe 25 to 30,000? Just my 2 cents!
Bigfoot must be pretty rare to have avoided detection for so long. Maybe there might be 5,000 – 10,000 of them? If there are as many as 100,000 in North America then surely they would be known to science by now!
Frankly, I don’t think we know enough about BF to even guess estimate population. It could be several millions to just a handful.
100,000? I think between 7 and 11 thousand seems more. REASONABLE!
Perez is low, by a long shot, seriously. We have several times that many in the State of Oregon, alone.
Discovery is not the issue. It’s recognition. A bigfoot can stand in the middle of a group of the world’s top 24/7 flesh & blood bigfoot researchers, in the dark, and they would not normally have a clue that he was there. They may have some strange sensation, but they would not have a clue as to what causes that sensation. So recognition is the biggest issue facing bigfoot researchers and the general public, today. By far.
I think 100,000 is a just a tad high to say the least. I think it’s more like 3-4 thousand. And that is across the whole country. I think if there were as many as some people think, there would be a lot more sightings, photos and videos. I think we would might even have a body by now if their were really the tens of thousands out there that some seem to think exist. I don’t know, I just don’t buy it. Even 20-30 thousand seem a bit high to me. I also think Danial Perez would of most likely seen one by now if their were as many as he thinks. If he spends as much time in the bush as it sounds like he does.
maybe he was misquoted…
I respect his opinion, but there is no way that there are 100,000 in North America. I be shocked if there were over 20,000.
Wow… cool work… and i would love it if there were 100,000 of these creatures in N.America…. and if there are…well 97,000 have to be living in Canada/Alaska… and it would be great if there was this number…then extinction wouldn’t worry me or the chance to have these creatures existence confirmed. If we are lucky..I think that maybe there might be 2000-4000 here in the USA and thats a liberal number…. I doubt that no more than 3 or 4 times that number exists north of our country…. Lets hope other nothern countries arent turning into fast food restaurants/strip malls like ours has.
I also respect your comments so don’t take this wrong. I think it is a bit redundant to discuss population numbers when this creature has not been discovered yet. We should put our efforts towards discovery first.
very interesting new article about daniel perez & bigfoot. thanks bill green
New to the forum here. Is it really so hard to find a BigFoot in the U.S. or Canada when unknown sea creatures are found all the time in the vastness of the oceans? I’ve waited 50 years for verifiable proof, and I don’t see any more than we’ve had before. Pleeease, direct me to proof.
I’m afraid of weighing in on the population issue, because wasn’t this about Daniel Perez?
Still, he gave the big number. So we’re talking about him. 😉
silvereagle’s right. Well, on one thing. Sort of. It’s not about “finding” the animal; thousands and thousands have already done that. It’s about science “recognizing” it. The sighting reports alone lead me to be comfortable with an animal that isn’t exactly rare, something I would have once bet against (if there were any way of collecting). A lot more people see wild cougars than I would expect for the population estimates given for them. And from the reports alone, it seems that more people than that are seeing wild sasquatch.
I’ve disagreed, right here, many times, with just about any argument that ends “science would have found them by now.” No, don’t think so. Science only finds things it’s looking for. And the looking only tends to begin when something is shoved right under a reputable scientist’s nose; he takes notice; and he feels comfortable in sharing his anomalous find with colleagues.
How many primatologists, anthropologists, zoologists or biologists have seen a sasquatch? Actually, reports indicate that quite a few have. But they aren’t exactly publishing it in Scientific American.
The fire only starts when a lit match touches tinder. At the moment, the sasquatch is wet wood.
Grasshopper. 😀
Thanks Craig.
I agree with Daniel’s guesstimate, though he may be on the low side. Silver Eagle may be a little high. JMHO
Think adaptation and proliferation, especially with an increase in readily available protein year round, from our monoculture. They are definitely out there, making a living in the shadows, in much larger numbers than folks realize. JMHO
Live and let live…
ole bub and the dawgs
DWA- Right, it is a matter of getting the ball rolling. I don’t entirely agree with the notion that science only finds what it is looking for, though. History is rife with accidental discoveries and a great many new species have been found by people who were not expressly out looking for them. It could very well happen with sasquatch that it gets hard proof quite by accident. What I think would be more accurate to say is that science only tends to adequately FUND things that it is actively out looking for. There is a difference. I certainly agree that the key is making the search for cryptids a viable scientific pursuit in the minds of your average biologists and zoologists.
As for sasquatch population figures, I don’t see any way that we could possibly make any sort of accurate estimation for a creature we know little about, a creature whose very existence is disputed. We just do not have the data. But it is an interesting thing to think on and speculate about. It could certainly lead to ideas on how we could maybe pursue a population census on them if or when they are accepted by science. I’m glad to see people are putting some thought into it.
happy camper:
I responded to your post in my last one, but I’ll address your question a bit more specifically here.
Scientists aren’t just blindly surveying the oceans, rainforests, etc., and finding new stuff. They are going to specific places, where for specific reasons, they expect to find specific things. They expect to find those things because of specific things they already know, e.g., look carefully in rainforests, and new species of frogs and insects are flat gonna turn up. When an Antarctic ice shelf melts, have a look where it used to be. You’ve never looked there, because of that shelf, and the animals you’ve already found in that vicinity tell you they have to be eating something, and you know what specific kinds of things they tend to eat. And sometimes, while you’re looking, you find stuff you didn’t expect to find – but it’s stuff that is close enough to stuff you already know about that you don’t feel like a nut for sharing it.
See a sasquatch? You’re a NUT.
That help?
Another thing to keep in mind is that at any given moment, there are many scientists out in Bigfoot territory researching one thing or the other. Maybe it is fisheries in lakes or rivers, maybe wildlife, maybe trees or geology. But they are out there and a potential benefit to that is that the right people perhaps see what all of the “nuts” have been seeing and this might spur them to delve into it further. Lots of unintentional zoological discoveries have been made while doing things that had nothing to do with finding those animals. The Laotian Rock Rat was found while a scientist was shopping in a market place, fer Pete’s sakes.
Think of the gorilla and remember that people thought those scientists who came back with stories of them were nuts too. Naysaying will slow down the quest for the truth, but not stop it, I think. Be it the notion of the Earth revolving around the sun, continental drift, or the germ theory of diseases, the accepted paradigm of the universe at the time definitely slowed down the mainstream acceptance of these ideas, these theories would have been accepted earlier if the known paradigm of the universe had not been so strong and doggedly held to. But nevertheless they became know through irrefutable evidence. I see no reason why Bigfoot cannot follow a similar path or to think that science will forever hold back its discovery. What matters in the end is that someone provides the proof. That concrete evidence could be found by a Bigfoot researcher out on his own dime, a scientist studying trees, or not even a scientist at all. One hunter or hiker coming across a body and that’s it. If the evidence is there for the collecting, I doubt any scientist is going to ignore it and a chance to shake the foundations of zoology. A sighting they will probably keep to themselves, but I assure you most researchers coming across evidence of sasquatch by accident are going to take notice. When this happens enough, attitudes will likely change although it might take some time!
I must say, I am a little curious as to how Perez came up with this population figure. What were his methods for coming up with such a high number?
m_m:
My last post addresses our ‘disagreement,’ I think.
Unknown things generally DON’T get known because people are looking for them. I’m not talking about new species of tree frog, small bird, squid, sea star or octopus. Those things, if you’ve never looked in this particular spot before, you expect to find when you do. You’re surprised, but you’re not, know what I mean? I’m talking about okapi, saola, and new planets, that sort of thing. Things that are out there, but that no one thought could be, because everyone thought we’d already looked enough.
But unknown things like those do get known because someone who’s trusted turns them up, and shares them with people he trusts to take him seriously. And they do.
That’s the sas’s problem. You saw one. OK, now, feel comfortable in sharing that?
m_m: good question.
BFRO (whatever one thinks of them) came up with a “rare” estimate, I think 4-6,000 for all of NA. They used as a basis the techniques used by wildlife biologists for estimating populations of known animals, making allowances (which they made clear) for the “unknowable” factors relating to the sasquatch (most specifically how many sightings are “good, reliable” ones and how many sightings there are that simply go unreported). This is all in the FAQ section of their website.
And then you have John Green, who’s in the “rare? no way” camp.
What did Daniel use? Again, good question, one I’d like to ask Green, too.
What’s the answer? Confirmation would be the first step, and only the first, in telling us. Maybe.
Good morning Cryptos…
I have no idea how Daniel came up with his number, but I will try to summarize how “we” came up with a guesstimate of a 150,000 plus or minus.
We are active facilitating and assisting rural folks involved in habituation/research projects in several states. We have identified over a dozen active habituation/research projects in Northeastern Oklahoma, with an average clan size of 12, including newborns. Non-lactating females and sub-adults are often seen with multiple infants, which implies group co-operation in child rearing.
Best guess, less than 10 percent of the folks involved in habituation know we exist, especially since many folks in rural areas have limited internet access.
Best guess, most riparian (watersheds) with year round cover, temperate climate and active agriculture have clans foraging in the significant tributaries. The size and viability of each clan is a function of the productivity and quality of each watershed.
If we have a thousand or so critters in Northeast Oklahoma, do the math. Any way ya slice it, that’s a herd of Shadow Folks, folks. JMHO
These critters may be rare in the Pacific Northwest or remote wilderness areas of North America, but they appear to be widely dispersed in the Midwest and South. Best guess, Native American lore is correct, we are co-existing with “ancient peoples” not critters. JMHO
Health and weather permitting, myself and others will be attending the Jefferson Conference, this Saturday with some interesting stuff. See ya there sometime after lunch.
live and let live…
ole bub and the dawgs
DWA- Good points. I don’t know if you saw it, but I addressed creatures that sit outside the known parameters in my last post above. I think these things can take time. In my opinion the cause of much frustration with regards to these issues in cryptozoology is the research tradition of the paradigm, which is an accepted view and general consensus on the knowledge we have. The paradigm is shared by those working within a given discipline and gives direction to things that are worth investigating and research techniques as well as dictating which evidence is admissible. I don’t think there is any conscious decision made to on the part of scientists to limit discussion, but some new ideas can be rejected because of issues arising from the paradigm. Any ideas outside of it can be considered fringe or crackpot at first. I believe this leads to the “blinders” you often refer to.
Science is not totally against changing the known paradigm, but it can be stubborn and slow to do so as it is a powerful force and actually useful in many ways. However, the paradigm can definitely limit investigation in some cases, as anything that confines research options limits objectivity. It is frustrating, but can be overcome. An example. There was a time when the okapi and the gorilla were considered pretty nutty too. No one believed they were anything other than stories either, yet now they are well accepted creatures. To be sure their discoveries would have been a lot faster if someone had taken notice and dared to step outside the accepted norms to look into them, and this to me draws a parallel to what is going on with the sasquatch. To me it’s essentially a problem with the known paradigm, which while mostly a useful way to keep scientists on track, can lead to some inflexibility with new ideas. The thing that made the difference with those examples and what I think will make the difference with the sas as well is that someone did delve deeper to challenge what we think we know and evidence was brought to bear. This has happened many times throughout history. One can only hope that the sasquatch will follow suit if it is out there to be found.
m_m: it’s kind of ironic that the thing that has science “stuck” on the sas is also one of science’s strengths, and of course I’m talking about the paradigm.
In one of our past discussions with rbhess, he was talking about how scientific models say the sas is unlikely to be in North America because we don’t have a fossil record of higher primates here, nor is there a fossil record of what might be considered sas antecedents anywhere (unless one counts gigantos and paranthropus which aren’t of course in NA). If I misunderstood rbhess I’m sure he’ll be on here to correct me. 😀 Personally, I don’t think that scientific models can properly be made on what we don’t see, or haven’t seen yet, but only on what we do, so I would argue that there are no models saying the sas does, doesn’t, or “probably” does or doesn’t exist. We just haven’t seen anything, yet, on which any kind of model could be based; we only base models on what we have seen to exist, which puts the sas “beyond the pale” of any scientific model.
Which is where we come to paradigms.
I think what you are saying shows how paradigms and models are different. A model doesn’t pass, one way or another, on what hasn’t been proven to exist. It simply says, here’s what we have. If we find something new, we try to fit it to the model; and if it doesn’t fit, then the model may need to be changed. A paradigm, on the other hand, is the thinking, or the direction of thinking and, ipso facto, funding, that results from the model. If the model doesn’t say, higher nonhuman primates exist in the temperate zone, then research into their existence just isn’t going to be smiled upon, until strong evidence that indicates that the model may need to be expanded surfaces.
OK, major rethinking taking place while I write. Hate it when that happens.
Model and paradigm could be seen as exactly the same thing: here’s what we have (so far as we know). Not what we don’t, or probably don’t, have; only what we do. But research is going to follow the lines of what we think we have, and can anticipate finding based on what we have (e.g., new species of sea life in an undocumented area of ocean) and is going to have a tough time getting support unless there is strong evidence that something not supported (i.e., addressed) by the paradigm is, indeed, out there. For example, a 300-foot-long baleen whale that feeds at 20,000 feet isn’t supported by what we know about cetaceans. But you can bet that if a submersible at that depth locates what seems to be one, that thinking might be due for revision soon.
Summing up: there is nothing that is compelling science to corroborate the sasquatch. Maybe this is all to the good. Paradigms can be seen as imposing research discipline. Maybe it’s more important for scientists to funnel research into following up on the hints we’ve gotten about, say, interesting behaviors observed by field researchers in known primates. But if George Schaller came back from an expedition with an intriguing memory card of shots, maybe that would change. 😀
I appreciate the time and effort Daniel has put into his pursuit of Sasquatch, but 100,000 population?
No way.
Check this link for info on Great Ape populations.
I would guess that the N. American population of these animals stands around 3000 or less.
I believe they are unfortunately on their way to extinction…
In Santa Cruz this summer Dr. Meldrum guessed about 500 on the west coast, which seems about right.
I’d be shocked if the number all around reached above four digits.
DWA- Lots of good thoughts on the matter. Yes, it is ironic that a strength of science could slow the acceptance of something as groundbreaking as the sasquatch. And right, the paradigm can be changed. Models and paradigms mostly are is a valuable tool in science, it gives direction and provides clues to avenues of study. Basically it helps scientists stay on track and is responsible for many more successes than delays in science. Some thinking was vigorously opposed when it was first brought up and rejected because it fell outside the paradigm, for example continental drift, the germ theory of disease, and a sun centered solar system. History is full of similar examples. Some of these discoveries would have been accepted much earlier if the paradigm had not been so strictly enforced. But they did eventually come into the fold. As much as we may become frustrated, I think the sasquatch may come to be included among these. For a good place to read more about the paradigm tradition of science, I’d recommend the work of Thomas Kuhn (1970) in his analysis of the history of science. Interesting stuff.
Right now, I too can see the merit in following up on the evidence that we do have, and even partaking in speculation on things such as sasquatch population figures. I see no reason at this time to let the paradigm dictate all research that is done, for what is science for if not to learn more about the world than we know now? I value the scientists out there thinking outside the box.
Isaac Asimov once said something that I really like and think is fitting in this discussion. He said “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’, but ‘That’s funny…'”
Food for thought.
I should also add that very good science can come not only from forming hypotheses or doing experiments, but also from seeing what nobody else sees. To me, this seems very relevant to the pursuit of cryptids.
We can use all the models and theories we want to make a projected population figure, but when it comes right down to it, we still do not know. I doubt there are that many, or we would have far more reliable sightings and more evidence than what we have.
The one thing I know for sure: Mr. Perez has shown that having a formal education doesn’t mean one cannot do research and make great contributions. He is a pretty sharp fellow.
There’s actually quite the model-busting stuff going on in hominid research in East Africa.
Evidence unearthed at Lake Turkana in Kenya in 2000 may actually indicate that Homo erectus and Homo habilis, once thought to be sequential steppingstones to modern humans, cohabited the planet for something like half a million years. Toss that in the hopper with the “hobbit” find and you may have this picture: A number of hominids, finding niches to coexist more or less successfully (peacefully? didn’t say that :-D) in the same ecosystems just the way that frogs, lizards, songbirds and rodents, among others, do.
Chew on that for a while, and maybe the sasquatch doesn’t look like such a model-buster. Nor does a sizable population of them.
DWA- Good additional example of commonly held beliefs or models being challenged. The “hobbit” was revolutionary. Heck, if the sas is part of the line leading up to humans, we may STILL be co habitating the planet with our ancestors. Then there are the stories of Almas and surviving Neandertals, maybe things haven’t really changed in that respect.
Back to the population issue, I think 100,000 is very high. With the enormous resources required to support such populations of animals this size, I just think that more tell tale concrete evidence would have turned up by now if the numbers were that high. If there are really that many out there, then it is harder for me to explain why we wouldn’t have turned up more than we have or seen more obvious effects of their activities on the ecosystem. My thoughts on this change all the time, but I tend to favor the idea of a remote, elusive, smaller population. I’ll admit though, off the serious scientific speculation, that the idea of 100,000 of them roaming around out there is pretty awesome. 🙂
M_m: not being a wildlife biologist I sure can’t pass, one way or the other, on any population estimate.
The BFRO’s estimate, apparently based on the estimating model used by wildlife biologists, says very, very rare. But then, sightings are widespread. And if you go for – as I intuitively do – the idea that the reports are just the tip of the iceberg, you start to wonder how rare they could be. The locations of reports, and the anecdotal evidence of what they eat, seem to indicate an animal that is much less a specialist than the other apes, save one, of course, an animal that can live in swamps, in virgin forest, and on cutover land, among other things, and that can survive on what it finds in its travels, even in desert and on arctic tundra.
Yes, the evidence is mainly anecdotal. But I’m not the only one who finds it not only compelling, but a possible indicator of an animal that’s not exactly rare.
DWA- It’s a hard one to call as population estimates can be tricky sometimes even with known species. There are scientifically documented species that we can’t even come to an accurate population estimate on so you can imagine the daunting task of trying to come up with a number for an unrecognized one. Considering how little actual hard data we have on sasquatch and lack of solid knowledge of their movements, we can really only speculate. Even with sightings reports, there doesn’t seem to be any reliable way to even tell if many people saw the same individual or if they were seeing different individuals. If one sas did a lot of wandering and caused many sightings, that could lead to the illusion that there are more than there actually are. We just need more reliable data than sightings I think in order to get a close approximation of their numbers. It seems that no one really can agree on how many are possibly out there and I have seen estimates ranging from a few hundred all the way up to the 100,000 proposed by Perez. I agree that the sasquatch seem incredibly versatile with regards to its habitat, but even if that is the case I tend to go with a more conservative figure. Being a biologist myself (which in and of itself makes me no expert on population statistics), I’d have to go with the lower number in my opinion. I know that sounds boringly mainstream of me, but I’d rather start low and go higher than make any bold overestimations. That is not conclusive at all since like I said we just don’t know. I could be completely wrong.