Bigfoot Contactees and Killers
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 4th, 2007
The image above may be enlarged by clicking on it. Janice Coy is shown by the Russian artist Lidia pulling out hair from the hand of the Carter family-named “Fox,” when giving him some garlic. March 2004. This montage was created by Lidia using Igor Bourtsev’s photograph of Coy with Bourtsev as the stand-in for Fox. Coy says she recreated the interaction while standing in the same dress and position as then. After the first draft drawing, Coy corrected Lidia several times until the artist achieved the correct graphic similarity to the events, as claimed by Coy. Used with permission from Bourtsev.
In March 2006, a Tennessee Bigfoot video was posted and discussed by Craig Woolheater here. [The links to the video are dead, unfortunately, and appeared to have been pulled.] The video was associated with the two main characters in this tale, Mary Green and Janice Coy.
The background to the videotape was that the Coy/Carter family claimed they have been in communication with a Bigfoot family for over five decades. Many in the Sasquatch studies community feel the very nature of this claim brings discredit to the entire science of hominology, especially without firm proof after all these decades. Today, in an updated, enhanced edit of this year-old blog, I explore this question anew, with an open-ended inquiry, what do you think?
A few years ago, Craig Woolheater and I were discussing the similarity among people within a group of individuals whom he calls "Sasquatch magnets." Craig has a specific definition in mind for the personalities he feel can be identified thusly:
There are a lot of people that would lead you to believe that they have repeated encounters with these creatures. I’m talking about people who make claims of going into the woods and finding tracks, often numbering in the hundreds, hearing mimicked vocalizations (most often owls) or seeing these things….every time they go out. I want to be clear here, I’m not talking about habituation cases. I’m talking about continual chance encounters.
(Although “habituation” is less frequently used that “habitation,” I’ll use “habituation” throughout this blog, to follow Craig’s initial use of the word here in this definition of his. Perhaps “habitation” versus “habituation” is the topic for a long discussion too, but back to Sasquatch magnets and Bigfoot contactees, for now.)
Craig sees a distinctive difference between these "Sasquatch magnets" and the habituation cases. I think they are only different points on a continuum.
After I got over my initial shock that Craig wasn’t discussing those funny things that look like tiny, tiny Bigfoot tracks that people put on their refrigerators (yep, I have some on mine), I began to focus on his content. These kinds of magnetic folk have been around a long time, and since the 1970s, I’ve been collecting their stories and classifying them as "Bigfoot contactees."
In my 2003 book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, I even wrote about two sinister and really atypical Bigfoot contactees named Charles Starkweather and Cary Anthony Stayner. Beside seeing Bigfoot routinely, both Starkweather, in the 1950s, and Stayner, in the 1990s, additionally, were serial killers. (The later murderer, the so-called Yosemite Killer, even wrote me from prison in 2006, and sent along his drawings of Bigfoot, which I included in the Bates College / Kansas City Artspace cryptozoology exhibition.)
Who is on your short list of Bigfoot contactee serial killers?
Meanwhile, all kinds of people have been labeling each other with the "contactee" moniker.
Maryland Bigfoot researcher Mark Opsasnick called the late Washington State Bigfoot tracker Paul Freeman, a Bigfoot contactee.
Bad Boy Erik Beckjord called Jack Lapseritis, a Bigfoot contactee. (No telling what Lapseritis called Beckjord.) Many people have called Beckjord a contactee, especially after he said “he” was Mothman because his out-of-body experiences were seen and identified incorrectly (?) as Mothman. We don’t even need to tick down all the Bigfoot 4D claims he’s made to put Beckjord in the contactee file. Or his recent media attention saying he’s taken psychic photos of the late Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Jack Lapseritis in his book, The Psychic Sasquatch, spends his time discussing interviews with several Bigfoot contactees. (You don’t want to hear what the late René Dahinden called Lapseritis.)
Ken Dashow, host of the radio program, "Edge of Reality," called Pennsylvania resident Stan Johnson, a Bigfoot contactee, after Johnson said he had been in touch with both the Heaven’s Gate suicide victims (after they killed themselves) and the “Seven Races of Bigfoot.”
"Jan Klement", an elusive character in Pennsylvania hairy hominoid history, has to be termed a Bigfoot contactee.
What names are on your list?
Nowadays, there’s a whole group of folks claiming Bigfoot habituation, the sometimes seemingly permanent mutual living arrangement between the humans and a family or group of Sasquatch close to a rural setting or in a nearby woods. The humans are merely the latest group who, for all practical purposes, are the ultimate Bigfoot contactees.
Thom Powell’s folksy book, The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon, is a study in habituation, and straightforwardly supports the tales from what can loosely be called Bigfoot contactees.
Are these merely just new outrageous, unsubstantiated claims regarding frequent sightings of Bigfoot wearing new clothing of the old 1970s’ Bigfoot contactees? Opinions vary. Powell is in a growing school of followers who doubt the mainstream Bigfoot theories and thoughts, as expressed by most chroniclers of Sasquatch and Bigfoot encounters and history.
Craig Woolheater has pointed to this part of what John Green has to say about such claims:
There is nothing new about people claiming that they have been able to make detailed observations of Sasquatch and know all about their appearance and behavior. People with stories like that have turned up numerous times in the past 45 years, and so far the end result has always been disappointment. If you are involved with such a person, be cautious. I have watched former colleagues get so deeply committed and then so sharply disillusioned that it soured them on the whole subject and they dropped out.
Similarly there is nothing new about people believing they see or hear or smell evidence of Sasquatch presence almost every time they go out in the woods.
But unidentified sounds and smells are just that, unidentified sounds and smells, and shapes found in photographs that could be Sasquatch could also not be. There are other agencies besides Sasquatch that can take food, make beds of vegetation, break trees and branches, move rocks, pound on things or make interesting depressions in the ground.
There have been cases where people have gone far beyond any reasonable extreme to fool someone with manufactured evidence of Sasquatch presence, and also cases where people have gone pretty far to fool themselves. Try not to add to that list.
All of us surely hope that some day some such story will be proved to be true, and at my age I tend to wish very hard that it will happen soon, but my experience offers no reason for optimism. Many years ago I decided that people who saw so much and knew so much were a long way ahead of me, so they had no need of my help and I would just await definite results. I am still waiting.
For anyone hoping to persuade mainstream science to take on this quest and provide the expertise and resources to bring it to a conclusion, episodes of this sort do real harm. Those who take them seriously end up looking foolish, and the prospect of looking foolish is surely one of the main reasons why few of the scientists that we know have an interest in this subject do anything about it, and why there is no financial or institutional support for those that do take it up. - John Green
Of course, the longest running, most accepted Bigfoot contactee story would have be the Albert Ostman encounter in 1924, where Ostman claimed he was kidnapped by a male Sasquatch and taken in his sleeping bag back to the Sasquatch’s canyon-enclosed campsite. Remarkably, there’s general agreement among many of us about Albert Ostman. John Green, Mark A. Hall, Ivan T. Sanderson, myself, and many others support and consider the Ostman story one of great merit.
This is an interpretation of the Albert Ostman kidnapping by French hominologist Christian Le Noel. Used with permission from Le Noel.
Ostman’s continuing longterm event contained far more details than momentary observations of random meetings with Sasquatch. That no one else has observed Sasquatch females gathering food, or living in family groups on the scale detailed by Ostman is not a good counter argument to say there is no reality to the Ostman sighting.
A few of the Bigfoot contactees and habituation stories may turn out to be true, and some do contain elements that confirm the Albert Ostman story. But then again, all of the post-Ostman Bigfoot contactees could be making up their tales based upon Ostman’s descriptions - and combinations of elements from many other stories. It’s really difficult to tell until there’s a Bigfoot in hand, so to speak, and it is a verified species. Someday we may all look back and exclaim, “Oh, that’s what they were talking about!”
Until that discovery, the file of Bigfoot contactees goes. Who else would be on your list of Bigfoot contactees?
What do you think of this entire topic?
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The above is a flashback blog, revised and with the Russian Lidia creation added, from a year ago, in thanks to those of you who are supporting the clearly articulated call on Boing Boing for for help. Thank you. You are making it easier for a quicker return through your continued assistance during this fiscal crisis.
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- Similar Phenomena:
Mr. Coleman. I would just like to compliment your work here on this site. I have been reading for quite some time now on this site. And I find this site informative and its people good in judging and arguing with open mindedness. It’s just now i had the guts to join the forum to share my thoughts. More power to cryptozoology.
Good morning Cryptos…
A few common themes in local squatch folklore…gathered from first hand accounts and interviews in the field over several years by myself and other researchers.
“They are never alone”
“They are more afraid of us than we are of them”
They are intensely curious and often observed observing us.
“Never run away”
“If they wanted you they would get you”
There are many places in rural Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas where these creatures are more common than “black panthers”…many locals, especially Native Americans take them for granted, for the most part they don’t talk about them with themselves or outsiders and not at all to “know it alls”.
I am convinced unequivocally there are habitutation situations throughout North America….Squatch has many intentional/inadvertant safe havens…conversely they are hunted on occasion…and though sometimes wounded or killed (They are never alone).
I am equally convinced their susbstaniation and documentation is just a matter of time…given the availability of affordable night vision, IR video, IR game cams and thermal imaging technology…JMHO
These are flesh and blood, breathing, breeding, evolving and dying creatures living in close proximity to humans…as their shrinking habitat erodes and our urban sprawl increases their adaption to foraging our refuse, crops, and livestock is inevitable…JMHO
There are several active research projects chronicled at Stan Courtney’s North American Bigfoot Forum…the ongoing Pine Ridge Law Enforcement thread and many others are covered in great detail with daily updates, nightly chats and hundreds of photos…JMHO
seeing is believing…live and let live…No Bucks…No Bigfoot
ole bub and the dawgs
I see no reason why habituation isn’t possible. People have been feeding wild animals throughout history. I do have some doubts as to them actually having a long laundry list of words and actually speaking them to communicate, but there again, it is possible. I do enjoy reading these stories. I find no credibility in Ostman’s story. I think it was derived from two other previous stories which were embellished and fleshed out. I purchased VALLEY OF THE SKOOKUM by Sali Sheppard-Wolford not too long ago which I am looking forward to reading and have both of Mary Green’s books which I have read and enjoyed all of which deal with habituation. It is an interesting subject that takes a lot of castigation. It seems to be within the realm of possibility so an open mind is a good thing.
I’ll believe it when it is of the quality of Goodall or Fossey. Until then, I’m thinking hoaxers, schizophrenics and demon-possessed.
I’m not talking about people who know the woods and have a notion of when the animals are around. I’m talking about cases where they supposedly hang out around the house, and come up to it often, but there are no photos, they don’t want real researchers camping out, etc.
Habitat is increasing, not decreasing, except around cities. Most animals are coming back, having adapted to the new environment of fields and fencerows. In my life time, the deer, coyotes, wolves, cougars, and mink have all made major come-backs. The wolverines are expanding their range from what it had been before the pioneer days.
The largest animals such as the elk, haven’t made it to the prairie yet, but they are a real nuisance in the Rockies.
So, Napes aren’t being squeezed out by loss of habitat - unless they already lived just outside urban areas.
I guess I’m more than a little skeptical. I want to believe that humans and BF are truly communicating somewhere in the vastness of the wilderness, but too many of these reports have psychic overtones (psychic phenomena does exist I believe, but is not the subject here) and too many of the people involved have other very unbelievable encounters. (The Heaven’s Gate and Mothman references, for example.)
While we can file these alleged encounters away somewhere in the back of our minds for future reference, the study of Bigfoot, or any other cryptid, MUST be conducted on scientific, measurable principles. If the field of cryptozoology is ever to be taken seriously by science, it can not be allowed to fall into the hands of, or even give serious credit to, what are essentially cultists in their belief and approach.
I know the world is a strange place, stranger than we can imagine as Arthur C. Clarke has said. But our approach must remain scientific to continue forward or we will forever be relegated to the esoteric “new age” mysticism that we are trying to emerge from.
Ole Bub said it all. Couldn’t have said it any clearer. Great topic thread, Loren. Glad to hear you’re getting back in form.
I think that in many of these cases we are dealing with deep psychological and spiritual issues.
Having a secret relationship with Bigfoot isn’t much different from the spiritualist movement in the 1800’s or the various cult movements in this century.
In short, it seems to be a type of 21st century gnosticism, where people find significance by having secret or special understand of a mysterious being. This special relationship brings a certain amount of celebrity and sense of belonging to the person who otherwise has very little control over their lives.
This area of “Bigfootism” has much in common with UFO abductees and other groups of people who claim experiences beyond the rational. Most of these are harmless, except when Bigfoot becomes “Son of Sam” and suggests to the follower that killing others is now required to maintain the relationship.
Does that mean that all Bigfoot experiences are some sort of illlusion or spiritual endeavor ??? I don’t think so, but the mystery of Bigfoot draws a big audience. If and when a biological creature is captured, killed, dissected and catorgorized by science, this crowd will move on to other mysteries or gnostic beliefs -
their place of significance will be found with Aliens, fairies, mer-people or on the far side of the next comet.
My definition of habituation of animals is spending enough time in close proximity to the animals so that they accept the presence of humans and go about their daily activities unconcerned by that human presence. I have no doubt that the habituation of Bigfoot and similar species is possible; it’s been done with chimps, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans. That’s how Fossey, Goodall, & Galdikas, for instance, have gotten close enough to the great apes to study them so intimately. It’s how Schaller conducted his ground-breaking research on lions in the Serengeti. Habituation can also occur when a wild animal approches humans of its own accord, usually to take food that the humans have provided. Wild canids can become habituated to people; sometimes other wild carnivores do too. That’s one of the ways that domestication of such animals began. We had a wild fox in the hollow that for years would come down to my aunt’s back porch and take crackers from our hands. (She did not have any dogs loose in her yard. It never came near the other homes, where there were dogs.) Mine guards at remote mine sites often tell of foxes and coyotes, and sometimes other animals, that come in to share from their dinner pails. Birds often become habituated to humans after having been fed regularly from feeders over a long time.
People can become habituated too; native peoples in various regions became habituated to invaders from other lands. But I have yet to read of or hear of any convincing stories of Bigfoot habituated to people. I’m not a Bigfoot expert, and I’m not saying it isn’t possible and hasn’t occurred; just that I haven’t seen any compelling reason to believe most of the stories. The Carter Farm thing I do not believe for an instant. I’ve been over the “Tennessee Bigfoot Lady” website and it’s a joke. And I won’t even start on the “pancake-eating Bigfoot” in Kentucky.
Rillo777 and sschaper, I agree. When the observations reach the caliber of those of Fossey, Goodall, Galdikas and Schaller, or even those of the Adamsons, I’ll believe it. Until then, the stories are just tall tales or wishful thinking. They remind me of the tales of “alien contactees”. I don’t buy those either. The people involved may be absolutely sincere in their belief that they have been sought out for contact. That does not make the stories true.
I know nothing about this topic.
But if you’re looking for someone to try it, I’d like to apply.
(shoot, I’d settle for just seeing one.)
I agree entirely with “Ole Bub” He has it right. In the areas he mentioned and elsewhere throughout the country there is a long history of these creatures that is mostly whispered about. Ask rural Oklahoma farmers about their 8′ foot tall barbed wire “Bigfoot” fences that get walked through on a regular basis. They are very real creatures and we are encroaching ever more into the areas they have traditionally inhabited. I believe encounters will increase as this keeps happening.
For discussion’s sake, let’s say there’s some person that has achieved some sort of ongoing contact replete with communication. Doesn’t that explain a lot? How else could a (breeding-size) population avoid contact, unless they had active help?
How do we know there aren’t people that are feeding them and teaching them words? There are apes with 200 word vocabularies. This was done without night vision or motion detecting cameras by people breaking new ground. Wouldn’t an informed quarry be harder to catch. If bears networked at annual gatherings we’d never see any of them either.
This whole idea of habituation in quite fascinating and I see no reason why it could not happen. Indeed, a lot of field studies of the great apes have been accomplished by precisely this. But I still wonder whether this is actually happening with Bigfoot and if so, would those that are in contact want to come forward and risk harm to the creature? I think it is reasonable to assume that if people have been in regular contact, they would most likely be afraid that someone would do harm to the creatures if they were to come forward. Of course, in the end, if any of these contactee stories hope to become embraced by science, they are going to have to be verifiable.
For those who think that development is taking over the natural resources of our country and we are taking over nature , I’d like to point out that only 6% of the US landmass has been developed. If you don’t believe me, check out the National Resources Inventory.
Of course there is the possibility that some people just have a way about them that allows these contacts. I would think someone like Jane Goodall could have made contacts with big foot. I say this because she was able to get accepted into the group of gorillas she studied. Some people are more in tune with nature than others. Now, the fact that there are claims of repeated contact without any proof, those I would have to wonder about. As much as I wouldn’t want strangers on my property, I would also be thinking about the importance of the officials knowing about them for their own protection. So, yes, there is the possibility of multiple contacts, but the evidence isn’t really there.
I’m in the same boat as DWA here but appreciate all the comments that have been made. Very interesting, thank you.
I often wonder that if I made contact with a Bigfoot (unlikely in Northern England of course) and had proof of their existence whether I’d tell anyone. My initial instinct would be not to for fear that these creatures would then be exploited, for want of a better word. I’d be interested to hear of the pros and cons of declaring proof or not (in a different thread).
DWA: so NOW you’re willing to go out into the woods!
I’m with MBFH. Let’s surface that notion. Tell or don’t tell? I’ve encountered it and wonder if others have.
But different thread.
And as to habituation: I’m always willing to go into the woods. This sounds like Bigfooting you can do at home to me, though!
Certainly without any evidence to back up these claims, it will be hard to verify exactly what is going on with the cases of so called habituation of Bigfoot. They make for interesting speculation, but without anything to back them up, they are merely interesting accounts. Anyone who wants to know my views on that can go to the “other thread” DWA mentioned.
skeptic: re: your post. That’s the pin in the balloon of one of the most frequent skeptic arguments - that there’s not enough available land to hide or feed a population of these animals.
That so many people see them seems a function more of their curiosity about us than it seems a function of the lack of space for them to avoid us. (I can’t get over how many reports there are of these guys looking into children’s bedroom windows.)
I’m stunned - just driving the interstates, never mind the back roads - at how much unpeopled country there is on this continent. Shoot, you could hide some mammoths. OK, in Canada or Alaska. But still.
There really is plenty of habitat for a creature of Bigfoot’s size to stay hidden in. Areas the size of some countries out there. I agree with DWA that the reason so many people have sighted them could be a result of their curiosity towards us rather than anything else. The areas where these creatures are purported to live really are quite sparsely populated. To give you an idea of what the possibilities are, I will say something I have said before on another thread. Japan has an area roughly the size of California with approximately 120 million people living there. Even so, there are vast swaths of untamed land. Some feel that even the Japanese wolf still roams out there. They also have their own version of Bigfoot called the Hibagon. This is with 120 million people living in a space not even nearly as big as Bigfoot’s alleged territory. People are slowly infringing into these areas, but not I think to the point where their habitat is not big enough to adequately conceal them.
Of course habituation is possible (if there really is anything out there to habituate to us…
).
Has habituation occured? Well who knows…
Are any of the claimed cases of habituation real?
Well, i can see no reason to believe any of them. If they really were cases of habituation, then we would have incontrovertible evidence of bf’s existence by now (seriously, who would habituate bf and keep it secret? who would be able to?).
And skeptic- regarding land use, you really misrepresent the information at the site you link too. I’m not claiming that there isn’t vast amounts of wilderness in the US (and even more in canada), or that it couldn’t support bf populations (although i remain to be convinced that there is adequate, suitable biomass to sustain such creatures), but to say that only 6% of land has been developed is misleading, and perhaps a lttle ecologically niave.
When I look at that pie-chart i see 6% ‘developed’ (by which we can assume, ‘actually covered with buildings or roads, etc’). But i also see 19% cropland. Knowing what i know about modern agricultural practices we can assume that the majority of that the cropland is more or less an ecological desert capable of sustaining almost nothing. I also see forest land 21%, at least some of which is either plantation growth or is heavily exploited natural forest. I also see 6% pasture, much of which is fairly intensively exploited and cannot be considered ‘natural’ or undegraded habitat (and in any case is not credible bf habitat). I also see federal land 21%. While probably much of this is protected areas, much of it may also be, for instance, areas use by the military, which are probably also degraded.
And none of this, of course, takes account of the fact that even if habitat isn’t directly built on or ploughed up, it can be fragmented by roads or other development such that its ability to support viable faunal communities and ecosystems is severly affected.
And of course none of this considers areas degraded by pollution…
All i’m trying to say is that none of us should be too complacent about our effect on the environment.
things-in-the-woods: everything you say about that pie chart is correct (and I can say this without even looking at it :-D).
That tends to mask the point.
Drive through a state or province with lots and lots of open crop land in the US or Canada (the Dakotas and Nebraska, and Saskatchewan and Alberta and…heck, Canada
are good examples). That land may not harbor much in the way of biodiversity. But it provides lots of food. And people rarely occupy - or even see - most of it.
Those types of areas - saying nothing about their negative environmental impact otherwise - can be tasty travel corridors for animals who eat what they offer (and animals who eat thiose animals).
You’re right that we should never use stats like this to understate our ecological impact. (As at least one book has rather disingenuously done.)
But we should be aware that the world isn’t nearly as carpeted with our kind as we tend to assume. There’s room for stuff - including stuff we don’t yet know about - to move and breathe. And even to live, pretty comfortably.
Oh. And I should add that, in the US at least:
1. Military reservations have been found to be superb reservoirs of wildlife. One of the finest natural areas within 50 miles of me - and it is fine - was formerly used for military maneuvers (until 1991), but is now rich in hunting, fishing, walking and wildlife. Another harbors large numbers of the threatened bald eagle. One in South Carolina has harbored - for, apparently, thousands of years - packs of a peculiar dog, now known as the Carolina dog, that has persisted, in a wild state, since its ancestors got there with the first humans to arrive via the Bering Land Bridge. Most of that tract is so isolated that this discovery was only made about 15 years ago. Rocky Flats in CO - a textbook degraded wasteland, to initial appearances - abounds in wildlife. Even Chernobyl (no, Toto, we’re not in the US anymore) has much more wildlife now than it did before the meltdown, much of it rare and endangered (and no, not by the meltdown, just generally). I could go on. (And actually, a couple of these aren’t military reserves, but nuclear sites. Oh. THAT’S better. :-D)
2. Degraded human-managed forest land may yield more for the sasquatch at least in the way of food than older-growth preserves do (although the latter will always be essential as sanctuary).
3. Pasture not only contains, well, pasture; it also contains, well, livestock. Patty sez: YUM!
4. Fragmentation can provide travel corridors. As well as food stops.
No, I’m not printing DEVELOP IT NOW bumper stickers. The sas is certainly no happier with much of man’s works over here than the First Nations people are.
But as things-in-the-woods so rightly points out, we don’t want to overstate things.
Either way.
DWA- I accept your point about cropland providing potential food sources for bf- i hadn’t really considered that.
Still, my real point was just about the misrepresentation of the data.
And I fully accept that there is still plenty of wilderness out there for stuff to wander about in…
Oh. Just got this in an email. And although I’m not totally sure of the numbers, food for thought:
The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
I’d have to see the definition, obviously.
Oh, and since i’ve just read it, i also accept most of what you say on your second post…
Hmmm, most sas sightings have been post WW2- Who knows, maybe sas is a result of those nuclear sites…
things-in-the-woods: The claim that there is not enough habitat for BF to exist can safely be dismissed IMO.
Even if you discount cropland, federal land which includes all the national parks and pastureland and only consider the 21% of forestland suitable to sustain BF, that’s 405 Million acres of habitat!
To say that forestland doesn’t have enough biomass… well, that’s umm… incorrect and I’m a skeptic.
things-in-the-woods: After re-reading your posts, it seems that you took an environmental impact kinda stance vis-a-vis my use of stats. I used them to simply debunk the fallacy that there is not enough habitat available for BF to exist, not to say anything about humankind’s environmental impact.
skeptic- in that case we seem pretty much to agree.
A happy state of affairs.
Well, I can say that in some areas of the world, I’ve heard there is an effort to get private land owners to cooperate by letting their land be sort of a reserve and in this way, large areas of seperate, privately owned land can become in effect a large protected area. I am not really fully knowledgable in this matter, so at the risk of blowing hot air, I won’t go into detail. But has any others here heard of this approach? It really does make sense and in that way, privately managed land could be a tremendous habitat for many different animals.
Mystery_man:
In at least one area of the world - Bhutan - there is already a preserve set aside by the government specifically for the protection of the yeti.
But of course Bhutan also tracks “gross national happiness.” And has wild boar in the streets and backyards of its capital.
So obviously we’re way too far behind Bhutan culturally to follow its example. But maybe we need to catch up. It should be obvious to anyone who’s read up on the sas that if it exists, it’s a classic “umbrella species,” and that if you protect it, you protect everything else there, right down to the insects and mussels and microorganisms on which the whole web depends.
The TBRC has on its website an appeal to private landowners for assistance in using their land in its efforts to document the sasquatch. It’s my understanding from reading their reports that a number of landowners have taken them up on it.
That is good to hear, DWA. I think if enough small areas of privately owned land can be used for this purpose, it will create one large conservation area bigger than its parts. The problem is if some areas cannot be expanded and “islands” form or if the areas are overly intersected by roads, but it is a start and on the right track, I think. Like you said, if Bigfoot gets protected areas, then all other species living there will benefit as well.