Sasquatch Niche, How Might Sasquatch Live
Posted by: Rick Noll on April 19th, 2007
If Sasquatch had a large sized population, what might we see that we are not now?
- We would have more sightings and track finds then we do now, forest workers and visitors would be seeing them more. If they numbered as many as black bear we may still not be finding bones but we would be seeing more damage caused by them. If they were as numerous as deer or elk then we would be finding bones… or we would be seeing an increase in population for other animals like porcupines.
- We would be seeing more resources being utilized by them. More foraging of eatable flora, more fishing, more gathering of insects and amphibians. A larger population would impart within tribal knowledge of such resources, just like fishing areas for grizzly are in Alaska. This would congregate the animals or focus their presence at specific times and places.
- We would be seeing more reports describing behavior. The animals would not be so fast in moving off when finding themselves if safer numbers.
- We would be seeing more reports of multiple creatures in each instance. A larger population doesn’t mean that death gets reduced… it means that there are more infants.
- We would have more competition between them and other animals including humans. Berry patches and fishing grounds would get discovered and utilized more.
- We would have more films, video and still images of the animals. With more and more people on this planet and more and more availability of photographic means (from cell phones to digital cameras the size of a pack of napkins), people would be recording the encounters if there were more of these creatures.
- We would see more of the pattern embracing their niche. The animals would essentially stop being cryptic in its life story.
- We would be able to predict their occurrences or presence more often or more reliably.
- We would have developed a successful capture of an individual or at least have a much better chance of finding one dead from natural causes.
- We would be seeing more infant Sasquatch.
- What is a large size population? Probably on the order of wolverine in the area equal to the size of Washington State I would think. Certainly no more than that for cougar.
- Right now I am leaning towards a population density on the order of Grizzly in areas where they inhabit the land. I would say that I would be surprised if there were more than 5 or 6 individuals per 400 square mile area.
- An animal fills out its population when resources allow it. So whatever resources the animal needs or possibly uses is a valid inquiry and monitoring project for this mystery.
- What areas might we find the bulk of the population of Sasquatch in?
- On the edges of human habitation and environmental impact.
- Designated wilderness where human vehicular transportation is limited as well as environmental manipulation.
- Protected watersheds gated off from the public and with limited use.
- Native American lands that are undeveloped and protected.
- Areas that have equal amounts of surface in X, Y and Z. Areas that contain hills, mountains, cliffs, slopes, etc. This can effectively multiply a given area its actual usable surface. A flat 20 by 20 square mile tract of land can contain 400 square miles if flat or almost 1000 square miles if mountainous.
- Swampy and boggy areas.
- Areas with good, reliable, unimpeded water sources.
- Coastal areas.
- Areas with potential unmonitored food resources such as herds of ungulates, bivalves, small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and insects.
- Areas that have potential shelter.
- These animals probably find areas were they can lie down and forage, hiding their height and thus reducing their discovery with casual observations.
- The animals have to contend with thermoregulation in some way. It might be that they simply are built to handle heat and cold but I would venture a guess that their behavior has developed around this aspect as well. We might eventually find them traveling between the sides of remote valleys, chasing or avoiding the sun as it were as it hunts and forages. To a casual observer seeing a Sasquatch foraging on a steep green mountain slope climbing on all fours it could look like just another bear. Certainly standing on such a slope would be precarious at best.
- The animal’s behavior, as are all animals, would be geared for preservation, taking as little risks as possible to its life and potential offspring. They would avoid confrontations with animals as large and strong as them. This might be why documented grizzly habitats have less reportage of these creatures than non grizzly habitat. Even an elk could be considered a potential threat. A full grown cougar would not attempt to take down even a healthy deer for fear of being injured by horn or hoof and having infection setting in. Only the sick, injured, constrained, old and small infant reduce this threat to manageable means.
- Is the Sasquatch a predator or prey? I can not see them being prey. Maybe occasionally a grizzly might get an infant but a full adult would be a good match. I visualize a chart showing a typical individual Sasquatch traveling through its years from infant to maturity and only there find that Sasquatch as prey fits either end of the spectrum.
- I also believe that a lower population is only possible with a longer life span. Maybe as much as that of humans.
- Nature seeks a balance. The balance that is documented, at least in the Pacific Northwest dictates a small population at best for Sasquatch.
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.
Hi Rick,
Your abstract is the subject of discussion within the TBRC. One of the members commented on the absence of references to migration routes.
Other than possible elevational migration, as suggested by Keith Foster based on patterns of sightings in Colorado, do you think the sasquatch is migratory or are you aware of evidence supporting migratory behavior?
Geeze…so many aspects about this subject. Probably why so many are fascinated by it.
In the vision that I have of this creature’s natural history I’m not surprised that tracking is so difficult for us. But perhaps a thought experiment can illuminate the problem.
Imagine you were trying to avoid detection from a bunch of little people (homo floriensis?), who for all their cleverness can’t simply walk over the kind of ground that you are naturally equipped to travel. So what if you were being chased by night blinded midgets through a miniature golf course in the dark. They’re scurrying along the path but you just step over the 2′ high fences and across the putting greens which pose no obstacle for you. In the mean time the midgets are all but blind, scuffling about in the dark, wondering how your footprints just disappear as if into another dimension. Even if these little folk finally come to the conclusion that you, a giant, are using your long legs to step over barriers they must walk around, they’d still have little luck at trying to capture you as long as they were determined to stick with the miniature golf course where they sometimes see you.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that if the BF is what most researchers say it is physically, there must be some reason our evidence gathering is so mediocre and sporadic. It’s our inability to get into our quarry’s mental set that makes it impossible to predict its behaviours which is essential in order to scientifically document it.
Of course, there is still “handsome luck” if we can recognize it when it appears.
Very interesting aticle, Rick, and on a subject rarely discussed in such detail in these commentaries.
“Nature seeks a balance.”
We humans do, too, in our daily lives. Perhaps that’s why the mystic holds such strong appeal for so many of us, because that part of our lives is “out of balance”, unstable, unsettled, cryptic.
We each have our daily routines, with schedules carefully arranged so our activities fit neatly into a predictable, dependable, comfortable and stable pattern.
But there’s this irregularity – a strange beast, a flying unknown, an unlikely behavior, a sporadic event – and we are caught in an intellectual challenge, irresistably demanding that we put things back in order, into equilibrium.
Sasquatch must have a balance in his/her life, too, and it is usually when our routines unexpectedly overlap onto or intrude into theirs that we encounter each other.
Bigfoot’s method of rectifying that imbalance is to vanish, to move into protective cover, to leave the area as quickly as possible, to avoid confrontation and danger.
We enthusiasts, on the other hand, approach the mystic aggressively, looking for answers to newly-asked questions, seeking the balance.
Stimulating thoughts for a Thursday morning.
Thanks, Rick.
dogu4: you say “there must be some reason our evidence gathering is so mediocre and sporadic.”
There is: there are very few if any professional evidence gatherers doing it.
Researchers – even the mainstream scientists like Krantz and Meldrum – are all amateurs, in this field at least. (Where your “mental set” comment comes in.) Krantz made some speculations about the animals that I think are ludicrous in the light of anecdotal evidence (of which I have the benefit of much more, maybe, than he had). And most of the serious researchers don’t even have the close-on degree qualifications of Krantz and Meldrum.
And then there are the people who actually seem to be seeing these critters: rank amateurs like me. No, I personally haven’t. But I found what I am pretty sure were old tracks, in a remote area of northern CA in 1986. I thought it was too dim to take even monopod photos; and back then, to whom would I send them? And they were old enough to create that scintilla of doubt. So I blew it off. Many only thought later about their not having gathered anything. And many who gathered something were daunted by – or simply unaware of – what would have to be done to treat it properly.
The animal contributes something to the sporadic nature of evidence gathering. We contribute much more.
very good, as far as the discussion of migration–I have a strong feeling that for big foot, the need for any migration would be for food, water and ultimately temperature. I don’t know about ya’ll, but when it is 110 F in the shade, if I was free to wander about, I’ld go find myself someplace a bit cooler (maybe with a pond or river). Any further speculations on actual, instictive migrations (like geese) I will have to hold onto until we get someone to actually put one to sleep and chip it. If big foot is as smart as he seems, then he is not going to expend more energy than needed, thus needless migration probably wouldn’t happen with them.
Now, if the population was higher in number, then we would be getting somewhere. Like the wolverines, even though most people don’t see any when out in the woods (and who would want to), experts know generally where to go. A little patience, maybe a little bait and there we go, we have good pictures of the critter. Of course wouldn’t that just be a sight: a man, sasquatch and grizzly bear standing in the river waiting for the salmon to swim by. Almost makes for one of those evolution joke posters.
Regarding #6 (having more films): it seems to me that there may be ‘undiscovered’ still/video footage that we don’t know about simply because the cameramen either A) have no idea whom to forward it to, or B) are afraid of ridicule.
Additionally, *some* of the footage/stills that are labeled as hoaxes MAY be genuine; we simply don’t know enough about the animal to look at grainy footage and smugly declare it to be a hoax because it doesn’t conform to the P/G film, which hasn’t been proven to be genuine(!).
[A caveat: I believe the P/G film IS genuine, given that Patty’s large gut and sagittal crest are consistent with a large hominid/ape that survives on a diet largely consisting of plants].
Fascinating. Very nice article, Rick. Thanks.
This is how the first sentence should have read:
“If Sasquatch had a large sized population, was a flesh & blood animal 24/7 and was not particularly bright, what might we see that we are not now?”
Unfortunately, it was common knowledge throughout the U.S. in the 60’s and 70’s, that Bigfoot was not a flesh & blood animal 24/7. We now have an almost entirely new generation, who at best, were still children when the true nature of the Bigfoot was widely known. Since this new generation is lacking in guidance from the older generations, they are confused at best. Even the simple farmers of Minnesota knew in the 60’s, that they had both Bigfoot and little people, living in virtually every single treed wind break in the mid-west. And they also knew to not speak ill of the Bigfoot because the Bigfoot allowed them to live there, not the other way around. Those that disrespected the Bigfoot, experienced a large and inexplicable loss of livestock. The Appalachian hillbillies knew enough to walk down the center of the road at night, because the Bigfoot would stay in the brush and tail them while making only twig breaks as it moved. And just like those who live in the small Colorado Rocky Mountain towns today, they all laughed at the big city folk who do not know what they know. So how can simple farmers and Appalachian hillbillies, live out there entire lives within a few hundred feet of a 1000 lb. dangerous animal? Because they are not animals. Because they are not dumb, because they understand the farmers every thought, and because they are not dangerous, when you respect them as intelligent, people who normally exist 24/7, in other dimensions that “dogu4” alludes to.
DWA: Of course, I failed to mention the obvious, but my point isn’t so much to default the searchers but to try to point to a way that might improve reliability of finding evindence. I think the evidence, even if it were somehow objectively stronger, would still suffer from its not offering research any predictive information. So: we find footprints. What’s bothering is that we can’t go back and find more periodically or predict that “such and such a place” would be a likely place to find more, and my thought is that we’re looking with our current search criteria. Perhaps re-thinking would improve the predictive qualities.
Shumway: You make a good point about a creature weighing in at half a ton and wearing a fur coat. When I guided tours in bear country I would point that out to people who were upset when the weather was gray and wet so they’d realize that sunny weather drives ’em into the shade. And another good reason why a large animal might be more successful nocturnally.
By the way (and a tad off the subject)I’ve been very fortunate in seeing wolverines 3 times in my life and possible glimpses a number of other times. What is starteling is how incredibly beautiful they are. Their fur is shimmering natural masterpiece. I hope you get a chance to see ’em sometime. You wont forget it. They at one time were common along the east coast and given enough time we can hope they’ll find their way back.
I think it is highly probable that as has been said already, we just do not have a good bead on what the habits, thought processes, and movements, even possible migrations are concerning this creature. I think the evidence could be out there in plenitude, but we just do not know where to look or how to look for it effectively. We could just be going about it all wrong. I feel that a lot of the Bigfoot encounters are just by chance and one of the reasons expeditions or concerted efforts to find them often come up empty handed is because we simply do not know enough about Bigfoot’s behavior to efficiently go about finding them, not to mention the time to do it right. Even with known animals, it can be hard to track them down, regardless of their population density. With an intelligent, enigmatic creature such as this, with our knowledge of its behavior coming largely from sighting reports and not from field observations under scientific conditions, it is absolutely going to be difficult to locate them. Add to this a possible small population and the problem gets compounded.
In my opinion, once Bigfoot is documented and studied and its habits and behaviors are learned, it will become easier to locate them on a more regular basis. Until then, it’s likely the best evidence that is going to be forthcoming is that which is stumbled upon by chance.
Another thing that I find interesting is the mention of people mistaking them for bears. I often speculate about this. I wonder if so many people are accused of seeing a bear rather than a sasquatch, how many cases are there of people thinking they saw a bear when it was actually Bigfoot? There could be quite a few sightings that have gone unknown and overlooked simply because the witness wasn’t aware they were seeing a sasquatch rather than the bear they thought it was. I’m sure there are also a lot of sightings where people knew what they had seen, but because it was such a strange thing for them, they sort of convinced themselves that it had to be a bear.
One more thing I think is a very good point is what DWA said about non professionals coming across the evidence, be that physical evidence or photo opportunities. P/G were in the right time, at the right place, with the right equipment and I think this rarely happens. A lot of normal lay people coming across tracks or signs of foraging may not even be able to identify what they are seeing, much less know how to go about collecting and documenting what they find. I think there has probably been a lot of evidence that was stumbled across, the hiker said “That’s weird”, then went on their way without further thought about it. Even if a good track was found, many would not know what to do about it.
By the way, wasn’t there a cryptozoologist who came up with some sort of estimate of what he thought the population was based on some of the factors listed in this article as well as sighting reports, etc.? I seem to remember reading something about that way back. Anyway, this whole topic of possible population dynamics of Bigfoot is pretty fascinating.
I have yet to see just a single convincing picture/video of the SAS. No picture I’ve seen on this website or the internet proves anything about the SAS. Just my two cents of course. The best one to date from Patterson remains highly controversial, to put it mildly. So it’s not so much about getting more pictures as capturing one everyone can agree with.
Treeclaw, these days I doubt that any mere photographic evidence would be so good that nobody would accuse the photographer of trickery, digital and otherwise.
On the other hand, even if a tiny handful of pixels from the lowest quality security cam from kmart, behaved in a way that allowed us to predict the behaviour of the blob we think is acting like a BF, then the quality of the image is irrelevant. In other words, if an entire landscape could be recorded and cross compared to consecutive identical images, any movement would become apparent through processing, either something holographic or something more basic, such as blink interferometry. It wouldn’t be important that we see the creature, but over a period of time we would come learn something about the behavioral patterns of the unidentified creatures and from that go to seek corroborating evidence (foot tracks or droppings) or maybe set up a hidden cam in a site closer to where we predict our creature to showup. This is exactly what I hope to attempt should I ever find myself in a position to do so. In the mean time, lets hope someone gets lucky.
Fascinating comments, two of which brought up a subject dear to my heart: If YOU capture a primo photo, video or other incontrovertible chunk of Squatch evidence, or if you found an active lair site or a body (!), what would you do with it?
We all talk about the need for better data, so who ya gonna call? How do we assure ourselves (and the critiques sure to follow) that the evidence is real? How do we keep it safe, and warp-free? How do we move the body, and to where? And do we try to capitalize on this opportunity to make a little money for our efforts?
It hasn’t happened for a while, but it will again, and wouldn’t it be better to have a resource all set up?
Who ya gonna trust?
Great, thought-provoking article, Rick. I think there is so much to this mystery that many people don’t realize, and this article really encapsulates all aspects of the Sasquatch mystery quite well. Thanks, Rick.
mystery_man: amateurs do some really funny things.
A backpacker in Jasper NP in Canada – conversant with the sasquatch – ran across a fresh track on Jasper’s North Boundary Trail. (That’s remote.) He had long since left the tracks when it occurred to him that, no, one really shouldn’t expect a barefoot park ranger with a huge shoe size out there!
Migration – We know migration when we observe other animals partaking in the behavior. Most if not all migratory animals congregate together for among other things protection (for direction census, transit termination, breeding) during their transit. If all the birds that migrate did so individually we would not know as much as we do right now about this behavior. We would not know when or where they start and stop. We would not know why they start and stop… at least to the degree we do now.
One bird starts it long journey because of the onset of winter, but its particular winter home range has a microclimate that retards winter this year by a few weeks. When this bird finally arrives at its previous summer grounds it finds no other birds of its own species because two weeks beforehand the earlier birds found a very good hunting area plus they were blown off course just a little and a new shopping mall just went in and covered over a large portion of the usual ground.
Migration weakens survivability in those species with low population densities unless they congregate together for the migration. This has not been observed in Sasquatch reports.
Up to 10 million Bigfoot in the U.S. alone. So obviously, the people that are attempting to control the direction of Bigfoot research, do not have a clue.
Excellent article. I just found your blogs on here the other day and it’s nice to see something new so soon!
Anyways, I think that the population density also reflects limited food resources, as is seen with the orangutan. It’s also interesting to note that the load calls associated with the sasquatch would also point to a smaller population density. Such calls are utilized by the orangutan as well to communicate over lengthy distances.
Great speculation about places where we might see the bulk of sasquatches. Very interesting.
As for the comments, I wouldn’t consider Grover or Meldrum “amateurs” in this field, as they both have/had extensive training in the sciences that would normally deal with such an animal.
Thanks for the article,
David
Another thing that I feel may be confounding efforts to get any sort of accurate assessment of its numbers or collection of good evidence is the creature’s apparent tendency to roam over large areas. I don’t know if this is any sort of migration per say, but Bigfoot could just be roaming far and wide searching for food. I read somewhere that said Bigfoot does not seem to be very territorial, so maybe they do not really permanently make their home in any one area. Maybe they do not stay in one place for very long but rather meander over large territories. If they are dispersed over large areas and roam constantly like this, that could be another reason why they are so hard to pin down. This kind of wanderlust would also make any sort of concentrated evidence hard to come by and would make getting a handle on their location or behaviors tricky since their movements may be erratic and unpredictable. Of course if they find a place where the getting is good, they may stick around for a bit, but then they’d be off again on their wanderings. This seems to be a perhaps nomadic creature that just may range far and wide and stop off wherever it happens to find something it needs. This is all just speculation of course but something to think about anyway.
This is a fun exercise in speculative biology; or speculative para-biology (per Silvereagle ). My view is that there are small widely scattered populations. They are opportunistic omnivores and very, very secretive. I think they may live very much like Bonobo chimps. I wonder if they have mastered tree dwelling or climbing like chimps, especially younger ones. If so, they have doubled or tripled their available resources for food, forage, shelter and seclusion.
A bigfoot that is an aboralist has increased its ability to hide, get food and water, and may reduce it’s necessity to migrate. Therefore, these small populations may be able to stay in one watershed or remote mountain valley for years.
If they are multidimensional as Silvereagle suggests, then survival is unlimited; you pop in and out of any time or place you that serves your needs. I vote for a more normal biology for Bigfoot, simply because thinking about Bigfoots in a multiverse gives me a headache.
I’m new to Colorado, but I can drive up a pass on a fairly busy road in the Rockies, pull off to the side and disappear from the world. The car is there, but I could lose a search party. And there could be many anythings around the next outcrop, on the ridge, in the brush across the way. I think of one as clever as a mountain man but never needs a gun or coat. It can hoard fruit and nuts for the cold season, or catch fish, or hunt, or steal food. It would know a hunter from a hiker, trackers from a family. It can imitate a bear or a bush, and will leave footprints when it wants you to search in the wrong direction. They breed infrequently because they have a high rate of survival, and live long. A larger population would lead to their discovery. Young males will race and chase cars. That has been the ruin of some, but the driver leaves in fear of the law, or meeting whatever friend or family member it was showing off for. It has watched us a thousand times longer than we have searched for it.
dontmean2prymate:
Every now and then I’ll read something on this site and go “that was a GREAT POST!”
I did that with dogu4’s posts on open-country sas (another thread). I’m doing it again with yours.
Thanks! 🙂
Rick Noll: Regarding migration; if we are referring to the highly instinctual behavior we see in some birds, monarch butterflies and caribou, of course, we don’t see evidence of BF doing that, Perhaps there is a better word or a word with a definition for the kind of behaviour that is more intelligence based and which isn’t driven so much by climate but by resource availability (following seasonal variation normally but also keyed-in to the occasional eructive efflorescence) within a population or individual’s territory (potentially very big for a wide-travelling BF). In the mountainous areas animals “migrate” or shift their focus in their habitat to being in higher elevation, following the cool moisture and the resources exposed as the snowline recedes.
Uh..and this is a bit off subject. Was watching a vid of video footage taken from the back of a golden eagle. Wonder if a raven wouldn’t be able to travel with one attached to its scapulars, since ravens have been shown to be trainable to search for things for a reward, and they have been shown to do this in the wild, signaling to wolves and bears that they’d found potential prey. The ravens reward was access to highly sought after remains following the predator’s initial feasting and sometimes even before the kill is completed. Just curious. Anyone else ever suggest enlisting our animal collegues’ talents and abilities? I have to admit it dawned on me when I’d heard about using dolphins to search for “nessie”.
To Rick and ALL the posters, thanks for a great read… I really needed this, this morning.
Have a good day everyone!
Dogu4- That’s pretty much what I was trying to get at with my previous post. Not so much an instinctual migration path, but I wonder if it is possible that these creatures are nomadic in nature and cover large areas in their search for resources. Many animals are known to have large territories and large primates such as gorillas can cover a lot of ground too. This is seen in nomadic humans as well. I don’t see why this could not be the case with Bigfoot, a creature that wanders far and wide. By the way, I really like the raven idea. You sure do come up with some novel ways of approaching things and they make sense.
This thread has been very fascinating so far and I think a lot of good posts have been put up. Thanks for everyone’s input!
Dogu4: Perhaps you are right. Given the special nature of the SAS and the fact they are not photogenic. We’ll have to work around technical short comings. We are dealing with a very unusual creature who somehow managed to elude our zoological books since the beginning of civilization. Until we find a better way to document the SAS we’ll just have to do with what’s available currently.
Mystery Man; Nomadism…that’s the word! One more appropriately applied to human cultural patterns, but most analogous here, but as with almost all words, when they become part of a technical field the definition evolves into something specific.
That raven concept is one that I do think could work. While living in Alaska I was always keeping my eye peeled for the opportunity to develop a larcenous relationship with a steller jay or a raven. Those little cameras are always getting smaller and better.
Undoubtedly a more legal and scientifically acceptable,and very expensive method would be to use my idea to apply large field blink interferometry, and then use those results for their predictive potential.
Having read the entire thread so far. I can offer one additional speculation which was somehow over looked. Or perhaps I missed it. Either way, I propose the SAS must be an expert at the art of camoflauge. They can blend in very tightly with their environment which to a casual eye may pass as decaying tree trunk, a boulder, mound of dirt, an animal like the bear and so on. So in essence they could be watching without us realizing as it has happened so often. I also believe that when we do witness an encounter it’s because the SAS was not concerned enough to conceal itself.
treeclaw:
Numerous encounter reports refer to just the camouflage ability you’re talking about.
I found one of a juvenile (Warren County, NY, on the BFRO website; look for the “Deer Leap” sighting) particularly interesting, as it seems to show an ability directly related to what appears to be a tree-climbing proclivity among young sas, and the ability to hide even in a tree with no covering foliage. Big ones have been interpreted by observers to do a “freeze” in an apparent effort to avoid detection by a passing vehicle.
I agree with you that when one is discovered it frequently isn’t too concerned about that fact, particularly if it perceives the individual involved as no threat. (I think they’re better at making this call than, say, bears or deer.) I also think that inattentive ones get surprised; and so far that hasn’t seemed to remove any from the gene pool.
dogu4/mystery_man:
Nomadism, indeed. In fact, the thing that made me realize that continent-wide sas sightings could be reflective of a natural phenomenon and not hoaxes or wishful thinking, as I originally thought, was my strong suspicion that anything this big, this active, and this focused on avoiding human contact would have to keep moving a lot to both find sufficient calories at all seasons (and avoid exhausting the resources of a restricted area) and avoid detection to the maximum practical extent. The more I thought about it, the more implausible it seemed that the sas was a “regional monster” restricted to the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, other habitat concentrations suggested by the anecdotal evidence seem to be just where an expert, asked to speculate, might place them.
Yet another reason I consider the anecdotal evidence for this animal the most compelling – a slant apparently contrary to most.
Awesome point, Rick. That could be an instinctive behavioral tactic which would work pretty good along with a kind of instinctual predisposition and talent for camouflage and stealth.
I really think the key to getting evidence supporting the existence is understanding the creature better than we do now, so that field researchers can do better at predicting where it’ll be over a longer time scale than we’re used to for other animals, but we have to accept that we might be talking about a time scale of years, if the creature’s territory is as extended as its impressive walking ability would indicate.
Thanks again, Rick, for such a stimulating post!
One method to use is an unmanned flying robot fitted with a camera with the ability to video back to a projected site near an area of reported Bigfoot activity. A heat imagery detector from an airplane that can locate some biological activity that is otherwise undetectable.
Explore the limestone caves of the Pacific Northwest, for paleontological evidence of Primates. The Sasquatch population is most likely not as large as that of the Mountain Gorilla.
Nomadism may be more appropriate for human cultural patterns, but considering we do not know just how intelligent and close to humans sasquatch are, it may be quite a fitting word indeed.
Is it migratory? No one can say for sure if it is or not, but there are some tantalizing clues.
Eastern Ohio would be the place I would pin my hopes when determining if Sasquatch is migratory, as it is from data gathered in that area that the idea was raised. Looking back over the last 30 years or so, it has been noted that the vast majority of reported sightings and vocalizations attributed to this animal seem to spike sharply in the late autumn and early spring. While these could be argued away as the normal behaviours of hybernational animals, the fact that the sightings do not disappear completely in the winter and summer months suggests otherwise.
Possible. There has been some statistical analysis done in the quest to determine “how many” there are.
Assumptions: The range of these animals would be set as all of North America. They have life spans and reproduction cycles similar to those of the Mountain Gorilla and other Great Apes. They are Migratory in nature. As Sasquatch is believed to be predatory, there would have to be a relationship between things like deer population vs. Sasquatch population, but taking into consideration other large predators such as bear and human depredations on said deer population, etc…
Given these Assumptions, the analysts calculated that in order to maintain a viable gene pool and still have enough food/range to go around, there could be as few as 4,000 individuals, or as many as 10,000, depending on the analyst, focusing mainly along the Appalachian chain from Georgia into Canada, along major waterways (Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio/Cumberland river areas), the Northwestern area of the country (again, large water sources, rugged terrain, beaucoup food sources, etc…) extending again north into Canada, and running east and west from there ( imagine a large “fishhook” with the eye located along the Florida/Georgia border running north into Canada and hooking around the Great Lakes, with a mirror image running from northern California through Washington state and hooking east into Canada, and take all the points between the two barbs…that would be the “theoretical” range of the largest part of the population of these animals).