It could be indicative of a number of things:

the subject you are trying to film/photo actually does not exist;

you didn’t do your homework (you’re in the wrong place to begin with);

you weren’t persistent enough (a rare species might take years to get on film or video, as was the case with the snow leopard and the Borneo rhino);

you didn’t have the camera trap(s) in the right position or direction (are you on an active wildlife trail? do you need to shift the camera 12 inches to the right?);

you didn’t provide proper maintenance on the camera traps, thus missing out on possible opportunities;

your camera technology is not good enough (slow trigger speed, insufficient range/flash, prone to overexposure, etc.);

your camera traps are in an area that is subject to human tampering and vandalism;

etc., etc., etc.

msytery_man, thank you. Like you said, this is a very mainstream research method, advocated by very mainstream field biologists. It’s been shown that it can lead to success in obtaining film/photos of rare and endangered species (rhino, snow leopard, etc.); durn it, it can work, if done properly and for the long-term.

While some are arguing over whether or not the sasquatch exists, or whether or not it’s ethical to charge for “bigfoot expeditions” or what kind of gun to use for “harvesting” a sasquatch specimen, or whether or not there are multiple species of bigfoot-like creatures, you should know that there is a group of investigators and scientists, both professional and amateur, working very closely together in a cooperative effort, to quietly and methodically employ numerous high-quality, high-speed, digital camera traps to obtain good clear photo/film evidence of the sasquatch.

Again - we have no illusions about time of required commitment; we are prepared to accelerate this operation and continue it for years and years (short term goal is to have 100 high-quality camera traps out within the next two years). Having said that, we believe that time is of the essence; most of us in the TBRC believe their numbers are not great.

Just making sure.

But you know that.

I am frankly confounded by the assertions I have seen that no way will a photo - or even a video - get it done. This is what comes of watching too many fakes and playing too much with Photoshop, folks. You stop trusting your eyes. We have a heritage of five million years plus as a hunter. When footage - or even good stills - of a real animal come out, people will know it’s genuine. Fakes leap out at you. (Sure a man in an ape suit is a “real animal.” We see it in an instant. It’s a human.)

I, too, think this is the way to go. Got the rhino, didn’t it?

Well, truthfully there’s nobody out there but perhaps one group (TBRC) and a few individuals (Meldrum, Noll) who are out there trying this very mainstream method of deploying and using a number of camera traps (with very fast trigger speeds) in a concerted effort to obtain the “discovery shot.” The TBRC (Operation Forest Vigil) is conducting this same exact type of research, using a number of very high-speed wildlife photo/video cameras, concentrated in a couple areas of very high interest. To my knowledge, the technology hasn’t been good enough, and nobody’s really tried such an approach regarding the sasquatch, even though one of the world’s leading field biologists, George Schaller, has made very public comments encouraging researchers to do that very thing.

Quite a few individuals don’t even think good photos or film will work, so they don’t even try it, or if they do, it’s hit and miss with a low-tech camera here and a low-tech camera there, or one or two digitals there for a few weeks; it may take years to get any footage at all. The TBRC absolutely believes this is the method to pursue, and we have been pursuing it now for a year.

So far, we have put out approximately 25 excellent digital high-speed cameras, and have been monitoring them for a while. We add camera traps to the array as we acquire funds and/or more equipment (we were recently bolstered by a nice camera donation from a university Ph.D. from the four-state region).

We’ll have more to say about this in our upcoming report on Operation Forest Vigil, which will be published when our new site comes on line.

Anyway, I said all that to say that, until recently, this kind of research in the search for the sasquatch has not really been used in a concerted effort by a group. That is not the case now.

The sasquatch is only an ape, ferpetesake. How could he possibly avoid an ignorant population over 300 million, dedicated to considering him a hoax, not looking for him, and otherwise ignoring him? Must be a fake.

I don’t know where you get the idea that the rhino knows there’s a camera there

About the clip, beautiful image of such a wonderful creature. Clearly I’m not the only one to notice it took more than four weeks with multiple cameras in a location that the rhino (who is not camera shy) was known to frequent before we even get what amounts to 45 secs of clear video. And yet people are amazed that we have yet to obtain a clear video or image of a creature that doesn’t want to be found, does not seem to have particular “stomping grounds”, and from an expedition that lasts a weekend. Such is life.

Again, glad to meet you all.