Why haven’t we discovered Sasquatch yet?
Posted by: Rick Noll on October 28th, 2005
(Nine Inch Nails – Every Day Is Exactly The Same)
Why haven’t we discovered Sasquatch yet? Why are there no bones? Surely they have to die sometime. Questions that keep coming up in conversations I have with people after the initial shock of them realizing that I actually look for this imaginary beast. How could something like this be unknown in this day and age? Don’t we have spy satellites that can read license plates from 600 miles altitude? Something should surely have been seen with them. Don’t we have a lot of forest workers out there daily who do not see these animals? Where did they come from? Isn’t it all just a joke pulled off by some people in Yakima and that guy who just died… making those fake tracks wherever he did construction work?
Here are my answers to some of these and if they don’t like them or understand them… Oh well.
1. Sasquatch must have a very low population number. The DNR decided to re-introduce the Grizzly bear into Washington State recently. They set free 50 of the animals in the north cascades. This must then be enough animals to re-establish a viable population in their minds. If the population were higher like say for elk or deer (100’s of thousands), we most certainly would have proof of their existence by now. Repeat encounters with the species would be much higher in number.
2. Sasquatch appear in reports mostly as single entities. It is rare to read of encounters with more than one animal at a time. If they form a troop or family unit then they must be hiding this fact, on purpose or inadvertently. This logic dictates a low impact on the environment resulting in less interpretable sign. This could also be because the encounter occurred on the boundary of a home range, where individuals would be more likely seen than a defined unit set.
3. Home ranges are probably on par with that of Grizzly (with of course differences between genders), which can be around 1,000 square miles. Traveling these great distances (up to 100 miles a day) on landscapes that inhibit transportation equipment used by man has them far outpacing any would be pursuers.
4. Remote camera traps are starting to be used more and more but the expense of maintaining an operable string of them exceeds their original cost. These are also limited in distance (trigger, focal length and flash) and field of view (usually setup with a wide angle lens).
5. They live in very remote locations. Reports of people seeing these animals can not be where the animals actually live. These reports are just as much about the human as that of the Sasquatch. Sasquatch are probably making mistakes when they encounter humans. When we read reports posted on the web by different organizations or in books we are actually seeing only the errors being made.
6. Nobody is really seriously looking for them. Studying something like a low population primate in areas like the Pacific Northwest is more than a part time job or weekend hobby for a few amateur researchers. It would require a lot of resources (time, energy and finance) to cover even a small part of a suspected habitat. Even the people who have written on the subject have not spent a significant amount of contiguous time in one area. Most seem to think that skipping from one location to another is better than staying in one area. Researchers need to maintain a personal life and meet obligations and debts. There are no grants considered for this line of inquiry that other primate studies aren’t ahead of in queue.
7. The species are intelligent enough or exhibit behavior that avoids human interaction. Primates by their very nature are reclusive. Perceived threats are judged by distance to that threat and body size. If an escape route is present it will take that versus any direct conflict.
8. Note should be made that aggressive behavior of the Sasquatch in certain locations could indicate interactions closer to a core region of the home range. Intimidation wards off would be research in areas or the animals just vacate. These areas sometimes appear near off limit sites posted by Department of Fish and Game personnel or City watersheds, supposedly for other species and safety reasons.
9. They most likely have a high-energy diet. A low energy diet like that of Mountain Gorillas would have the animals staying more in one area for longer periods of time and produce a great amount of sign, including scat and browsing. Not too many reports showing these items.
10. They do not compete directly with humans for resources. We would have more interaction with Sasquatch if we shared the same resources – even more so if at the same time. If we were both using only daylight hours and there was only one water source and we both ate just a certain type of food source located in one specific spot… we would have to run into one another.
11. Sasquatch reports indicate either they are for the most part crepuscular or nocturnal. This is a time period where humans, with limited vision and the ability to manipulate their immediate environment have retreated from. Humans venture at night mostly in vehicles that cut them off from the environment until they can fully retreat into dwellings.
12. The majority of Sasquatch researchers have been of the male gender. There maybe something preventing males from directly interacting or observing a self aware primate such as the Sasquatch.
13. Current amateur research is funded personally and so there are no standards employed. Reinventing the wheel seems to take place about every ten years or so. Tribal knowledge is held in check and not distributed.
14. Current amateur research groups spend more time discussing the problem then doing coordinated field research.
15. Weather conditions in the Pacific Northwest usually affect long range viewing practices in the negative. Fog, rain and snow limit visual observations.
16. Property with suitable habitat is not available to conduct research on. Private, FS, DNR, DOD and Native American land ownership prevents free usage and is parceled for human benefit, not the animals. Sasquatch ranges and territories would not be defined by man-made boundaries.
17. Geographical isolating boundaries for these animals are less than for humans. They can probably cross raging streams, traverse snow covered mountains, etc. quite easily where as man must use technology and thus be prepared to encounter these obstacles while in pursuit.
18. I have been told by a very reliable source, who likes to play the devil’s advocate in public most of the time, that we may already have bones of these animals but mislabeled them or that they are still in storage. Scientists stake their work, invest in a line of inquiry ever decreasing in dimension until a miniscule attribute of a topic can be described accurately and normalized for others. Bones labeled early man may in fact only be of early apes and not that of man, because there is little to no funding for apes. Sounds familiar.
(Norman Greenbaum – Spirit in the Sky)
About Rick Noll
Rick Noll has been actively searching for the Sasquatch since 1969 and continues his pursuit with extended field trips into the Pacific Northwest's most remote regions. Rick has worked with Peter Byrne, René Dahinden, Grover Krantz, John Green, Jeff Meldrum and the BFRO during all this. He helped with many documentaries on the subject including Animal X: The Skookum Expedition and Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.
If it were possible for funding for a year long study what locations do you feel would provide the results and how many researchers should be at each location? Should camera traps be used heavily. I cant even begin to think of what a budget should be. I get discourged by not being able to put more time into it and its all due to funding. I honestly believe that a year long full time study in selected area’s would solve the mystery.
14. Current amateur research groups spend more time discussing the problem then doing coordinated field research.
too true.
I will probably post a map of washington that has habitat sites I believe to have the best potential for future research. But there would have to some heavy explaining as to how it was made and what exactly it means.
1 year, 3 people at $250K should prove their existence or not. Of course there is a method to the madness, but we won’t get into that right now.
All of the reasons you discuss, for why this animal has not been found yet, make sense to me.
I have noticed a much higher number of sightings by females and children — maybe it will be a woman that proves the existance of Sasquatch 🙂
Just so long as its not me — LMAO.
That just might be true Melissa. I have a location off the beaten path, its an intake for the Wenaha Wilderness Area, has a history of activity. I spend a lot of time there researching the area, have found tracks and other things but never had a sighting or close call. My wife and kids set up camp on weekend in late October awaitng my return from a week long trip into the Wenaha. Their first night there my wife hears these loud screams comming from the top of the hill right next to the camp ground, spooks them good. Latter that night while in the tent the kids are sleeping and traci and the dog are laying there when she hears someone walking up to the tent, clearly bipedal she says and big. She knows its not us, we are still a day away, and the area really never is visted by other campers, too far out i guess. Anyway she listens to this sound of big steps get closer and closer to the tent. Our big dog Drake cowers down, very rare for him and whatever it is gets to the tent. It takes it hand and touches the tent and walks all the way around the tent running its hand along it and then it walks off in to woods as traci listend to its foot steps fade. She said the hand was four or so feet from the bottom of the tent. That night she became a believer. The next morning she looked around and found no tracks but its rare to see any at this location, very spongy groung, only hoved animals leave tracks there. There are other stories from this area from years ago where a family claims that their child was playing play with a baby bigfoot, tossing it back and forth in the bush.
YIKES !!!!!!!!! lmao. Your wife and family are very brave. Me, not so much. lmao. Kinda makes you wonder if animals really can “smell fear” and, could a womans natural desire to be scared under those situations be what this animal is picking up on — not sure. But, I have heard more close accounts from women than men..It is interesting. 🙂
Thank you for the story – I like hearing accounts from people 🙂
Funding doesn’t necessarily guarantee results. Scientific discovery is all about observation and patience…I think that many scientists are put off this subject because we humans are so naturally impatient; we are so eager to chase reports rather than extrapolate a hypothesis based on a careful, throughly considered view. Sure, it makes the day-to-day science extremely boring but that’s almost certainly what it’s going to take to ‘suss this out’. One thing we who love this mystery (and all other things cryptozoological) have yet to do is come up with a reasoned research plan. We have yet to come up with a ‘formula’ for assessing existing reports and placing them within the context of a larger theory. Grover Krantz started this process for us, but we’ve still got a long way to go and yes, without the funding to dedicate our time just to the theory itself, let alone the costs of field exploration, a comprehensive boiling down of all available data into a cogent argument that science can get behind has yet to happen (I’d do it but I have to work in the morning…)!