Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 13th, 2007
Would you kill a Bigfoot, if you got the chance?
The cover illustration by Dick Klyver is of Homo floresiensis, a Proto-Pygmy, on the front of The Field Guide of Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, 2006.
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- Similar Phenomena:
Now there’s a loaded question! This ought to touch a few nerves…
I can’t wait to read all the responses tomorrow morning!
What we know about them suggests that they are relatively social creatures. On that basis, killing one is more compassionate than capturing it, segregating it, and leaving it confined to an extremely limited space. If one were to capture a specimen, one would have to be extremely naive to think that one would be allowed to release said specimen back to the wild after having “”exhibited” it. Then there would be the legions of zealot scientists clamoring to get their own look at said specimen. I shudder to think what would be done to it in the name of the religion of science. (Where do you think Yarwen ended up? On the slab in some hidden lab, of course.)
Clearly, producing a dead specimen is the kinder way to go. A physical specimen is ultimately needed, particularly since photographs and film increasingly fail to constitute decent evidence in the face of modern technology (the scary implications of which I need not mention).
Of course, I could be accused of dodging Loren’s question. I don’t believe in killing for any reason other than sustenance (vegetarians tend to piss me off since they’re so insensitive to plants while proclaiming to be sensitive — they’re just being kingdom-ist); so my answer must be: No, I wouldn’t kill a sasquatch if I had the chance; unless I intended to eat it for dinner. However, given the way they reportedly smell, I hardly think that sasquatch is something that I would ever want to snack on.
Just my two cents.
This is a double edged sword. Without an actual specimen, there can be no end to the debate on the existence of sasquach, therefore they can not be listed on the protected species list. But to actually hunt down and kill one just to prove its existence seems silly. That would be like killing one of the last condors just to prove they are endangered. But that being said, without an actual body that could be studied and probed we will probably never have definitive proof. I personally would not kill one. I came in contact with one as a teen and had a rifle and was mere feet away, but opted not to shoot.
Grover Krantz always said that all it took was ONE dead Bigfoot then they’d be on the protected species list so fast no others could be harmed. I have to say that I agree with him. However, I don’t hunt. So I’m not used to shooting anything, never mind an intelligent hominid. Heck, I used to get squeamish gutting fish. I’d probably make a terrible Bigfoot hunter.
Besides, if Bigfoot are as heavy as people estimate, how the heck would I get the poor thing back to civilization?
I’m a hunter, but I doubt I could get the nerve up to kill something as humanoid in appearance as a Bigfoot.
Exactly. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it. Even if I was used to hunting animals, when faced with a Bigfoot could I honestly convince myself that
a) the best thing to do is to kill it in order to prove it exists or
b) that it really isn’t a hoaxer in a stupid costume?
Can you imagine the headlines if you bagged a college kid in a monkey suit instead of a Sasquatch?
There is absolutely no doubt that one of these magnificent animals is going to have to “take one for the team” in order to prove existence of the species. In spite of what evidence has come forth, mainstream science denies the possibility of these animals being here.
It’s funny how eyewitness testimony can convict a person, and even get them the death sentence, but the same level of testimony is not accepted in establishing the existence of this creature. Would I ‘harvest’ one? You bet! There is a catch to it though, I only want an adult male. Do I think that there is money to be made off of one? Nope, I don’t think anyone has ever gotten rich by establishing the fact that a particular species exists. Maybe there would be some cash on the movie rights. Maybe. I hate to offend those that think this is the animal from “Harry and the Hendersons”, but if the conditions are conducive to recovering the remains, I will shoot in a heartbeat.
I would not kill one, except in self-defense or in defense of someone else.
I’m curious as to why Al would only “harvest” an adult male. I have a few guesses as to why, but I’d rather hear from him, rather than speculate idly, as I do more than enough of that.
I’m not sure i could shoot a bigfoot that was minding it’s own business, since I’m not a hunter and don’t kill animals unless they pose some kind of threat or serious nuisance. if it came down to self defense, I can assure you that the ape will be taking a dirt nap. If I were on a bigfoot “expedition”, I would be armed, not because I’m looking for trouble, but in case trouble comes looking for me. Being unarmed in the woods is just a bad idea. How many horror movies set in swamps or the deep forest would have turned out differently if the characters had only been armed?
Unfortunately though, someone IS going to have to kill a sasquatch in order for it to be recognized as a valid species. Unless a corpse or skeleton is found laying around somewhere.
I don’t believe that recognizing a species requires a kill. A capture would be just as good. No, even better, because the animal could be fitted with a tracking or monitoring device and released to be studied further.
Animals can be subdued by drugs or other means for long enough to obtain direct tissue samples for DNA and other testing. Killing one to prove its species’ existence might be quicker, but it is no longer necessary. The benefits of having the living animal for further study outweigh the benefits of having its carcass.
Sooner or later, every animal dies. If we are studying the living animals, eventually we will have a dead one, without having to kill it ourselves.
I don’t hunt, and am a very live and let live kind of person. But a body, one way or another, is the only way this matter will be settled.
Maybe he’ll get pancaked on the interstate and make it easy…
They only get pancaked in Kentucky
.
Only to protect myself or others.
To actually hunt one down and kill it seems wrong.
If they are real, they have been doing fine without our protection or interference for a long time.
Here is one of the best arguments I’ve read for killing one.
I disagree.
We are past this, or should be, and if we’re not it doesn’t say much for our chances of saving anything.
Things have gotten to the pass where we don’t even know how many of these there are. Killing one on purpose seems unjustifiable from that perspective alone.
Given the number of people who were armed when they met one, and suddenly, um, either totally forgot that fact or had that gun suddenly feel like a water pistol, I feel pretty safe in saying that you won’t shoot a sasquatch unless you’ve already done it.
It’s a very nineteenth-century idea, and last I checked this is the 21st.
That guy in the link is very calculating about it, and tries to strip the decision of all sentiment. But that in itself is a kind of excuse. I don’t think anyone’s really thought about this. Or maybe someone has. There he was, sitting in remote backcountry with a dead sasquatch….thinking about how the hell he was going to get it out of there….about the kind of reception he was going to get….and about who he might meet first…and second….and 354th….he didn’t come out with that ape, did he?
And chances are quite good that in your state province or wherever, hunting is illegal. Unless you shoot this, between these dates, with this weapon. In other words, if it’s not specifically mentioned, it’s illegal to shoot it.
Unless you are going out with a heavily manned and equipped formal expedition with clear protocols for engagement, and a well thought-out and thoroughly vetted procedure for evacuating that carcass and getting it into the right hands, you better put that gun away.
And if you think you’ll make any dough off of this….put that gun away. I will NEVER be able to understand how anybody thinks killing a sasquatch, or proving its existence any other way, will make them rich. If this is so, why aren’t several Fortune 500 companies funding expeditions? Why isn’t a paper company – you want to talk about most likely to see sasquatch? try loggers – taking this tack? Probable answer: they thought about it. Thought, past tense of think. I will say this, though: the only person with a chance of getting rich off the sas is the one who brings one back alive – on video. People are NOT going to like a dead or imprisoned sas. I’m telling you, it’s 19th century, and in this (if in few other areas) the vox populi has changed. Better take that public temperature, folks.
But again. The idea of doing it turns my stomach. (Remember, you asked me MY opinion.) And the twisted logic …well, our ability to do handy rationalizing has gotten us in the mess we’re in. It’s time for a new leaf, and this sure seems a logical place to start.
Sorry. It’s disgusting.
Kalashnikovnik: I read your sentence “Being ARMED in the woods is just a bad idea.” That’s the truth. Trust me; 26 years being out there sans weapon is enough to convice me. But then I saw the typo. If you’re not hunting legal game, the last thing you will need – in ANY emergency situation in the woods and you will not be able to name me an exception – is a gun. If you are capable of using a gun, you are capable of ending the emergency another way. (Like, walking out.) If it’s a crooked member of your speciies you’re worried about, why? Either you’re crooked too or you’re dead. (BTW the only people I have ever met in the woods with weapons were hunters of legal game.)
If you think you’ll need a gun out there, well you might. You might need your house and car too. Are they there?
Call this sentimental, but if we don’t stop destroying villages to save them, well, does it look like we’re saiving anything?
No killing – period.
Good morning Cryptos…
These critters have done remarkably well without our interference and “protection”. Public awareness of their existence and plight with respect to a shrinking habitat is vital.
Capture is highly unlikely and could be potentially catastrophic if the specimen was documented, chipped and released, possibly exposing other clan members to human diseases which could devastate an indigenous population…JMHO
One of our researchers at NABF was a pro kill advocate…until he watched a 9 footer browsing at his bait station for 40 minutes through his rifle scope a few months ago “seeing is believing”. He told me he had relatives more apelike than this creature. He is strictly observe and protect these days.
I referenced this incident…with his permission hoping those folks with an itchy trigger finger may reconsider.
A roadkill or winterkill voucher specimen is inevitable in my humble opinion…when that day arrives…who are they gonna call…thats the real question.
Hunting them for sport, trophy or “science” should be illegal…period…JMHO
Live and let live….
ole bub and the dawgs
Kill a bigfoot and the FBI will confiscate it before it hits the ground. They have a crew in every region, that is assigned that task. So “researchers” are living a pipe dream, by imagining that killing a bigfoot is going to solve anything. Secondly, bigfoot are not endangered becaue they likely number in the millions. But they are intelligent people and deserve protection on that basis alone. See topic “bigfoot invisibility” for why people think that their numbers are so few. A dead bigfoot would only scare people and that is not the goal of researchers. A live bigfoot can possibly be revealed as benevolent, cooperative, gentle, intelligent, having a sense of humor and of course, supernatural. None of this can be proven with a dead body.
Gotta go with the no kill camp here.
I couldn’t even imagine killing a BF for any reason. The capture scenario is also a sticky situation.
When we did the “how would you catch a BF” thing it really bothered me to consider capturing and holding one of these creatures. I got into it a little then and I explained why I preferred a male.
Some of the many issues we have to consider are removing a BF from a migrating family group, taking a mother from her offspring or visa versa. What kind of traumatic effect would it have on the captured BF as well as the family group? I could go on and on….
There has to be a better way.
First, I am a hunter and I know I would be able to shoot one if I saw one, but I would definitely choose not to. Second, I agree that a body is the only thing that will put the debate to rest. I think that a person that brings a body to science will stand to make a lot of money off of it if they handle it right. Just like the person who takes the world record whitetail deer or the person who catches the new world record largemouth bass. There will be money to be made.
DWA,
I can name you numerous examples of being in the wood where you need a gun. And hunting has nothing to do with it. How about fishing in Grizzly country? Hiking in mountain lion country? I have run across pot fields while in the woods, trespassers, and the like. Without a firearm, these could have turned out very differently. Just because there are bad people out there doesn’t mean you are automatically going to be a victim or “dead” as you said. In fact you are more likely to be a victim if you are unarmed.
Also, in reference to the hunting regulations, since Bigfoot is not a recognized species, there are no regulations governing the taking of one. A state or province can only regulate what they recognize as a legitimate animal. For example, my state of South Carolina has no laws against shooting a cougar because they say we don’t have any in this state.
raisinsofwrath: there has to be a better way, and I’m pretty sure there is.
You read that link I put up there, and much of the justification is in, oh well, the way science always was, always is, and always will be. Well the scenario just got changed. This isn’t science as usual anymore. Has science as usual confirmed the sas? Just because everything else has a representative dead in a drawer means we have to keep doing that? Have you seen what a dead in a drawer specimen looks like after a few decades? There IS a better way now.
People say good video will never be accepted. The only reason, in my opinion, that Patterson/Gimlin isn’t absolutely unquestioned as a sasquatch is the totally irrational initial belief, that planted a seed in the public’s mind, that that’s a man in a suit. (That scientists let that happen is an eternal blemish on zoology and primatology.) That belief takes time to die. 40 years and counting for P/G says it’s dying.
Everything I’ve seen filmic for fake sasquatch has smelled dead from the instant I saw it. Only my totally irrational belief that gosh, maybe that IS a guy in a suit kept me from trusting my eyes at the first runthrough of P/G. Well, I’m there now. And you know what? I bet the majority of the public who have actually paid attention to P/G are too.
Trust me, a good video of a live sasquatch taken today or tomorrow will be INSTANTLY compelling.
Summing up: the only reason we’re talking kill at all is an extremely bad reason.
And if silvereagle’s right, only a live one will prove it.
We can’t prove his thesis on this scientifically. But let a bunch of scientists see it, and I want a ticket and some popcorn.
There is a better way, but it can’t be done by an amateur. Tranquilizer darts, figured for the correct size and weight by a professional, could be used to immobilize a Bigfoot so that closeup, definitive video and photos could be taken with complete physical exam. Hair and other biological specimens could be taken for later analysis, then the creature could be released. I know at least one party that has attempted this in an area of known sightings with a trained scientist, but they were unable to get a shot although they did find fresh tracks and other evidence. Their attempt was documented and may be shown nationally at some point.
- Linda Godfrey
My two cents:
If this thing truly exists then it would be correct to ensure it’s survival as a species. Comments regarding whether the species is viable or not is pure speculation. Nobody knows. The only way to find that out is through comprehensive research. Nobody is going to sink the kind of money necessary into researching a subject that is in most minds no more real than elves and aliens.
Due to the sensational nature of the subject, any picture or video that surfaces will be written off as a guy in a monkey suit no matter how good it is. Any attempt to capture the animal will more than likely end up killing the beast or it will result in the serious injury of death to the person undertaking the task. Finding a body would be ideal, but based on the accounts I’ve read sightings of live Sasquatches far outweigh the dead ones. If we wait around for this to happen the species might well be extinct by that time. That leaves only leaves one alternative, to collect a specimen.
I have no desire to go out in the wilderness to shoot one of these magnificent animals nor would I have any business doing so. But to me, other than to satisfy ones curiosity, any serious research in the Sasquatch without the intent of collecting one is a waste of time and money.
What a great question. Killing would only be justified in self defense. These creatures have to be as rare as the most protected of endangered species.
A live specimen would be the gold standard of proof. Also I am sure that there a physical characteristics that could only be assumed with a dead one. Many reports talk about eye glow. I would think that the eyes are one of the first things that deteriorate at death. Some deep sea creatures and insects self illuminate but I believe that this is unknown in the mammalian world.
I don’t think that there should be any worry about the discomfort of a captured sasquatch. Any zoo lucky enough to be considered to house one of these would spend millions to make a state of the art enclosure. Look how Pandas are treated. Wild animals have a very tough existence. Once they are old or sick death comes with a lot of suffering.
Best Regards
It should be trapped like man has done with other apes and studied.
Why settle for one, why not capture a family and breed them in a zoological park?
Evidently it’s a rare beast and should not become a trophy and have it’s head over someone’s mantle.
I really hate to be drawn into another debate about this topic again, so I will keep my thoughts brief. I personally think it would be better to capture one and try to track it somehow. Sure if you kill one, you have that body, you have that holotype. I used to be a proponent of killing one, but my views have changed on this of late. I think the main reason I changed my mind is because the amount of data that could be gained from actually being able to track one. The way I see it is that if you kill it, sure you have the body. You can document it and dissect it and do all sorts of nifty experiments with it, then maybe have it taxidermied and sent to a museum. Then what? Could we be sure of finding one again when it took all of this time just to find one to begin with? Would we know everything that can be known about it just from its body? Is that really going to satisfy all of us who have been looking for this creature for so long?
Now, if you capture it, you can document it and get that physical evidence. You can also release it, track it, and gain much more data about its habits and movements than you could by killing it, I feel. I do not think I would want to forfeit all of that potential data just to get a body. This is the same way with known animals, and I feel tracking it would provide us with far more answers to our questions. I see where the “kill” camp is coming from, and there was a time when I agreed, but I just think now that there are more productive ways to do this.
If I happened to stumble upon one in the woods, I would not hesitate to shoot and kill it.
DWA, you can argue this point until you’re blue in the face, but the scientific community, as well as the public, simply will not accept anything less than a body (live or dead) as ‘proof’ that Bigfoot exists.
Given the difficulty of capturing a specimen alive (especially if we’re talking about one or two people who happen to find one, rather than a group of people specifically equipped to capture a live one and actively seeking to do so), shooting and killing one is the best option.
Seems pretty obvious to me.
Quote: “be fitted with a tracking or monitoring device and released to be studied further.”
Good luck with that.
My dog won’t even let me put a Doggie Sized Football Jersey on her…
Being of Native American ancestry I always heard my grandfather talk about sasquatch but I never took any of it serious, until a few years ago. I used to think that I would have no problem killing one, but now after reading a lot and hearing alot more of the old Indian tales I can’t help but feel a little superstitious about the “old man”. Another thing that started turning me was reading Jeff Meldrum’s book. I never realized how little I knew about the subject. As for killing one? I really don’t think I could now. How many professional hunters claim to have stumbled across the squatch and could not pull the trigger? I just don’t think I’m willing to possibly curse my family. Only a professionally organized research group should be the ones who tranquilize, tag, and release such a beast. Although, if one was to come into my camp to steal one of my kids, I wouldn’t hesitate blowing his kneecaps off.
I guess there is the remote chance that a hunter will kill one someday, or it’ll get killed by accident (logging truck), or we’ll come upon a dead or dying one, regardless of how the deed is done it will be an interesting day. Saying that once it happens means it will be effectively protected sounds kinda funny since without any protection they’re doing great…at keeping away from us, which I would say is essential to their continued health. Currently there are people who claim all sorts of experience in wilderness skills, hunters, biologists…and all of ‘em come up empty, and they’re trying to the best of their ability to just see one. I believe the creature can exist, but I also believe that our own understanding of our own ability is lacking. Should they ever become scientifically recognized it will be the first step in understanding their behaviour and habitat.
But really, just mentioning the idea of capturing one makes me laugh. As Keith Foster commented in his long essay on the situation; imagine trying to capture a 1000 pound leopard that has the intelligence of a chimp. I think that explains tons.
If they are as intellegent as most say… wouldn’t killing a Sasquatch be just as bad as killing a human?? Think about that… I say No. It would be murder.
I’ll have to come down on the no-kill, capture only side. If you have a dead sas and you want it to be studied, I’m not at all sure you’d get anything but a circus. Most scientists would refuse to examine the body (because it MUST be a hoax), and they would crucify anyone who did examine the body (reference Meldrum).
Then, after the results were published and confirmed (a matter of several years), these same scientists would dispute every finding that was published, all the while lamenting that they were not involved with the study.
All this would take place while other scientists were talking about how the dead sas was really just a freak, or an anomalous gorilla, or someone’s escaped pet (escaped pet what, I’m not sure, but you can bet someone would say it).
And some idiot would say with complete certainty that it was an Indian with a stick.
All in all, a dead sas would only prove that it had at one time been alive (and some would dispute that), not that there were any others out there. Capturing one (now that’s a REALLY tough job) might very well give us the opportunity to find more of them. The impossibility of finding a dead sas out in the woods hints that they might bury their dead, so maybe they’d try to get a captured one back. Yes, I know how quickly bodies decompose in the wild and I know how hard it is to find skeletal remains of deer, bear, wolves, etc. I also know that it isn’t impossible to find them , as I have done so. Also, human remains out in the woods can last for years, as skeletal remnants. A sas ought to have a more robust skeleton than a human, so it should last longer. So where are they? Buried, maybe?
All in all, I think capture, almost impossible as it may be, is the ultimate goal. Then the sas could demonstrate it’s intelligence by escaping and we could start over again.
Wouldn’t that be fun?
This may sound slightly selfish or perhaps even make me come across as a tree-hugger or some such thing but, I wouldn’t even consider shooting a sasquatch. I only wish to see one in the flesh myself. Personally I don’t much care whether the rest of the world would believe me if I did see one because I’d know that I had. As has been mentioned above, “mainstream” science will never accept that sasquatch exists until a specimen is produced, but I don’t think I could bring myself to kill one.
My vote is “no kill” but for a slightly different reason than has already been stated.
Observations of these creatures reveals that they are social animals that operate in groups and somehow communicate with each other. They watch human beings, especially hikers and hunters and people living near their habitat areas, and have proven themselves at being adept in eluding us. They have adapted to our modern technologies; exercising caution to avoid dangers posed by trains or automobiles or articial lights or cameras. They could prey on us, but for whatever reason they don’t. A peaceful coexistence is maintained– though for the vast majority of people, we as a race remain blissfully unaware of their proximity and presence.
Now if someone ever managed to kill and collect the body of one of these creatures as a dead specimen, we should not dare to presume it will go unnoticed. These creatures watch us; adapting and learning. Once we demonstrate our intentions and capabilities of successfully hunting them, we will become their enemy. The table is turned. How do you think this will change their apparent indifference toward people? Will they become more active in defending themselves and their habitat areas? Will they become offensive or aggressive?
This is certainly one species of creatures that I would not want becoming hostile towards people.
escAPEe:
I have a theory that Indian tribes set areas aside for the big guys, areas that they never entered, period, for that reason. (Not all theory: The Hoopa of Northern CA – to name one – did precisely that.)
Theory comes in when I speculate on why.
1. We kill them.
2. They kill too many of us.
3. There’s something there that shouldn’t be killed.
4. Besides, they kill too many of us.
Don’t know whether that’s it. But maybe it wasn’t always so friendly. And maybe we want things kept the way they are.
(For those not conversant on the sas literature: there is nothing in the North American woods other than us that the sas hasn’t been observed to prey on.)
I would not bet it would work for the sas the way it has for everything else. That’s another thing we just don’t know.
No kill.
And for one simple reason:
It is a sentient being, not a means to an end.
It is, by all accounts, as intelligent (if not more so) than the other extant great apes. These have been proved time and time again to be as intelligent, and capable of pain or suffering, as a child of up to four years old.
I wouldn’t shoot a child for any reason. I wouldn’t shoot a sasquatch.
And it has been repeated on this site many times that ’science will only accept a body’. Indeed, I have said this myself.
The more I’ve thought about it though, the less I think that is true.
Science certainly wont accept its existence on the grounds of the evidence we have produced so far. And fair enough, in my opinion. But its not that science wouldn’t accept decent (and multiple) video evidence, in combination with DNA, hair, droppings, etc.
The key is for these bits of evidence to be individually sound, and for them to be consistent with each other, and related to each other. If provided with that kind of triangulation of evidence i think ’science’ (or at least many more scientists) will be happy to accept it. It might not be given a species designation, but they’ll accept there is ’something’ out there. And that would be the start of what so may people want to see- serious, funded scientific research.
I think all of this evidence should be available without us having to resort to killing a sasquatch. Despite what many people here have implied, you do not need to kill, or even capture, an animal to retrieve DNA. DNA can be recovered from feces, hair (caught on branches, thorns, fences- shed in ‘nests’), saliva (from something it has been feeding on), skin (from where it rubs against something).
If that’s all too difficult (which it shouldn’t be if even ten percent of sighting reports are valid) then one can retrieve tissue samples through firing special darts that take a small sample of skin and flesh before dropping harmlessly out.
Now i wouldn’t want to be the one sticking a bf in the arse with a dart, but it could be done (and as this thread proves, there are- apparently- lots of big brave hunters out there who wouldn’t have the slightest worry of being faced by an enraged nine foot ape in the dark wooded wilderness).
Jason P: I don’t have to argue ’til I’m blue in the face. As you can see, most of the rest of the posters here will just pick up for me when I get tired!
The misconception you may have here is that science as usual rules. Not with this, not in the 21st century, it doesn’t. (The public does NOT want a dead one, as the first killer will find out.)
Advanced video technology, if an amateur gets lucky, will allow the amateur to bypass the perfessers and go straight to the court of public opinion. The media have gotten much warmer on this topic; they don’t chase sighters off as nuts anymore. If, and I think I’m right on this, a video would compellingly show an entire world of critters with 4-plus million years of evolution as a hunter that this is a real animal here and not a fake, and the amateur protected it properly which is a significant but manageable if, that video would make CNN pretty quickly.
Science is politics, played with different numbers. When the public confirms the sasquatch, science won’t be far behind.
To kill even one when the tools exist to move easily to confirmation without it? If we haven’t evolved beyond that, I hope we never find the sas. We sure won’t help it when we do.
Jason P: as things-in-the-woods notes, you don’t have to kill OR capture one. If you think it would be a problem catching one, I’d say it might almost be as hard as killing one.
Another thing that I’ve mentioned before elsewhere: it’s not just the evidence but who brings it back. Patterson and Gimlin were seasonal cowoboys, basically. The last TBRC expedition had three biologists on it. If an expedition like that comes back with evidence, the public won’t care whether the biologist is “mainstream” or not.
I have had the opportunity to shoot one, twice, with my rifle handy and a bigfoot in sight. The last one stood literally only 22 feet away, and my 30-30 rifle was pointed right at him just in case he had other intentions. He didn’t and I suspect that calmly speaking to him left an impression. Once you’ve seen these ‘forest people’ I’ll call them, up close, you know shooting them is not the right thing to do. Of couse, as I’ve mentioned, my rifle was also feeling about 6 inches long and had I shot, I am certain that I would not be here today and would have been listed as another ‘lost hunter’.
Now I am able to visit these bigfoot where I instinctively respected them during our last meeting and they show no aggression. A trust was slowly being built and I won’t be the one to betray that trust. Now I must wait for the snows to melt in order to continue this ‘loose’ friendship. They are sentient and while I believe there are other ways to prove their existence to science, causing the loss of one, that a mate and offspring would obviously care for, is not the way.
I tend to feel the same way Sadisticgreen does (a few posts up). I just want to see one, so I can know for myself that they truly exist. I kind of like the idea of knowing they’re out there, even if no one else believes they are real. Guess I’m selfish also.
Of course, the folks who have actually seen “the real thing”, generally seem to agree that the event makes you immediately want to let others know so that measures can be taken to protect them.
Still don’t think I’d kill one to accomplish that.
graybear- on the issue of burial. You say that the fact we don’t find sas bodies out in the woods hints that they bury them (well, perhaps- although i think it more likely hints there aint anything out there at all, that they don’t exist…
Don’t want to be too much of skeptic here, but when we start using our LACK of evidence as the basis of theories about the being we risk ending up next to silvereagle claiming that we know they are there coz we cant see them.
Just three thoughts-
1) If sas exists, it’s probably either a great ape descended from giganto, or something related to Homo erectus. No evidence that either of them buried their dead (in fact the only primates- the only animals?- that do are humans and Neanderthals). What does that mean? Nothing conclusive, but it means burial is yet another hypothesis requiring extraordinary evidence.
2) If they do bury their dead, we have a much BETTER chance of finding their remains. burial protects bodies from weathering and dispersal by scavengers. In the end someone will dig up a sas grave. The only negative here is; why haven’t we found any skeletal evidence at all so far…?
3) How are they supposed to bury them? If it is going to be a burial that is going to stay buried its going to have to be pretty deep. How are they gonna dig the holes? I’ve seen a few reports of sas digging for shellfish with sticks, etc, but I’ve never seen claims of them holding a shovel.
Even though I’m a victim of a Black Widow bite, I still put spiders outside rather than exact some kind revenge.
I see no reason to kill a Bigfoot. If you are absolutely sure you have one ‘available’, organize a capture…remember, ALIVE he would be The 8th Wonder Of The World and you would be an instant millionaire. (If you get around all the bogus ‘permits’ required to keep him alive untill the right offer came in…oh and be able to put up with the ‘rights’ groups that would be picketing and driving you nuts…hmmm…maybe one between the eyes would be the best way. I wouldn’t do it though.
“A dead bigfoot would only scare people and that is not the goal of researchers. A live bigfoot can possibly be revealed as benevolent, cooperative, gentle, intelligent, having a sense of humor and of course, supernatural. None of this can be proven with a dead body.”
Excellent point, silvereagle! With the general public’s base perception of Bigfoot as either a lovable Harry and the Henderson’s type, or the dangerous mankiller of various sundry exploitation flicks, the only way to convey the necessity in seeing to it that these creatures are left alone is to show them for what they are; intelligent, benevolent, sentient creatures with their own social/familial structure. Only then can the “forest monster” stereotype be fully deconstructed and public opinion swayed to the preservation of these creatures.
No kill.
At the risk of being inflammatory, I think we need a reality check here. Quite frankly, most people think that anyone who thinks/knows/believes/whatever-word-you-choose that Bigfoot is real is a nut. It’s that simple. No amount of videotape is going to convince them otherwise. Those of you who don’t understand that are living in a dream world.
If you want to be taken seriously, and to potentially have real money put behind study and/or conservation efforts, you will need either a live animal or a dead body. Period. All I know is that should I ever find myself anywhere near one, you can rest assured that I’ll be firing at it.
Jason P: then I (and it sounds most of us) hope you never get there.
I think the reality check needs to run in reverse, and needs to include the following:
1. What century it is.
2. What the public thinks; your presumption above is just that. There are many small towns – yes in the USA – where the animal’s existence is tacitly assumed, because everyone in town either has seen one or knows someone who has.
3. The true difficulty of the kill option, which I’ve never heard a pro-killer understand,, just like I’ve never heard a scofftic understand the preposterousness of the all-fake claim. And I’m not talking about killing the sas; I’m talking about after it’s dead.
4. None of the no-killers I read here even cares about convincing anyone. If it takes killing a sas to convince you – I read here – you don’t even need the time of day from me. And I agree. I want to convince people, not Neanderthals. And I think the public can be as surprising with its intelligence as with its stupidity. If it means giving the sas the beneift of the doubt I’m going the same way with the public.
Real money will follow discovery. However that happens.
Jason P- At risk of sounding inflammatory myself; You are just wrong.
As DWA has just pointed out, there is funding going into the search for the orang-pendek (and not funding for someone to go out there and blast a big hole in its head), and in the past there was for the Yeti. There is very little evidence for the orang-pendek (i.e., footprints, sightings, folk-lore), but it is given some scientific credibility (it is mentioned as possibly existing- along with the Yeti- in the 2005 book ‘The world atlas of the living apes and their conservation’, which is about as mainstream a science publication as i can think of), and at least partly for the reasons DWA says.
And, in any case, you completely ignore the ethical issue, which, in my opinion is the core of this question.
This animal thinks, feels pain, has emotions, and forms social bonds. Having people ‘think you are nut’ without a body is not good enough reason to go out there and just kill one. Even if the choice is as you suggest (which it isn’t), i know i’d rather be disbelieved than morally compromised.
And DWA, don’t be so hard on Neanderthals- I reckon they’d understand- its possible some of them where hunted down by humans.
Catch and release is the way to go.
A few blood samples for DNA and a tracking tag to observe future behavior. There is no reason what so ever to kill something that may be closer to us than we realize!
And what if after being caught we find out that these creatures may well have a superior intellect.
They have not had a negative impact on their eco system. By living a way more in line with nature. We can not say the same.
things-in-the-woods
On the issue of burial, my reasoning goes like this:
1 The sas exist and are as much animals as you and I.
2 This means that they die, from accidents, violence, disease, old age, what have you.
3 Although animal remains are hard to find, they are not impossible to find. Sas remains have been impossible to find, maybe because we’re not looking in the right places.
4 Jane Goodall has documented chimpanzees grieving over dead friends or relatives and it’s a very small leap from grieving to wishing to protect the remains of a loved one.
So I still think it’s a viable opinion. The sas have to be smarter than chimps or gorillas or we would have found them by now.
As far as making the remains easier to find, I don’t follow your reasoning. Burial could be as simple as concealing the body in a cave or covering the body by pulling down a small section of creek bank. Or covering it over with leaves or a few bushes. The damp conditions would dispose of the body very quickly. And even if there were a ‘traditional’ burial, i.e. a hole dug in the ground, the body interred then covered up, that wouldn’t make the body easier to find at all. One leaf covered lump in the forest floor looks very like all the other non-sas burial leaf covered lumps in the forest floor.
As for the sas not burying their dead because their supposed ancestors (Giganto or erectus) didn’t bury their dead, how do you know? Let’s not forget that all the fossils of Giganto and erectus could be stored in a large suitcase. In Giganto’s case, the fossil record is a thousand or so teeth. That’s it. Erectus has a few skulls, and some skeletal remains, a large number of which are disputed by some scientists and accepted by others. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe that a single complete Erectus skeleton exists (Anybody know? Correct me if I’m wrong). A few ‘complete’ skeletons have been cobbled together from different fragmentary remains, but I believe that’s all. There is absolutely nothing still in existence which tells us anything about their lives, intelligence, social structure, etc.
Maybe they did or possibly they did not bury their dead. We just don’t know.
Still, to me, the evidence ‘hints at’ the possibility of the sas burying their dead. If you happen to stumble over a recent unburied sas skull on your next outing, please let me know. I really don’t mind being wrong and learning from the experience at all. Yes, I’ve been married for a long time.
Keep ‘em coming, things-in-the-woods. I always enjoy your posts.
The matter of the “difficulty” of killing one has been raised repeatedly. I recall having read a report, likely on the BFRO, of a teenaged hunter having killed one. This was well before Ray Wallace, if memory serves me correctly it was in the 1940s — possibly still during the war. Sadly, I don’t recall where it was beyond it having been somewhere in the US. As the story goes, it was winter, and the young fellow thought he saw a moose, so he fired. The explanation goes that said ’squatch was bent over at the time, and he quite unintentionally got it through the shoulder and the heart. Of course, when ye laddie got there, what he found was nothing remotely resembling a moose. Not knowing what he had, he quickly got the hell out of there, and told no one for decades.
The story in its presentation, which has accompanying sketches, seems credible enough in comparison to other reports. If we accept it, then it does serve to illustrate the point that killing one may not be as technically difficult as has been suggested.
Of course, one must find one first; and one must also ensure that it’s a lone individual –and how, exactly would one do that? — for who would really want to chance retribution from the remaining family group?
DWA
regarding your quote, “And I think the public can be as surprising in its intelligence as with its stupidity.” I wish I could believe that.
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” Robert A. Heinlein.
Words to live by.
A body will be needed to protect this species, if in fact , it truly exists. Which I doubt.
For those of you not familiar with the spotted owl, just see what a little bird conjured up.
Now could you imagine what would happen if a Sasquash truly existed.
things-in-the-woods:
For reasons probably obvious from some of the posts above, I wanted the word “Neanderthals” back about a second and a half after I posted.
I sure wouldn’t shoot a surviving Neanderthal to show science I’d found one.
graybear:
As I’ve said before, I’ll take my chances on the public’s intelligence if it means not shooting a sas.
And I think that thing-in-the-woods’s point about burial is that we have absolutely no evidence the sas does it. I generally don’t think you can persuade people of something for which there’s no scientific evidence by trotting out an explanation for which there’s no scientific evidence.
Those of us who are open-minded on the sas are comfortable with the explanation that they’re rare, they pick remote places to die, and nature cleans up fast. All reasonable, none require a stretch.
There was one other thing I wanted to say, and it regards “blobsquatches.” PLEASE if you’re trying to be helpful here, DO NOT SUBMIT A SAS PHOTO OR VIDEO for public scrutiny if a reasonable member of the general public, with no outdoor experience, would not see it and go, holy cow….it’s a bigfoot. Your experience does NOT validate your blurry shotz. Keep ‘em as souvenirs. But your knowing what they are does not make them look like what they are.
Besides which, some of us here on Cryptomundo are going to need reading glasses soon. (We already come with BS detectors.)
As the name implies, I am a hunter, of the most passionate and dedicated breed. I believe that hunting is the oldest and most important sport there is. I hunt for trophy as well as food, usually the trophy is also food (yes non-hunters, it can be both). The fundamental question posed was “Would you kill a Bigfoot?” Even me, a person that P.E.T.A. would call a psychotic killer, would say no, this animal, if it exists, has much more scientific value alive and undiscovered (as of yet), than dead on an examining table. No primate that I am aware of is of the classification sport animal. Some tribes, still running around in loin clothes in un-developed countries hunt types of primates for sustenance, in fact they hunt everything for sustenance. Otherwise (and this is for the P.E.T.A. card holders) “every animal has its place, right next to the mashed potatoes”.
Great discussion. I couldn’t kill one. If these beings exist we don’t know what kind of society, if any, they have. It’s pointed out above that chimps have been observed to grieve. Could those of you in the pro-kill camp live with the chance of finding out that you killed something and that action caused huge emotional pain to a sentient, intelligent creature? I couldn’t.
things_in_the_woods – of course these creatures have shovels, we just call them hands
And in terms of the body for proof argument, not necessarily true. I think the existence of the Tibetan Blue Bear has been acknowledged from hair samples and some bones, not a complete body. If I’m wrong on this I’m happy to be corrected.
I thought I was “no kill” until I read Cryptid. Now I think you’d better watch your arse and not mess with the sucker.
As for burials, maybe we haven’t found them because they’re buried, in the woods…think about it.
I’m not saying they do bury their dead, if they exist, but I’m not saying they couldn’t. After all, quite a lot of burial sites are discovered when something is being dug up for a reason other than archaeology.
Would you kill a Silverback Gorilla? I couldn’t imagine doing so, neither a Sasquatch. They are rare and loved and respected by many a human.
If I saw one captured, I think I might do something about it.
We as humans are the ruling party here on earth but we don’t respect other life forms as in they to have a right of life. Once we see that it is we who protect other species and insure their right of life here, then we grow spiritually as well as intellectually.
Just my 2 cents.
I saw a documentary that featured an Aborigine man discussing his first encounter, decades earlier, with Europeans. He recalled that the deciding factor for his abandonment of ‘the old ways’ was his first taste of jam. We have all heard the tale of Ishi, who, as an elder, gave up the fight and joined civilization. These two men were completely outside of society, yet were able to recognize the futility of staying there. One day one of the Sasquatch people will decide he would like to eat EVERY day and will present himself.
Another thought.
I hear people saying we need to kill one to protect the species.
From what?
From the mass murder we’re inflicting on everything around it is my only possible guess.
Seems circular reasoning to me.
We need to put a damper on that philosophy that rationalizes killing for all kinds of reasons.
The guy on the link I put in on my first post says that holotypes have gone without a dead body before but….
I can stop him right there. BUT WHAT!!?!??!!??!
If we have made ANY exceptions to the body-holotype rule, then the decision has been made.
WE MUST make this another one.
elsanto: my statements about the difficulty of the kill approach stress that killing the animal is the EASY part.
DWA:
“Kalashnikovnik: I read your sentence “Being ARMED in the woods is just a bad idea.” That’s the truth. Trust me; 26 years being out there sans weapon is enough to convince me. But then I saw the typo. If you’re not hunting legal game, the last thing you will need – in ANY emergency situation in the woods and you will not be able to name me an exception – is a gun. If you are capable of using a gun, you are capable of ending the emergency another way. (Like, walking out.) If it’s a crooked member of your species you’re worried about, why? Either you’re crooked too or you’re dead. (BTW the only people I have ever met in the woods with weapons were hunters of legal game.)”
Well I’m not really sure what you are trying to tell me here. I already stated I have no intention of killing anything that doesn’t try and kill me first. I’ve never been hunting in my life and have no desire to. I don’t even eat meat. I do however carry a firearm both as part of my job and at home when I’m off the clock. I find your suggestion that I am somehow “crooked” because I choose to do this to be more then a little insulting. My worst brush with the law has been a speeding ticket.
As far as not being able to think of a situation that would require a gun in the woods, generally it’s the situation that you never thought of beforehand that has you wishing for a gun when it happens.
And no, you aren’t ALWAYS capable of walking away. sometimes you are left with NO choice but to defend yourself. just because you personally have never run into a situation that you haven’t been able to de-escalate by simply leaving the scene doesn’t mean everyone will have your good fortune.
Going into the woods is all about preparedness.
I’d love it if I were able to bring my house and my car into the woods with me, however that is simply not feasible, choosing to carry a means of defending oneself is. You don’t feel you need to? That is totally your prerogative, but try to tone down the condescending attitude towards those who don’t share that point of view.
Hi!! First time poster, long time reader.
If I had the chance, I would kill it. And eat it. I would then tell everyone it tasted just like chicken.
But seriously, considering no one has really managed a good clear shot at these things with a camera I think their survival skills will continue to thwart my pursuit. Mmmmmm, Sasquatch.
Kudos for another good thought provoker, Mr. Coleman.
The late great Steve Irwin once said, “There’s only one way to shoot a crocodile, and that’s with a camera.” I agree with that statement as it pertains to all wildlife endangered or otherwise. I hope in my lifetime and those of everyone else will get the opportunity to see one of these magnificent creatures. For those who’ve had the experience I can only imagine the feeling.
First of all I always carry a gun with me if I’m deep in the woods, especially if I’m somewhere where I don’t know what kind of creatures I might come across. I stress that I am not a hunter–I’m a photographer–I’m less concerned about running across the kid from “Deliverance” than a bear or cougar.:-)
I would not want to shoot a sas unless I felt threatened. I agree that the best way of proving their existence would be a well funded expedition, complete with tranquilizer guns, camera (still and video) and researchers with credentials that would be hard for the greatest skeptics to refute. Samples, video and an infield examination while tranquilized would be best.
But the average person in the woods should not try to take one by themselves for all the very good reasons listed above.
This has been a fascinating discussion, and I imagine it may well continue for a few posts… (still no word from Al on the reasoning behind only killing an adult male — my curiosity is simmering)…
I would like to point out that the argument that killing one will serve protect the species is fallacious. Several states and provinces have already enacted legislation to protect them from being hunted. Any protection that could be extended to them beyond that would be protection that would be extended to several species and to their habitat. Going up against the lumber lobby would be tough (let’s face it, that’s one point of the Free Trade Agreement that the US has never stuck to as international courts have recognized time and again). Given the weight big lumber carries around, protecting habitats is going to be the harder fight. It’s already a hard fight in the face of threatened species whose existence is recognized and held as public knowledge. If you want to protect them, protect their habitat, which can be done without proving the existence of sasquatch.
And again, while I’m not in the “kill” camp, per se, I do believe that a living or dead specimen will be the only evidence that mainstream science and the public at large will recognize. To steal from the Bard: Ay, there’s the rub.
Perhaps of all the comments that have been made, the one that most resounds is things-in-the-woods’ comment that it is not “a means to an end.” Ultimately, that is what we are talking about, here. Do we want to prove to mainstream scientists in their blind, religious zealotry (redundant by definition, I know) that these creatures exist? Do we want to prove to the public at large that they exist? Or would we be content to have had the experience of seeing one and knowing for ourselves with the certainty of direct experience that they do indeed exist?
I have to admit — these critters scare me. Gorillas don’t; but these do. I have no idea why. The thought of them wigged me out as a kid; and my interest in the subject stems from a morbid fascination. From all the accounts I’ve read, I understand completely that they pose less threat to a human in the wild than a black bear or even a lynx would; yet that knowledge doesn’t serve to dispel the fear that I carry with me.
Having that fear, do I want to see one shot, killed, and dissected? Not at all. Do I want to see one captured and exhibited to John Q. Public? There, I would have to answer in the negative as well. Were one captured and put on exhibit, I doubt very much that I would want to see it — can’t say for sure, as it’s not happened, but I can say that I hope it never does. Do I want to see one with my own eyes in the wild? Without a doubt, in spite of my personal fears. Perhaps it is because I wish to confront those fears and overcome them that I harbour the desire to see one. Having seen one, would I need to tell others? Perhaps. Would I need them to believe me and understand my experience as I’ve experienced it? Not so much.
In the end, it may be better that these creatures/animals/people, however you wish to think of them, remain a mystery to the larger populace.
That idea may run counter to the very concept of cryptozoology, admittedly, but I find myself wondering how humanity as a whole would benefit from knowing with certainty that they do exist? (Beyond religious scientists getting a much-needed slap in the face and returning to science as method rather than religion.)
“I hear people saying we need to kill one to protect the species.
From what?”
That’s a great comment. The answer is we don’t know. Like any animal the Sasquatch would be subject to any adverse environmental affects caused by human development. Be it pollution, disease or the destruction of it’s habitat the Sasquatch could be in a position where it’s gene pool is shrinking to a point were the population could crash and go extinct.
Again we don’t know and the only way we could know is through expensive field work. Something that ain’t gonna happen without a body. The truth is proving Bigfoot is not the same as rediscovering a woodpecker thought to have gone extinct, or of finding a new type of treefrog. Bigfoot has too much baggage for that. To most people a bigfoot video is just another guy in a gorilla suit. I don’t care how good it is.
Lets by honest, most people, especially the ones who count, take the whole thing as a joke. And considering the regulations some industries may have to contend with if the Sasquatch is ever proven to exist there are some powerful interests out there who are content having it remain a joke.
Ask yourself this, what’s the greater tragedy, An unfortunate animal killed to help ensure the survival of it’s kind or a decreasing number of sightings over a period of years until we get to a point were the Sasquatch drops completely off the map never to be heard from again?
i wouldn’t kill it, since it is most likely a dude in a suit, you’d get charged with murder. no thanks
Fascinating reading. I am not convinced that if Sasquatch exists, that they are not humanoid as opposed to pongoid. Therefore killing one may get you arrested for homicide, capturing one could be kidnapping or false imprisonment and seizing a juvenile could be abuse.
I hunt, I carry a gun in the deep woods, mostly for feral hogs and feral rednecks. Nevertheless I would not kill a Sas. I wouldn’t kill a chimp, or gorilla or any other primate. I would kill for self preservation, but I would hope I am woodsman enough not to intimidate such a creature or being to the point it would attack me for its own self preservation.
Most of the time when I am in the woods I kill only time, leave only footprints and take only pictures.
Hidden agendas
Reason to prove the Bigfoot are real:
1. So self labeled bigfoot researchers get more respect at work. (selfish agenda)
2. So scientists will study them and maybe bigfoot researchers will get a piece of the action (selfish agenda and scientists have already studied them well beyond your wildest dreams, and you will not be able to deal with what they already found out, trust me.)
3. To protect the animals from extinction (They are not animals, they are people. Intelligent people. Homo paranormalpithicus has a nice ring to it, don’t cha think? They only need laws designating them as people, with all the rights to life as homo sapiens. They aren’t going extinct, we are.)
4. To make them taxpaying citizens (bigfoot doesn’t have nor want pockets for instance, to carry a wallet and credit cards, so he can get into debt up to his eyeballs.)
5. So that we can be somebody. (you will more likely be dead if you attempt to to capture or kill a bigfoot.)
Danno and all the other killers here (I had to say that):
We may have to agree to disagree and hope for the best.
My position, though, is one I can’t see changing. I think that the way we rationalize things like development and destruction is a cancer that’s eating biodiversity. We’re just too good at biggering, and think we can crowd other life forms onto shrinking islands of habitat while we keep chomping away. It won’t work, not in the long run it won’t. And I don’t need to kill a sasquatch to determine which nonstarter of a strategy we’ll start to do something that won’t work.
I want the sasquatch to keep its freedom as long as it can. And I don’t want to do away with one on purpose. If we can’t save it without killing one, I am flat convinced, we will not save it. We will simply have established that here’s something else we can poke and prod and move whenever it gets in our way. And suddenly one day we will find the intact skeleton…of what turns out to be the last one.
The only way you can show me that we are fully committed to saving the sasquatch is, RIGHT NOW, committing to a road and development moratorium in the United States. No more asphalt. No more development in places it is not now. And yes, putting the Denver boot on our population.
Anything else, it says here and I hope you and I don’t live to see me collect, will NOT be enough. Period. We’re whistling past the graveyard, and everything we build pushes the sas, and us, closer to it.
I’m for leaving it alone for as long as we can. Which won’t be forever.
Kalashnikovnik: you misinterpreted what I wrote.
Which was: there isn’t a situation you can get out of with a gun that you can’t get out of without one. At least in the woods on this continent. OK, there’s one: you have deliberately forged into the continent’s most remote country, in winter, and atrocious weather pins you down for so long that your food supplies run out long before you’re gonna get back. And of course you deliberately are getting yourself into that situation, and could simply have avoided it.
The crooked part means if you are a straight arrow with a gun and the other guy isn’t, he has the drop on you. Crooks don’t have compunctions. Not sure how that could be read to construe you as crooked; I tend not to make such assumptions.
I’m sure that there are more instances of having a gun causing unintended trouble than having one preventing it. And yes, I’m including hunters accidentally shooting people – but I’m not exactly sure why I shouldn’t.
Guns are dangerous enough, I think, that if you don’t have a purpose for which you absolutely intend to use it – i.e. hunting legal game – you’re better off without it.
But hey. If you’re following the law you may feel free to ignore that advice. Just know what you’re shooting at and why.
I think it’s worth pointing out, also, that if one were killed and the creature verified, accepted and protected, it WOULD NOT BE SAFE!
Someone would want a trophy and they would go after it. Scientist would want live specimens. Naturalists would want to observe it in the wild. Zoos would want one to exhibit. (I hate zoos–wild creatures were not meant to be on exhibit for bored human beings to gawk at.) And poachers—poachers would be all over the woods looking to cash in from those who’d pay to own a piece of a dead bigfoot–or have it stuffed in their dens.
I guess this thread has made me think! Maybe if I just knew they were there, it would be enough. But that would take seeing one myself and so far I haven’t.
By the way DWA:
Everyone I know who has a gun (handgun or long gun) treats it with a great deal of respect. Sure there are those who have guns and no sense (plenty of those driving cars, too) But every gun enthusiast I know is EXTREMELY respectful of his or her firearm and equally respectful to those around them.
I’m guessing you’ve never come across a rabid animal in the country. (I have) or been trailed by coyotes–the have very little fear of man and can be very mean. Believe me, that will make you very nervous!
I always wear a .45 caliber on my hip if I’m in a state that allows it when I’m deep in the wilderness.
Nope, taking life, any life, in order to further the ends of cryptozoology or any other field is not the answer…nuff said
What you need are more experts! Here in Australia when we have something that needs an answer we call in an expert. When it won’t rain we call an expert. When petrol costs too much we call in an expert. In fact we’ve got so many experts here we could probably let you have some for free! Trouble is, just like your scientists, they don’t solve much and won’t give you a straight answer. So in the end you’re no closer to the truth and no closer to a result.
A few years ago a naturalist [expert] was interviewed on TV whilst carrying a double barreled shotgun on an expedition in the bush. He told the audience he had 1 barrel for any feral cat he might spot and the other for a pigeon that hadn’t been seen for many years and if he could shoot 1 it would to help protect them through analysing the dead bird’s stomach contents. Needless to say they haven’t collected a bird for a while but the specimens they they did collect, for its own good, probably drove it to extinction.
My long winded point: A dead anything won’t save much and if you believe who gives a rats that they don’t.
Picture the scene…. The woods are dark. Everything is quiet. You and a friend have tracked this creature for 2 days. There has only been the 2 of you because a larger crowd could never get this close, but a support team is only a radio call away.
A twig snaps as the creature steps out from behind a tree. You take aim with your tranq gun. The distance to target is only 50 feet because tranq guns aren’t very powerful. Slowly you pull the trigger.
A perfect shot! Does the creature just fall? NO! Even though you have hit him with enough drugs to knock out a 800 lb grizzly, it may take up to 10 minutes for the full effect to kick in. In the mean time you have just pissed off a very BIG, very SMART, creature who is going to spend the last few seconds of YOUR life beating you to death with the limbs it has ripped from your partner’s body!
Capture….NO! Hunt…NO! Smashed all over the front of a Freightliner tractor as it made a night time road crossing…..Much more plausible!
One other thought. The 26 year old woman who was killed and partially eaten by a cougar as she jogged down a fairly well trodden path in California last fall didn’t have a gun. And I doubt the cat was gonna let her just back out!
Some of you need to get a grip…
No one will be shooting a sasquash soon…
For that matter your never gonna see a decent picture of one…
Unless of course you wanta get hoaxed again.
I would never kill bigfoot or any type of cryptid! They are so different. I mean who would kill such a creature?
If Sasquatch exist, they are flesh-and-blood creatures. Even if they weigh 1000 pounds, fight like a leopard and are as smart as a chimp (or smarter), a well-placed dart would knock one down. Wild bears are huge, ferocious, and intelligent too, but they are fairly easily to sedate, tag, and collar. Very large bears are sometimes even caught with nets. I doubt that there is any kind of animal, with the possible exception of large whales or sharks -certainly not any kind of land animal- that could not be subdued in some way for live capture. And even large whales and sharks are tagged with tracking devices.
Bigfoot, being bipedal and presumably having opposable thumbs like we have, might be be able to remove a collar or tag, but there are many kinds of monitoring and tracking devices, some of which are even designed to be surgically implanted. If they are as intelligent as or more intelligent than, then they would be more apt to be curious about a collar or tag than to ostracize one of their kind that was wearing one.
If anyone actually gets close enough to subdue a Bigfoot, there’s no reason to kill it. It would not be necessary to take the Bigfoot into captivity to obtain the tissue samples, photos, and measurements needed to document its existence.
Sasquatch may be hominids. The may not be. But whatever they ARE, no law will protect them until they “officially” exist. They could not even be considered native or nongame wildlife, because they “don’t exist”. If Joe Blow went out and shot a whole family of them to death, a good lawyer could argue that he committed no crime, unless he happened to have violated some firearms ordinance, because the animals that he shot are not recognized as anything under the law in most areas.
That is the best reason for finding them and documenting their existence. I think that with the increasing awareness that we are losing much of the precious natural world around us, including wildlife that is disappearing at an appalling rate, if Sasquatch are proven to exist, they would be protected right away, and habitat set aside to be preserved for them.
A lot of people here are saying that one needs to be killed in order to save the species. Do you all really think it would stop at just one? I highly doubt it. I personally feel that it is a habit that we should not get into and that the data that could be gleaned from a live one would be much more useful. A dead one is going to prove its existence sure, but think of how much could be learned from a live one. People who wonder how we could ever tag one, let me tell you that there are larger creatures than Bigfoot that are tagged and studied by science. Tranqs might be a problem, since they have to be very well adjusted to the creature you intend to use them on, but I tend to think if there’s a will, there’s a way.
Also, I hate to be pessimistic here, but I don’t think proving they exist is going to necessarily prompt people to immediately drop everything to put aside protection for them. Look at known animals that are endangered that receive little protection or are even on the steady decline. I would say for the most part, our track record with a lot of animals does not lead me to believe that this Bigfoot is going to automatically get all these laws and regulations to protect them just by being proven to exist. I hope it does, but can we really be sure of that when looking at what has gone on with other species? I think it is a tad naive to think that its verification alone will work all these wonders. I think even if it is proven to exist, that in and of itself is not going to afford it some kind of immediate conservation measures and I think it may be a little bit of wishful thinking to think so, unfortunately. I think it might be more complicated than that and I feel that perhaps if its existence is verified, the battle to protect it properly will just be beginning. I hope I am wrong on this.
My post sounds really pessimistic, but someone has to look at the worst case scenarios!
Mystery_man, I happen to agree with you completely on this. Plus it would suddenly open up the whole can of worms of arguing over whether they are people or not, whether they are endangered or not, etc, etc, all of which will slow down any and all efforts to (hopefully) ensure their protection.
Right, Ceroill. And then there’s the fact that we don’t even know what its full range is or what to protect even if we did have the inclination to put in immediate conservation measures and unfortunately I don’t think the info needed for this would be gleaned from a dead specimen.
Shoot with bullets or darts or not at all. Hmmm….
The literature is rife with reports of hunters who could but didn’t and none of them were actually hunting for one.
I can’t recall any reports of hunters who went looking for ‘em ever getting so much as a good look at ‘em. The psychology of the hunter is not the psychology of the assasin nor are they gonna shoot first like a soldier facing an enemy.
As for using tranquilizer darts; got a dosage in mind? A friend of mine lost several wild wolves, a species he’d been collaring after tranquilizing with well known dosages for several years. The dosage depends on the individual health and stress of the subject. You’d have to get pretty close, something that so far has never been accomplished in a purposeful, predictable, intentional way, and based on what I’ve read that a BF Research expedition is like, I’m not in the least surprised.
There’s nothing louder than the sound of someone trying to be quiet, unless it’s a huge gaggle of loquatious car campers, reeking of deodorants, exotic hydrocarbons, dazzlingly obvious in camouflage and squeeling and bellowing electronics, trying to be unobtrusive.
If one can get close enough to shoot them with either a bullet or a dart, it means you can shoot ‘em with a good camera and you’re probably able to anticipate where they will be with some certainty, which means you can also get the kind of data (photographic and otherwise) about their behaviour and habitat that will be acceptable to the scientific community.
I think the problem lies in our obviously inadequate understanding of the subject of our interest. I see that PBS is broadcasting the program Nature about the guy who went to get the first “in the wild” film of cloud leopards, cool technique, the way he did it. And nothing like what’s being tried by researchers so far as I’ve heard, with the exception of the occasional unverifiable story of the western wilderness back-country “off-trail” hiker who stays out for weeks with minimal impact.
And were I that person and could actually find a bigfoot to observe, I’d wonder if I’d want my own personal peak wilderness expereince shared with anyone but the very closest of sympathetic, like-minded friends.
On second thought, I’m certain I wouldn’t share it voluntarily until I thought that bringing the data forward would insure my continued ability to protect and have a proprietary claim on continued access for my personal research and enjoyment.
Kittenz appears to be volunteering to locate that well-placed dart.
But let’s please leave off the obtrusive (and I cannot believe not extremely bothersome) stuff like radio collars. As I’ve said elsewhere, a collar irretrievably tarnished the best look at a wild wolf I ever had. It probably did more to the wolf. If you’re going to risk killing a sas with a tranquilizer, at least don’t attach something that will probably torment the poor critter. Sorry, I can’t believe that animals have no problem with collars. I think the idea of a surgically implanted transmitter (if we MUST do that) is the best way. Of course then there’s the problem of keeping the sas unconscious long enough, which everyone knows further complicates the risk issue.
The more I think about it, the more I believe we should not be trying to harass and harness one, much less kill it.
Particularly when, as mystery_man says, discovery probably won’t be followed by a swift mending of our predatory ways.
I can’t get over the idea that the sasquatch is giving us a chance to stop paying lip service to the concept of all life’s right to live free, and finally acting like we really mean it.
JackSparrow: where have YOU been, man? That’s the kind of expert we need on this case.
JSimson: Right. Or…the groggy blighter runs away, and puts himself in the way of the oncoming truck …yet another aspect of drug risk….
titantim: you say “can name you numerous examples of being in the wood where you need a gun. And hunting has nothing to do with it. How about fishing in Grizzly country? Hiking in mountain lion country? I have run across pot fields while in the woods, trespassers, and the like. Without a firearm, these could have turned out very differently.”
Maybe with you totin’ the gun, pardner. But not me. If your first shot doesn’t put the bear down, you’re gone. If he/she wants you, the mountain lion won’t even give you a chance to use the gun. And the pot guys are toting automatics. I raise my hands and turn around and, well one in the back is probably better than one in the guts.
In reading the comments, I see pros and cons both ways.
To clarify my position on ‘harvesting’ an adult male, nature will replace it faster and easier than replacing a breeding female or young one. There is always a male aching to step up and take charge.
I’m not bloodthirsty by any stretch. Yet, a body is the only acceptable answer. The simplest way to get one is to kill one. There are too many risks and hazards involved in attempting a capture, especially due to some social observations of these animals. It will be tough enough to recover the remains of one that’s been ‘harvested’.
The costs, and time required to even attempt a harvest is mind boggling. There are no organizations that provide funding that would allow a small group to engage in this task full time, with expenses and equipment furnished. It would be even more expensive to try to capture one. That doesn’t even cover the fact that it would be even more dangerous and require more people.
As a note to the guy that claims that the FBI would confiscate the body before it hit the ground, I wonder where you get that information? No Government Organization has any interest in an animal that doesn’t exist. I have gotten that information straight from the Regional Director. We discussed it at length over breakfast a couple of years ago.
Well, AI inspires me to keep probing for my bottom line. It took me awhile. But here it is. If I’ve said anything inconsistent with what follows, disregard that. This is it.
And it comes from mystery_man’s quote: “A lot of people here are saying that one needs to be killed in order to save the species. Do you all really think it would stop at just one? I highly doubt it. I personally feel that it is a habit that we should not get into …”
That’s it. We believe, apparently, that our acknowledgment that the earth isn’t the center of the universe was some sort of act of cosmic humility. Truth is, we haven’t taken the first step toward humility yet.
We, all of us, still believe that we ARE the center of the universe. At least, the main focus of life on earth. It’s a HABIT that we are unable to break. (M-m: we “got into” it way too long ago.)
If we want our planet to have one one-thousandth, one one-millionth, of the variety and pleasure and wonder for our grandchildren, heck, for our children, that it does for us, we need to start acting, right now, as if we are equal to everything else on this planet. No better, no smarter (OK, but look where our smarts have gotten us), no more worthy.
All this talk on this thread, as fun (indeed) as it has been, has focused on how we will manipulate the sas to make it do for us what WE want. We’re making it another damned meat puppet, and already depriving it of about 98% of what it can teach us, before we even find it. (Find it? Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, already have found it. The sasquatch has been discovered. Science just doesn’t accept that yet.)
We’ve got to stop indiscriminately shoving wonder into our cavernous, insatiable maws.
I’d rather the sasquatch still be a mystery to science in two hundred years than a darted, collared, tagged, labeled, sad survivor, on the inevitable way out, within ten.
If the latter happens – and that will be what it is, if the sas is “found” by any of the means discussed here other than being let alone, with at most video and photographic documentation, and maybe the most thrilling interspecies interaction man has ever known – then the sasquatch is done.
Period. Our grandchildren will hate us for it.
Let me start off my first post by saying that my mind is open on the subject of the Sasquatch. I do not believe that the existence of such a creature is impossible. Improbable maybe, but not impossible.
With that being said, Ole Bub wrote:
“One of our researchers at NABF was a pro kill advocate…until he watched a 9 footer browsing at his bait station for 40 minutes through his rifle scope a few months ago “seeing is believing”. He told me he had relatives more apelike than this creature. He is strictly observe and protect these days.”
I understand that Ole Bub is a moderator at the NABF Forum. With all respect due, I would like to ask a question.
Someone who is trying to prove the existence of the most famous cryptid in North America has a sighting of the creature. A good enough sighting to “draw a bead” on it through a rifle scope. He maintained visual contact for 40 minutes.
Why, why, why was this person not carrying a camera with a telephoto lens?
I do applaud him for changing his mind, and not killing the creature.
But people, please! If you want to be taken seriously in the Scientific community…
I don’t like the appearance of radio collars either. But I would like the appearance of a dead Sas even less
.
As for a dosage for a tranquilizer, I am not familiar with dosages for large primates such as gorillas, but there are people who do have that information. I would use that as a guideline, adjusted for size and increased slightly to allow for a more active creature. Alternatively since a Bigfoot is thought to be approximately the weight of a large bear, a similar dosage would probably work. There are reliable, very quick-acting antidotes for most animal tranquilizers too, so sedating a Bigfoot should not be a problem.
Three last quick comments on topic:
1. Bigfoot can find where you live and get inside your house, without opening any doors. It takes about 2 or 3 days, depending on how far away you were when you annoyed them.
2. An Indian who shot and wounded one a number of years ago, was quickly on his death bed and fading rapidly. The doctor could not diagnose his illness. The doctor did give him only a few days to live, however. The tribe then took that sick Indian back out to the site of the shooting, and performed a ceremony asking for forgiveness from the Sasquatch. Only then was the Indian able to recover. That Indian was the guide and tracker for the October 2005 BFRO expedition in the Olympic Rain forest.
3. Kill one? I don’t think so.
centaur: you didn’t finish a sentence. Allow me.
“But people, please! If you want to be taken seriously in the Scientific community… ”
…you kill one.
Remember, that’s what this guy thought. He didn’t have a camera because he didn’t intend to shoot it with one. He had a change of mind and heart when a change of gear was impossible. With the mentality with which he went on stand, I’d consider him likelier to have a butterfly net than a camera. Hunters don’t bring other stuff to their stands to fool with (other than stuff to call the game in), particularly those who are REALLY serious. They are totally focused on the only tool they intend to use. If you are one of the few who does bring a camera, well most don’t.
Tough darts. Not like this hasn’t happened before. People with cameras in their laps have had one casually cross the road in front of them and not even think of the camera until well afterward.
I probably would react the same way.
And the statement that it’s improbable that this critter exists needs to be backed up with a probability determination, which of course there’s no way to calculate. I could tell you that the volume of detailed anecdotal evidence – all fitting neatly into the kind of data set you’d expect for a species – argues very strongly that they exist.
At the risk of being a bit cheeky and taking this a stage further (if you delete this Loren I’ll understand) a number of people have indicated that they wouldn’t actually really be bothered about proving the existence of BF even if they could.
Here’s a scenario then: supposing you don’t actually kill the BF but come across a well preserved BF corpse, next to a road for ease of movement let’s say, for the sake of argument. What do you do then, if that moral weight of having to kill is taken away?
Even though “discovering” Bigfoot and documenting its existence would not guarantee its protection, no protection will be forthcoming if they are not proven to exist. So, if I were to come across a dead Bigfoot, would I report it to anyone? Yes. But I would report it to several reliable people and institutions simultaneously, and I would make sure I took photographs and some tissue samples first, in case there IS a vast cover up conspiracy, as silvereagle says there is. (Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really out to get you
)
As far as protecting Bigfoot, hey, we’re talking about the United States and Canada. Most people here want to see wildlife protected. Oh, there are exceptions (the rabid anti-wolf bunch out West comes to mind). But an animal as charismatic and as fixed in our imaginations as Bigfoot would be protected. Public outcry would demand its protection.
As the wilderness shrinks (and sadly, it will continue to shrink), Bigfoot, if they exist, will have fewer and fewer places where they can live in peace. We owe it to them to make sure that they always have room to live. And if they are “another type of people”, then we need laws that protect them from murder, slavery, and other forms of exploitation. Those laws will never be passed to protect something that “doesn’t exist”.
DWA,
I would calculate the dosage, load the dart, shoot the Sas, collect the samples, and administer the antidote
. Just lead me to the Sas and hold my camera 
.
Great comments from both sides of the debate. I can’t fault anybody who would have moral or ethical concerns about the killing of a Sasquatch. Furthermore a great many concerns were raised about environmental issues which go a lot further than the Sasquatch debate. Something that I think we all need to be aware of.
Still I am part of the so-called kill crowd. Not that it really matters. To me it’s not the ideal solution but the only realistic one. Federal law will not guarantee the survival of the Sasquatch but it is still better then none at all. But to get that protection we need a body. Anybody believing otherwise does not recognize that obstacles they face establishing the Sasquatch as a real animal in the scientific community.
As far as the suggestions that we only tranquilize the animal, I have some comments. Now I’m no expert, but from what I have read the use of tranquilizer darts are not simple as some have suggested on this blog. Even if the weight of the animal is correctly surmised that is no guarantee that it will work. I believe that anybody who attempted to dart a Sasquatch in the field is putting themselves in mortal danger. At a minimum they should have somebody covering them with a high-powered rifle.
Furthermore, even if one was to successfully tranquilize and track a Sasquatch, why should anybody view any data collected as legitimate. Any photos or video taken during the event would be viewed as suspect, just another guy in a monkey suit, rendering any data collected as useless with the scientific community.
And why should we care what the scientific community thinks? They hold the purse strings. Without them, any really serious research of the Sasquatch will not take place. Like so many have commented, we really don’t know anything about the Sasquatch and won’t know without some expensive field work.
Only a body will work. But that doesn’t mean we can’t establish the Sasquatch without shooting one. Those will do not agree with the “kill crowd” should be focusing their efforts on finding an already dead Sasquatch. If they exist there is bound to be something out there for them to find.
I grew up in the Adirondack mountains of up-state New York. I’ve been a hunter all my life. I’ve hunted in NY, Ca, Ga, Tx, Wa, Mi, Mo, Wy, Al, As, as well as several providences in Canada.
I can assure those of you who sit at your computer and cry that we humans are destroying our forest land at alarming rates that there are literally hundreds of thousands of square miles of land on this wonderful planet which for the most part is completely untouched by human hand. Every year more land is set aside by our local, state and federal governments, as preserves to protect the wilderness areas.
I have learned through first hand experience that for the most part, when an animal is encroached on by humans enough to feel threatened, they move to less populated places. For instance, moose in Vermont, for years they weren’t seen by anyone, but did that mean that they were hunted out…no… they simply migrated into Canada, which has a much smaller population than where they migrated from. As the years have passed, fewer hunters are in the woods then ever before. The moose are no longer pressured and are migrating back down from Canada now.
The same has happened with wolves and coyotes, no one is hunting them, so they are coming back from their Canadian migration.
As for Sas…the Indians said they were rare back when we were only just discovering this vast country. It’s not inconceivable that they, too, are more abundant in the far reaches of northern Canada, than in the United States. As Canadian population has never been what it is or was here in the USA, mostly due to the inhospitable climate, (we humans like it warm and sunny) it stands to reason that fewer reports are made. It may also be reliably assumed from historical observations made, that ol’ Sas likes these places which we find uncomfortable.
The point is that what ever endangerment Sas has as a species here, is more then likely greatly lessened north of our border. Whereas we can not begin to guess at his total population level, I doubt the loss of 1, 2 or even a dozen would seriously hurt them more than it would help them. They won’t be put on any endangered animal list if they continue to be thought of as a myth.
Great thread. I think we’re hearing everybody’s bottom lines.
I just want to know. And that’s totally selfish on my part. But there it is.
I just think it might be cool if we could introduce ourselves to the sas in a different way. The darting and collaring and tracking we do now – distasteful as I may personally see it – is simply an effort to repair damage done. In some ways it’s the only repair reasonably possible.
It sounds like almost all of us on this board think the way I do. The only difference among us is that some of us just don’t see the status quo changing, and think that a body is the only thing that will change it.
And that presumption – as much as I’d like to test it – is not an unreasonable presumption at all.
Just color me optimistic, and let’s see what happens.
Interesting comments all around here. I can really see both sides of the argument quite clearly and although I am for not killing one, I can see that this may be unrealistic of me. I would like to think that in this day and age, we would be able to capture and obtain viable genetic samples from one without killing it. And I would like to think that there are ways to tag and track them and obtain a wealth of info on their movements and so on. This is done with animals all the time, but of course they are known animals and there’s the rub. I absolutely see the “kill” camp’s arguments and have to admit they have good points. In order to get the funding to go out and tag, track, or really study them in an effecient manner, there is probably going to have to be that body. Alot of the more peaceful ideas may not be feasible until a body is provided to the scientific community and having some experience in that area, I totally agree and see the reasoning in this. With that body, all sorts of doors will open up, funding would be more forthcoming, and all of the “no kill” ideas could be put into action. Without that concrete documentation provided by a body, it will be hard to do anything at all. I understand that, and from a scientific perspective, it makes a lot of sense. However, as unrealistic as it may be, I find myself trying to think of ways that verification could be done without a dead body. I would like to circumnvent that need for a dead body to begin with. Like DWA, I’m trying to be optimistic, but at the same time, I realize that in the end a body may be the only way. It’s a shame, but it is a hard reality that we may have to face.
My comment.
Haven’t most animals now identified, and accepted by zoologists–whether those creatures that live on the ground, under the ground, in the air, or in the sea–weren’t they all identified for the most part via killed specimens?
What’s all that stuff mounted in museums? They were killed, weren’t they?
So what is so different about a Sasquatch? We collect a kill specimen, then we can have a definitive necropsy. Have plaster casts of teeth, of the hands, of the feet; can get blood samples; can check out what it eats by examining stomach contents and intestinal samples. We can examine the brain, find out what is similar, or different from our own.
And so on.
Do it, get it identified, then we know.
I don’t recommend we kill oodles of them. But I am not against getting a kill specimen for species identification.
greenmartian2007: none of us is disagreeing with you about what’s in museums and how it got there, just that continuing that unfortunate 19th-century way of doing things with this critter seems more than a bit unsavory.
But if a specimen is the only thing that will change the status quo, and one thinks that such a change is essential to the species’ survival…well, you’re pro-kill. Nothing unreasonable about it, really, given what all this time without a body seems to have done for our state of knowledge.
greenmartian2007,
If Bigfoot are hominids, as many people think, then they are “people”. We don’t kill other people to put them into museums. Kill only one animal to take “specimens”? Would you want to be the one animal killed, if some other intelligent creatures decided they needed tissue samples from our species? Granted I would not want to be darted and have samples taken from me, either, but as long as I was released with no major harm done, I could live with that.
All of the tissues and samples that you mentioned can be obtained from living animals, even the stomach contents. Some people have said that killing one would be more kind than capturing one. Try explaining that to the one you’re about to kill. I’m sure that will make ALL the difference. Wrong. Given the choice, all healthy animals choose to live rather than die, even when they have to chew off their own feet – or as one man did, cut off their own arms, to survive.
If Bigfoot are “merely” apes, they are still capable of thought and emotion, just like we are, and they should not be killed when other options are available. When I think of killing for “specimens”, I think of Imo the monkey and Genghis the tiger, both of whom brought much to their kind. What if the “one specimen” that we kill for its teeth and stomach contents is an Imo or a Genghis? The unique contribution that that animal might make to its species would never be realized.
and Kittenz: I have to agree with you. that aspect of the no-kill argument could not be said better.
Compare what you see in a museum to even your mind’s-eye picture of what the animal was alive, and you see the scientific bankruptcy of the kill-for-evidence approach. To me this is one of those things that you stop doing because, now, you can.
Says me.
And I’ve seen how the pro-kill side counters this.
And I say: there it is. We’ll just have to read and ponder each other’s arguments and hope for the best result, whatever happens.
Since most Sas sightings happen by motorists who see them crossing the road, we will probably get our specimen via road kill. Thus saving all of us the trouble of shooting one, either by dart or full metal jacket.
Truthfuly I am astounded that this hasn’t happened already! Or maybe it has and the motorists who have had this happen to them are too shaken to report it.
As a hunter I never hunt what I can’t eat! It’s the way my father taught me to hunt. His exact words were: “If you hunt it and kill it, the least you can do to show your respect for the animal, and honor it’s sacrifice is to eat it.”
This is why I would never go out intending to hunt and kill a Sas.
Still, I wonder what decision I would make if I’m ever glassing a hillside for a buck and find myself peering through my scope at a Sasquatch.
At any rate it’s been a good thread and I’m glad to have read the posts and participated.
This has been an excellent and productive thread. As always, the posters here are articulate, intelligent, and accepting of each other’s opinions regardless of whether they agree or not. Just reminds me why this is the best site for these debates bar none. Thank you everybody for your good insights.
I’m in total agreement with you there, MM…and hope to read more…speaking of which, anyone interested in taking a moment to see where the current thinking is on conservation biology and population genetics, really should take a gander at the series of articles at Nature entitled “Linnaeus at 300″. It really elevates the level of discussion and informs the reader…something we could all appreciate and probably why we’re here. cheers.
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070312/full/446250a.html
JSimson:
DON’T SHOOT DON’T SHOOT! DEFENSE DE TIRER! NICHT SCHIESSEN NICHT SCHIESSEN!
It’s me in an ape suit! [rips off mask]
Just making sure we have all possibilities in hand, and that we identify that target.
If it’s a guy in an ape suit….right in the butt, man!
(Unless it’s me, goaded by my passion to Fake Evidence. On second thought…that ever happens, I’ll be ready to go. Head shot, please.)
I think I will say this…after a long rumination of previous posters’ commentaries here….
There has been a tendency to “anthropomorphicize” many animals in North American culture, more so than perhaps on other continents. Perhaps it has to do with TV and film. (Those cartoons, also.) And that skews a person’s reactions. We also have a view that animals are cute, and do the “woogie woogie” thing (believe me, I have seen adults do that with dogs, with cats, with pot-bellied pigs–rubbing their nose on its nose).
But we are not talking about creatures that live within the confines of Man’s living spaces, or are dependent on Man to survive.
There is also this view that wild animals are easy to track (hence the “Let’s Dart a Bigfoot!” hypothesis is raised in lieu of a kill specimen). That is false. Too many of those documentaries from the 1960s and 1970s and even 1980s where audiences saw “wild” animals being filmed provided a false idea that it is easy to just go out, wander into a forest or wild area, and start filming, say, wolverines or deer or bears or even squirrels (wild ones, not ones that live on college campuses). I think that many of the animals on “Wild America” and “Mutual of Omaha” specials were actually much of the time animals that were in enclosures of some sort.
And Sasquatches are definitely not the type of creatures one can stick in an enclosure. Hence a kill specimen.
My view is that Sasquatches are hominoid, but not hominid. Big difference. Until we can definitely prove that with blood samples as well as inner cheek swabbings to the contrary, I think too much is being read into the idea that you have a very tall creature, and that it walks bipedally as a matter of course and behavior, and has a somewhat similar manner in walking to humans including arm swing, and how it slings its offspring up and above itself, based on eyewitness reports.
That appears to freak many out, this bipedal stance and arm swing and such. And it shouldn’t.
Jeff Meldrum’s book is very instructive. In the way the foot operates, based on both the Patterson-Gimlin film and the universe of collected foot casts, it has pongid characteristics.
To go beyond the Patterson-Gimlin film and the casts, we need more. Much more.
The only way to get definitive data is with a kill specimen.
You want to know what it eats? Need to see the stomach contents directly. Want to know what types of parasites it harbors? Need to check the hair on all parts of its body directly and intestines directly. Want to know if it has dental caries, or how the ape exhibits tooth growth (such as, do they have wisdom teeth)? Need to look at the teeth in the jaws directly. Want to know its diseases? You need a body to do a in-depth necropsy. Want to know whether the Sasquatch brain has any identifiable similarities to chimps or gorillas, or major differences? Need to look at a brain directly. Want to learn about fingernail or toenail growth? Need to look at hands and feet directly. Want to know if Sasquatches see in color, or only in black-and-white? Need to look at the rods and cones via microscope at the back of its eyes. Want to know if it does have a larynx of sufficient sophistication, as well as tongue attachments appropriate for spoken language? Need to look at the accoutrements of the mouth and throat directly. Want to know if the stomach evolved from either a meat-eating or plant-eating origin? Need to check out the stomach directly. Want to know whether Sasquatch is closer to humans that Bonobos? Have to have direct access to a body to do the DNA. As Jeff Meldrum’s book states, hair samples are way insufficient.
But I will say also this. There are the traveling exhibitions around the world that show human cadavers in varying states of dissection, in poses such as running, jumping, riding bicycles…they are done in mainland China, the preservation techniques. There was an article in the last two months or so in the New York Times about this.
We have lots of people, both in all-out war (such as in Iraq and Afghanistan) and urban warfare (such as murders in our cities) where human kill human every day.
Unless we are going to engage in and monetarily sponsor/back multi-month expeditions to where Sasquatch have been sighted in the US, wherever that is and/or has been, and do a full-scale recording of visual and aural and olfactory data indicators in places where Sasquatch could be determined to have just been (minutes, hours, days), and there is a diligent effort to locate and collect (and subsequenlty examine in a lab) scat samples, the best way to find out outside such a huge endeavor to collect “telepresence” information about Sasquatch–is to have a kill specimen.
And just about everything that scientists want to know, you have to have a kill specimen.
Darting a highly intelligent creature–that makes a concerted effort to not be detected by humans that are nearby, moves exceptionally quickly, and can cover ground many times faster than any human–is an exercise in futility. You can’t dart moving animals reliably if you are hundreds of yards away, even if you are scores of yards away from such an animal that exhibits such behaviors. (A signficant number of sightings are of this variety, if memory serves.) I don’t think one can say that, with high confidence, is even reliable to say “Let’s dart one!” because some have seen those TV documentaries where Darting is shown to work upon animals in animal preserves.
And darting even animals in perserves is a tall order, and needs a lot of pre-planning. You just don’t wander out with your dart gun, and say, “Let’s bag a rhino!” Or, “Let’s bag an elephant!” Or, “Let’s bag a lion!” Or, “Let’s bag a….[fill in creature here].”
Besides the dart gun, you have lots of people aiding in the coordination and handling of what happens before (such as tracking) and soon after (support crew to aid in moving quickly–as can be seen in some of those “Nature” documentaries on PBS, they don’t stick around real long when the animal is down). And they aren’t doing a “full work up” either as one would need to have definitive identification of a species. They aren’t taking mouth casts. No paw casts. No ultrasounds of wombs. See where I am going with this?
It’s like this recent cloud leopard discovery in Borneo reported yesterday, and posted here by Loren today. They talk about DNA examinations. Do you think that they got that via darting? Perhaps one could defnitively find out by contacting the wildlife grouping who did the reporting. But I suspect that was garnered via a kill specimen. (Now, if someone finds out it was done indeed by darting, or another approach, and then subsequent release of the live specimen, please post it here, and I will stand corrected.)
Like I said in another subject thread here, I am an optimist. I think that there will probably be a significant set of films and/or videos of Sasquatches out of North America before the end of this year. And it also may happen in Russia too (about the Almasty).
But having film will help to declare a creature previously undescribed and unknown to science exists. But it will not aid in definitive data as to what it is, to the level of “need to know” that science requires.
Hence a kill specimen.
greenmartian2007: as I said, I think everyone’s bottom line is up here.
There’s not a thing you post that all of us in the no-kill camp haven’t already thought of. A lot.
The question that still remains is: sure. But do we need – or want – to kill one to get it, if there’s any possibility of another way? Heck, even if there isn’t?
Humans killing humans is wrong. We know that and we still do it. We might even kid ourselves – and we do all the time – that it’s defensible. That doesn’t excuse killing something else just because it is NOT human. Since when are we that special, anyway?
We no-kill folks believe:
1) You learn more from a live one than a dead one. Period.
2) The population may not be able to tolerate even that much loss. Why inflict it deliberately?
3) The kill will have an impact we can’t discern on the animal’s behavior toward us. Maybe one that will make impossible 90% of the knowledge we could otherwise gain. (Stomach contents? I’d rather find out what being friends with a wild animal could be like. Shoot, let him SHOW me what he eats. Oh, and anecdotal evidence shows us he’s an omnivore to make a bear look picky. And clumsy. And inefficient.)
4) Don’t make darting sound impossible. Numerous hunters could have done it easily, had they (a) had the gear and (b) not been utterly scared witless by something they were utterly unprepared to deal with in any way. A researcher in the woods for that purpose might not have that problem.
5) We simply find the concept repugnant. I wouldn’t sacrifice my kids for any cause, for any reason. I feel the same way about the sasquatch. That’s it. I just do. Name your cause. Sacrificing one sas won’t do anything that needs doing, other than satisfy scientists who will just have to, if they only ask me, get their jollies dissecting frogs. I eat lobster with relish. Beef? YUM! Chicken? Bring it on! Cute lil’ lambykins? Great sas bait, plus excellent with mint jelly. Deer? Man, I know why sas love ‘em…but I’d love to introduce the big guy to venison Sloppy Joe, it will rock his world! Water buffalo, emu, ostrich, alligator – deee-lay-shus!! (Oh. And frog legs. Taste like rabbit!) Kill a sas? NO. That’s it, I’m human, and I can’t be sued for it.
It’s enough for me – and all of us in the no-kill crowd, I would have to suspect – that I consider this animal’s existence likely. The sas and we – as more than one poster has said – have gotten to this pass by a rough enough road without us perpetuating the same kill-to-know alienation from nature, and from true knowledge of and comfort with our world and ourselves, in the name of spurious pigeonholing that we have with everything else.
We live in a world full of life. Yet we scan the heavens for signals from someplace else because we feel lonely, in a world full of enemies and things that are scared of us. New leaf time, if you only ask me. Let’s make one friend here.
That there is another way – more difficult or not, more inconvenient or not – means NO KILL.
If you don’t buy what I just said, you’re pro-kill.
Bottom line.
Oh. I should have said with reference to darting: I’m no-dart too.
Just tossing that in. And not just to complicate things. I just see possibilities in our interaction with the sasquatch that are, let’s just say lacking with the coelacanth.
greenmartian2007,
Actually they DID obtain the DNA from the clouded leopards by darting them. They used Telazol (primarily) as the anesthetic agent. You can read much more about the Bornean Clouded Leopard Project here:
http://lynx.uio.no/lynx/catsgportal/project-o-month/20_potm/home/index_en.htm
It is an ongoing project to more thoroughly study all of the wild cats of Borneo.
Also, greenmartian2007, nobody said it would be easy.
And DWA, I agree that darting is not the ideal interaction. Long-term field research would be the best option by far.
Unfortunately, any comprehensive research, of any kind, is going to be expensive.
Maybe some billionaire will come forward and plunk down a few hundred thou for some in-depth field studies.
Does anybody here personally know Oprah or Bill Gates or some other billionaire who is interested in cryptids
?
I thank you all for your comments.
However, let’s be practical.
There are no multi-billionaires out there who are interested enough to sponsor such an expedition. If there were (such as Branson), it would’ve already happened, I think.
Or perhaps we can get Bono to do the persuading. LOL Perhaps one of us here has personal connections to Bono, and he is well connected. Perhaps an avenue to explore! LOL
But more seriously….
Setting net traps, or other means of catching wildlife alive, probably are 100% impractical with Sasquatch. It’s height and weight range preclude such “nice” methods of attempting to get a non-kill-specimen avenue of definitive identification of the creatures. Not to speak of its ability to elude. Not a dull witted entity by any means. This is not a small bird, a forest-floor rodent, or even a deer or elk we’re talking about. The size and weight characteristics are outside of what you guys are even contemplating.
The key thing, is that everyone wants definitive identification. Huge animals are dealt with quite differently from those creatures of more dimunitive sizing and proportions.
However..back to darting.
Darting is indeed difficult. More so than many may think. More often, there are misfires. Or the dart may hit the intended target, and fail to penetrate sufficiently. Darting is not a “high confidence” resultant activity.
The speed of a dart is many times less than a Mach 3+ bullet. One would need a Mach 3+ projectile to hit anything within the usual ranges that people come across Sasquatches…many hundreds of yards. Only way to bring one down, as in regards to the way these creatures exhibit the behaviors already so stated above in my posting, and others. Very furtive quarry need a resolution to match the behaviors.
Film or video will prove an animal unknown to science exists. That is all it will do. Not only for Sasquatch, but for any other cryptid animal. (I am still looking at the video footage of that under-the-river-surface water creature in the top 2006 stories. One would need an actual specimen to actually determine what type of animal it is, what classification, what genus, what species, etc.)
Same for Sasquatch.
To do the rest of the necessary work, one needs a kill specimen.
Doing long-range work will only go so far, and a lot of the material already on BFRO’s webpage about eyewitnesses’ chance encounters have gone as about as far as one can go with telepresence data gathering. In other field areas of science, such as medicine, they call the gathering of many studies together a “meta-analysis.” BFRO, in lieu of anything else, is doing with its warehousing of the data on its site a version of “meta-analysis.” But such analyses can only push the data interpreation only so far.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that to “get to the next information plateau,” you need a specimen to do a necropsy upon. The usual method for any definitive animal identification–known, unknown, or semi-known, etc.–is a kill specimen. This has been done countless times over the last century, and it will continue. Clear identification of species is done through kill specimens. And it will also be with Sasquatch.
Just have to stop freaking out on bipedal walking, arm-swinging-like-a-human qualities of the creature.
Caracasses extant of natural causes would be nice, but not probable in the environment that Sasquatches live in. Jeff Meldrum’s book makes that obvious. Highly acidic soils that are found in forests are not good venues for perservation. And the type of “clean up crews” that are also extant in forests has to be factored in. (It even could be that Sasquatches bury their deceased, but the evidence isn’t sufficient to make a sturdy hypothesis on this.) Meldrum even has examples of not being able to find chimp remains in the forests of Africa, and everyone has seen chimps there.
So I am being practical. To get to the bottom “base line” of the Sasquatch mystery (or Orang Pendak of SE Asia, or Mono Grande of South America, etc.), you have to have a specimen to examine–for necropsy.
Your commentaries are welcomed.
The DNA information was obtained directly from the Bornean clouded leopards primarily by capturing some individuals in live traps, then sedating them with Telazol so that they could be examined hands-on. The adults were radio collared and released. Juveniles were not collared. Other individuals were darted and examined. None were killed.
I posted the link for IUCN clouded leopard project but that post has not appeared yet (probably because of the link embedded in it).
I have read the subsequent comments.
I have a high tolerance for tangential discussions, side-bars, even flights of fancy.
But I must state this.
1) Sasquatch is a Big Game Animal. The Biggest. The Smartest. The Most Dangerous ever attempted to be brought to Science, that lives on land. It has to be approached from this avenue.
2) Sasquatch, although furry or hairy, is not a pet. It will never be one. No “woogie woogie” moments here.
3) Like I said before Sasquatches are homin-OID, but not homin-ID. Big difference. The freaking because it is bipedal, that it swings its arms very similar to humans, is a product of the upright locomotion. Not because it is a direct ancestor. (We won’t know actually where it is in the primate lineagy until we have a necropsy, and can do substantive DNA testing. As Meldrum’s book graphically shows, hair samples now in hand are not sufficient to do any type of definitive identification.)
4) Darting is much more difficult than many of the commentators here have considered. Darting also encompasses “misfires,” (happens) and also “insufficient penetrations” (happens too, and at times quite often–where the dart doesn’t stick where it’s supposed to, or bury itself sufficiently)…very dangerous, and very frustrating. Darting with such an elusive and quick animal is basically, 100% impractical.
5) Other methods of “nice” intercepting (such as net traps, or other non-lethal means) would not work with Sasquatch, due to its proportional size and weight. 7 or 8 foot tall animals 1000 pounds or more won’t be captured by “nice” means.
6) The best alternative to Darting or any other means to acquire such an elusive and quick animal is something that exceeds Mach 3+ when fired, to get over the distances that most sightings take place–hundreds of yards. That something is a bullet–like from a 30.06 or better.
7) The squeamish reaction to killing a Sasquatch is not a scientific reaction. Science eschews emotion. You want to be emotional on the death of a living creature? Concetrate on humans. They need much help, around the world.
The BFRO site, in essence, has been accumulating all the eyewitness reports (and continues to do so) for a larger analysis. In a manner, it has been engaging in the data acquiration that one would do if one was doing (as in other scientific fields) a “Meta-analysis,” where one takes data collected over a large sampling of studies, and then attempts to come to new conclusions. That “telepresence” effort (via eyewitness reports of behaviors both near and far) has, in my view, gone as far as one can go without invasive procedures to have a certain amount “data in the base.” It’s time for an actual specimen. That specimen is best garnered by a kill specimen.
9) Getting a billionaire, even by its suggestion, is probably not practical. Unless someone has personal connections with these people, I doubt that this will happen, if at all. Had there been such personal connections, I would think that Branson (who is avant garde in his thought processes) would’ve already had considered this.
Perhaps if one of you knows Bono, he can make the introductions! LOL
But more seriously…
Raising money is difficult, and an art form. One should obtain the volume “Hunt for the Skinwalker” and read how the rich sponsor did a multi-year study of events in Nevada, if memory serves. That organization, that did that study, no longer exists, and is now moribund. Just a real-world example.
Further comments are welcomed.
greenmartian2007,
You said ” Like I said before Sasquatches are homin-OID, but not homin-ID. Big difference. ” So, you know that for a fact? How did you come by that information? And even if that is true, do you think that makes it morally acceptable to kill one, before alternatives are tried? Most scientists who study large mammals would rather study the living animal than the dead specimens. As has been pointed out so many times in the comments here, (1) There is no need to kill an animal to obtain biological specimens from it. The tissue samples necessary for DNA testing can be obtained from anesthetized animals, or even from animals that are trapped but not anesthetized. (2) If we follow and study living animals, sooner or later one will die and those who want to do more intrusive study, as of bony structure for example, will have their specimen.
You said “Darting is much more difficult than many of the commentators here have considered. Darting also encompasses ‘misfires,’ (happens) and also ‘insufficient penetrations’”.
I hate to break this to you, but shooting with bullets can run into the same problems. I’d much rather have a Sas wander off a bit drunk from an “insufficient penetration” than wounded from a misplaced bullet.
You also seem to assume that the people who posted those comments are unfamiliar with handling large animals and get all of our knowledge from watching TV. That is mildly insulting to those of us who have worked with animals of many species for many years. Getting close enough to an animal to shoot it with a dart is no more difficult than getting close enough to shoot it with a bullet. Both are extremely difficult with large, elusive forest mammals. But, especially since we do not know exactly what we are shooting at in the case of a Bigfoot, we should err on the side of life. (Just in case what we see is a human in a suit, if for no other reason.
You said “Other methods of ‘nice’ intercepting (such as net traps, or other non-lethal means) would not work with Sasquatch, due to its proportional size and weight.”
First of all, there is nothing “nice” about netting a large mammal. They fight. I would too. But – large mammals are indeed captured with nets; in fact that is a frequent means of capture employed by some native peoples to catch very large animals – and they used handmade nets. (Some of those same native people hunt forest animals with poison darts – and they don’t even shoot them with a rifle but with a blowgun.)
“Science eschews emotion”? Not true. Scientists are humans too, remember? George Schaller, who shot the first photographs ever taken of wild snow leopards in the Himalayas, did not think it necessary to shoot one with a rifle to prove that they are there. Scientists who followed him have not done so either. They have anesthetized wild cats and radio-collared them, learning ever so much more that way than they could have learned from a snow leopard carcass.
I do agree with you on one point: it is impractical to think of getting some billionaire to sponsor an open-ended research project with no guarantee of success. They did not get to be billionaires by behaving that way. But then again, my “billionaire” comment was intended as a joke. That’s why there is a little smilie face beside it.
I am fully willing to accept that one may have to be killed in order to document its existence and obtain valuable physical data. I would like to think that a live one would be more useful, but in the end, it may be necessary to get a holotype through a kill first unfortunately. I am prepared for that possibility. But are we to believe that it will forever be impossible to capture or dart specimens? This is simply not true, I feel. The fact is there are animals as large as the sasquatch that are captured, tagged, or tracked and animals can be studied in the wild effectively once their habits and range are known. Large primates have been studied in their natural habitat quite extensively, so I can’t think of any information we have on Bigfoot that leads me to believe that they would be exempt from this type of study.
And what information is there to lead anyone to any conclusion as to whether this is a homonid, hominoid, or just a large primate? That is something that remains to be determined and we are in no position to assume anything along those lines, hence the whole need for genetic material to begin with. It is not a scientific approach to make any sort of classification in absence of more information than we have.
As for field studies, they are certainly not always easy, and researchers can be skunked some days(I can attest to this). However, it is certainly not nearly as overwhelmingly difficult as greenmartian 2007 is making it sound. In my opinion, an unscientific approach would be to say that it is simply not possible or feasible to study any animal in the wild without killing it. Animals the same size or larger than Bigfoot are tracked and studied in the wild all the time, it is not impossible and it is essential to do this in order to get a full understanding of the animal’s habits and behavior. Killing animals is not always the best or most practical way to study them especially when its existence is verified. It is certainly not easy, but is science always about what is easy? Of course not. I do not believe Bigfoot to be so big and smart and dangerous as to be beyond our ability to capture, tag, or study in any way.
That being said, I have no problem with the idea that one may have to die to achieve a full understanding of its physiology and to verify its existence. I see the kill side of the argument quite clearly and there are a lot of good points made. But it is simply not true that it can not ever be tracked or captured or studied in the wild as some of the comments above would lead us to think. The only Bigfoot we will ever be able to study are not all going to be dead ones, I think.
I stand by my opinion that, just as Kittenz said, we can learn a lot more from a live animal than a dead one. For an animal that we know next to nothing about, like Bigfoot, that sounds pretty good to me. Like I said, a kil specimen may be needed in the end, but I am much more interested in what could be found out from a live one than what would be gleaned from the carcass and in fact I feel the same way about any animal. I have studied animals in the wild and not once have I ever had to shoot one in order to learn about it. For me, It is not necessarily all about an aversion to them dying so much as an aversion to all the potential data wasted by killing one. These were known animals, mind you, but that’s my basic approach with Bigfoot too, as unrealistic as that may seem to some. And another thing, Like Kittenz said, all of us here are not totally unfamiliar with dealing with animals although we may have differing opinions on how to approach this.
My response to Kittenz…
I think on many points, I will just have to disagree with you. But not in a disagreeable manner.
I think, if you haven’t already, you should go and acquire a copy of Jeff Meldrum’s book. It is highly enlightening. Please read that.
It is pretty convincing in the evidence presented in Meldrum’s book that we have an ape on our hands, and not a archaeo-human or something similar.
I have worked, in my employment experience, with many Nobel laureates. Physics, chemistry, medicine. Science, to function as it should, has to be out of the realm of emotion. Emotion cannot prove or disprove results. Those results have to be garnered through proofs. Physical proofs, mathematical proofs, etc. Not on faith. Not on belief. (But one can have faith or belief in one’s approach to getting the answer.)
Yes, there have been debates. And those debates have allowed the intrusion of emotion. But the end results are these. The hypotheses and theories that last are those that have physical proof. Science is not a court trial, where attorneys attempt to persuade an audience of what should be the “best evidence.” Doesn’t work like that. All the data comes in, good, bad, indifferent. And then it is sifted.
That doesn’t mean the people who do the research aren’t emotional individuals. They are. But to get to the truth that they are seeking, emotion has to be removed. Doing the research correctly precludes the injection of emotions.
Just because Sasquatches walk upright, and have a gait and arm swing similar to humans do not make them human. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Ditto for chimpanzees, which are now known to use spear-like weapons to get prey apparently. Ditto gorillas, which are known to be able to engage in sign language with great facility, and engage in abstract thought (filming the use of a gorilla using a stick to gauge stream depth before wading across) etc.
But that goes for any other member of the primate family. They engage in “human-like” (or what we have traditionally identified as “human-like”) behaviors. But that doesn’t make them relic hominds. They are hominoids. Different kettle of fish.
That doesn’t mean that humans and other primates aren’t related. We are. Very much so. But Sasquatch is not like some forest-living “forgotten Dutch uncle.” Not tenable.
But like I said, a kill specimen will allow definitive DNA testing, and we may be able to actually see to which part of the primate tree that Sasquatches belong. Whether it is closer to the other great apes, or perhaps an interim species between the great apes and Man, only the future will tell.
Meldrum’s book pretty much shows through the accumulated evidence presently available that this is an ape, not a relic hominid walking in North America. The examination of the gait, the foot push-offs, the vocalizations, and so on all point to an ape.
As to the notion that it is a relic hominid, there is no evidence of that up to this point to bear this out.
There is no evidence that it produces fire. There has been no eyewitness reports I am aware of that points to the creature using tools (although I would think if it removes the livers of deer in the winter, it may use a tool to open the ventral side of the deer–that may be something to consider) or weapons. No spear throwing, no bola throwing (rocks tied to a rope). No evidence up to this point of Sasquatches herding prey into a cul-de-sac. No evidence that I am aware of that they use clubs to kill prey.
There is evidence that when dogs have been “sic-ed” upon a Sasquatch, they tear the dogs apart. Or thrown to where the remains of the dog are found. Some reports on BFRO about that, if memory serves. Which I think makes the creature dangerous. It is aware enough to know if it is being followed, or hunted.
Trying to equate Sasquatches with snow leopards is like attempting to compare concrete blocks with oranges. Yes, both are made up of atoms. But they are not similar enough to make the argument that they are similar enough to be both edible. All known and accepted creatures in any zoological encyclopedia (with very few exceptions) are known via kill specimens.
I think also that superstition might be raising its head during the discussions (not so said, but I sense it). Fear of taking out a hominoid that strides like we do, may go to some ancient, atavistic idea that we do not kill our own, or things that have surface similarities to humans.
My personal view is that to settle the debates, and to achieve the overturning of misnomers and incorrect beliefs by others, is to get a kill specimen, chopper it out of the hinterlands, and then get definitive information.
This is also my last post in this thread. I have stated my case well, I think.
And there it is.
Like I said: I think all our bottom lines are up there. Word for word (for word for word for word….)
I really think this: the kill-one-for-study approach to the sas embodies an approach to science, nature and the world in general that will have us nailing down the critter’s diet, from stomach contents…just in time to wave the last one goodbye.
If you disagree…you’re pro-kill. Simple as that.
The analogy of big cats such as snow leopards to big honinids, hominoids, and/or pongids or pongoids is that they are all large, rare mammals that are difficult to study because they live in remote, heavily forested or nearly inaccessible locations. They need not be of the same genera to deserve the same consideration when studying them.
As to referencing Meldrum, I’ve read the book and the interviews, and once again I ask, “When has Meldrum himself examined the actual animal?” He has not. I’m sure that Meldrum himself would prefer obtaining tissue samples from a living Sasquatch rather than a dead one if given the choice.
There is nothing “superstitious” about preferring not to kill an animal to “further” science. I just do not see how anyone can believe in this day and age that it is necessary to kill an animal to thoroughly study it.
If you are tracking and studying living animals, sooner or later you get your dead one, without having to kill it just to examine its innards.
But there is, OK, more in greenmartian 2007’s post that is worth at least a word here.
1) You say: “Sasquatch is a Big Game Animal. The Biggest. The Smartest. The Most Dangerous ever attempted to be brought to Science, that lives on land. It has to be approached from this avenue.”
Well, no it doesn’t, according to us no-kill folks. That’s one view: the pro-kill view. Argue that point to the extent you want. It’s still one view. We do have this extraordinary tendency to describe animals that way, before WE start systematically slaying them. We set them up as Big Game; then we test our prowess against them, not up close with a knife, but 500 yards off with a rifle. “The Smartest. The Most Dangerous ever…” There’s only one species that even close to merits that description; and it’s having this discussion over how deadly ravenous and all-consuming it wants to be. It makes the rules. Period. The sas just has to play by them. Or not, and follow the dodo. Or, just follow the dodo whatever it chooses. The sas has no choice here.
2) You say “Like I said before Sasquatches are homin-OID, but not homin-ID. Big difference.”
Right now that’s an opinion, to which a lot of anecdotal evidence gives, in my opinion, considerable weight. But it’s not backed, yet, by scientific evidence. We just don’t know. As to another alleged biped: I don’t know what the Yowie is. But I’m entertaining the notion that it isn’t even a primate. Oh, and by the way, I don’t consider there to be a significant difference between ID and OID at all. As I’ve read elsewhere: if Australopithecus africanus, apparently considered by most an ID, were alive today, we’d call it a bipedal ape. In other words, an OID. Funny, even though I didn’t put it in those words, I did have that sort-of-thought about them.
In terms of stewardship of life – in which we have a role we might not have asked for but which our power, and our appreciation of the beauty of the world, has foisted on us – there’s very little diff between OID and ID at all. (I saw on the cover of National Geographic lately what it called the “First Child,” by which it meant human baby. I looked at the reconstruction on the cover and I thought: that’s an orangutan.
3) You say “Other methods of “nice” intercepting (such as net traps, or other non-lethal means) would not work with Sasquatch, due to its proportional size and weight. 7 or 8 foot tall animals 1000 pounds or more won’t be captured by “nice” means.”
Elephants are, all the time, and nothing on earth – not on land, anyway – is near as nasty as an elephant when it wants to be. The sas appears, at least anecdotally, to be far nicer than the elephant, or the hippo, for that matter (which may actually be the world’s nastiest, most formidable critter. Oh, like the elephant, other than us).
My bottom line hasn’t shifted a millimeter. Probably yours neither. Let’s hope the sas survives whatever we decide to do.
DWA- I don’t know if you read it, but I had some of exactly the same thoughts as you if you look back at my two posts I made a bit earlier, before this one. It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility to capture large, aggressive animals and the elephant is a good example of this. I was thinking of mountain gorillas too. I also believe there is not enough scientific evidence to confidently classify Bigfoot as anything other than a hugs, bipedal creature. There are a lot of good theories, but I at least haven’t seen anything definitive on this. Certainly not enough to make any assumptions.
No. I would not shoot one if I had the chance. The main reason I wouldn’t is because they are rare. I also feel that most members of the mainstream scientific community are so determined not to believe Bigfoot exists that if they were shown a dead bigfoot, they would just say something like “All that proves is that a genetic freak specimen of one of the known apes DID exist”
Ok, I had kind of thought I was done on this thread after having stated my no-kill position as concisely as i could.
However greenmartian2007 has riled me enough that i have to respond. I am not so much responding to the ‘kill’ argument that is put (although I disagree- my position is clearly stated above), but to some of the background reasoning, and surrounding argument.
Greenmartian2007 ends by saying; “I have stated my case well, I think.”
In my opinion I have rarely seen anyone on this site post such an incoherent and contradictory series of statements (although MK Davies springs to mind), and to so fail to understand the point of what others are saying.
Firstly, lets deal with classification:
Greenmartian2007 (from now on, for sake of brevity, ‘GM’- I will also refer to ‘her’ for the same reason) repeatedly states that sasquatch is “homin-OID but not homin-ID”. That is, GM is willing to make an attribution, such that the being belongs to the biological ’superfamily’ Hominoidea, but specifically not to the biological ‘family’ Hominidae.
This is interesting, not least because GM also repeatedly argues that only a body will allow us to say “what kind of animal it is”, whether it is “perhaps an interim species between the great apes and Man”, whether it is “closer to humans that Bonobos”. Indeed GM says “We won’t know actually where it is in the primate lineagy until we have a necropsy, and can do substantive DNA testing”.
Perhaps I am missing something here, but GM’s argument seems to me to be
(1) we should not worry about killing a sasquatch because we can be sure that it is definately not a hominid (which, in any case, is irrelevant to the moral argument here), and
(2) we need to kill a sasquatch because otherwise we will not be able to say where it fits in the ‘primate lineage’.
Both of these cannot be simultaneously true. GM, whatever her scientific expertise (she has worked with Nobel laureates-but fails to say in what capacity- co-researcher? editor? hairdresser? domestic?), certainly needs a refresher course in basic logic.
Perhaps we should ask, then, how GM arrives at her biological designation. Well, GM doesn’t really give us any answer. Indeed, again, GM argues that we need an ‘actual specimen’ before we can make a ‘classification’. Essentially the only justification comes from repeated reference to Meldrum’s theory that bigfoot footprints reveal closer relationship to ‘pongids’ than hominids. So GM’s biological classification is made on the basis of footprints. Hardly a firm basis for such a momentous claim (Indeed, this is especially true when Meldrum’s claims are themselves questionable in this regard. All pongids have divergent big toes. Sasquatch does not. Just compare the foot of a chimp or a gorilla with a sasquatch print, and then compare the sasquatch print with a modern human print or the feet of extinct hominids).
GM also is highly dismissive of other’s “misnomers”. This is rather unfortunate, given that GM seems to have rather a weak grip on the classificatory system herself. GM says that sasquatch is not a ‘direct ancestor’ of humans, and therefore is is a hominoid, not a hominid. In fact, it is the case that there is no requirement that a hominid be a direct ancestor of humans (as is probably the case with, for instance, the robust australopithecine species- they are rather probably an extinct ’side-branch’ of the family ‘hominidae’, that is not ancestral to humans). Furthermore, as far as hominoids go, there must have been at least some member species of the hominoidea that were directly ancestral to human species (that is, as the hominoidea superfamily includes all great apes and their common ancestors, then by definition it also includes our direct ancestors). Unless GM believes that humans evolved directly from some animal outside the hominoidae (that is, not from the common ancestors of the great apes) then the fact that sasquatch might be hominoid is irrelevant, in itself, to whether or not it might be a direct ancestor of humans.
GM also seems a little bit confused as to the classification of modern humans. GM says “we have an ape on our hands”. This, of course, is true whether or not sasquatch is hominid or hominoid, because, as far as biological classification goes, even modern humans are members of the ape clade.
Secondly, we can deal with the question of ‘emotion’:
GM accuses those in the no-kill camp of being ’squeamish’, and of letting ‘emotion’ interfere with science. She also claims that ‘emotion has no place in science’.
However, contrary to GM’s rather arrogant implication I have seen no indication that any of those who have stated their ‘no-kill’ position here consider that sasquatch are, or could be, ‘pets’, or that they display a “woogie woogie” reaction. On the contrary, they seem very well aware that it is a potentially dangerous wild animal. Furthermore, no-one seems to be particularly ’squeamish’ here. Many of the no-kill advocates are self-professed avid hunters. I expect that I am pretty much alone among those posting here in holding an all-encompassing ‘no-kill’ attitude to all animals. However, even in my case this is not a result of ’squeamishness’, but of extensive rational consideration of the capacities of animals to feel pain, and experience fear, frustration and suffering, and the moral obligations that these facts entail.
It is a typical (and invalid) strategy for those who disagree with a moral position to dismiss it as ‘emotion’.It is also a typical (and invalid) strategy for those who disagree with claims that non-humans deserve consideration to suggest that by doing so one neglects, or doesn’t care about human suffering.
I am especially worried by GM’s arguments regarding ‘emotion’ (by which it seems GM means morality) and science, because they represent such a fundamentally dangerous view of the role of science in society.
GM says;
“Science, to function as it should, has to be out of the realm of emotion. Emotion cannot prove or disprove results. Those results have to be garnered through proofs. Physical proofs, mathematical proofs, etc. Not on faith. Not on belief. (But one can have faith or belief in one’s approach to getting the answer.)….That doesn’t mean the people who do the research aren’t emotional individuals. They are. But to get to the truth that they are seeking, emotion has to be removed. Doing the research correctly precludes the injection of emotions.”
But this is not the same as saying that ‘emotion’ (morality) should have no impact on science. GM fails to distinguish science as a social phenomenon, and science as a heuristic methodology.
It is certain that we could solve many scientific and medical problems (uncover many ‘truths’) if, for instance, we were to kill and dissect human infants. Quite rightly, of course, we don’t. In fact, those who did completely remove ‘emotion’ from the scientific ‘quest’ were those Nazi doctors who carried out experiments on prisoners in the concentration camps.
Of course, I am not suggesting that this is equivalent to the suggestion that we should kill a sasquatch. What I am pointing out is that it is perfectly legitimate for questions of morality (what GM dismisses as ‘emotion’) to set limits on what scientists do. Indeed, thank God we allow it to.
What is not right, is for ‘emotion’ to play a part in the actual carrying out of science (that is, bias the ways that one interprets the result of an experiment, for instance), that is, to effect the rationale of the scientific method. But the no-kill camp are not advocating this. Indeed, it is hard to see how someone might think they were. We do not want ‘emotion’ (or faith) to weigh as evidence in assessing the truth of scientific theories (if GM thinks we do, I challenge her to give one instance of any of us suggesting that). Rather, the no-kill camp has made a moral judgment (at least, those for whom it is a moral judgment) regarding our behaviour towards a certain kind of being, a moral judgment that it is wrong to kill such a being whether in a scientific investigation, or simply for fun. This sets limits on what science should do, but says nothing about how, within those limits, one should carry out science (indeed, I know that at least many of those who are in the no-kill camp- DWA, Kittenz, mystery_man, to name but a few- are upfront advocates of the beauty, power, and centrality of the scientific method).
Science (by which I mean the scientific method) does not demand that we do anything and everything that we can do (Einstein, for one, regretted his work on nuclear physics because of its resulting in nuclear weapons). Rather, it is simply a methodology to guide how we do what we decide to do. How we decide what we do is (if we are not to risk becoming amoral) the realm of morality.
Lets have a bit more rigour here.
Things-in-the-woods- That was beautifully said. It illustrated very well some of the things that I wanted to get on and post just now. Can’t really add to what you said at all. Great comments!
Things-in-the-woods,
I agree with mystery_man. Thank you for that eloquent comment.
And now everybody’s bottom line is REALLY up here.
Thanks, T-I-W.
One more thought about killing for science.
Photography really made it unnecessary.
From the time wildlife photography came into its own (so OK, wildlife photography specifically), there has been no need to kill in order to do the one thing one needs to do to broadcast a true likeness of the animal to the scientific community and the public: do a clear illustration of it. Animals didn’t hold still for illustrations, so dead specimens were needed. Photography took care of that problem.
As kittenz notes, once you have nailed down the animal’s presence, you will have more than enough opps to study specimens. There is now, however, no need to rush that process yourself.
And couldn’t resist adding to kittenz’s comment: “There is nothing “superstitious” about preferring not to kill an animal to “further” science.”
One might rather think that those who believe science demands blood sacrifice are treating science just a wee tad too much like a religion.
And with regard to things-in-the-woods’ excellent post above – maybe one of the best I’ve read here – and its discussion of “GM’s” take on emotion in science, I have to add this.
The other day at a used-book sale I damn near bought and why didn’t I? “The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors” by Ann Gibbons. The title alone should tell you how much emotion has factored into this area of science. My, I assure you, most cursory review of the book’s contents confirms this for me: every aspect of this “race” was as saturated with emotion as any church service I have been to. And it struck me as pretty typical, given what I know about science. (Remember the recent demotion of Pluto?)
Emotion is as integral a part of science, as practiced by humans, as research is. Argument, critical to the practice of proper hard science, is well infused with emotion.
It’s channeling emotion, not keeping it out, that distinguishes the best science. George Schaller’s and Jane Goodall’s emotions inform their science in a truly beautiful way. (Hmmmm. They both take the sasquatch and the yeti seriously. Coincidence?) Without that interaction we’d know precious little about some of our most charismatic megafauna. Indeed, scientists at first derided Goodall’s naming of her subjects and interacting with them. Jane Goodall is directly or indirectly responsible for well over half – maybe over 80% might be a better estimate, someone correct me if I’m wrong – of what we know about chimps.
We’re human, we’re emotional, and science, really, was inspired by emotion. We need to know. That need pulls at us in a way no book will ever dissect. And without that need, there is no science.
I do not go anywhere unarmed. That said if it was a kill or be killed moment the monkey gets a high speed lead injection. Just remember, if these things are as smart and social as all reports make them out to be, getting out of the woods alive will be one heck of a trip. We have all read reports where “hunters” have looked through the scope and could not pull the trigger, or where bigfoot was sighted while hunting but not fired up on. Some say that they did not feel they had a big enough gun. It is not caliber but shot placement that counts. Now I have never read a recent sighting that states they shot, and confirmed a kill on bigfoot. I have read of many hunters that entered the woods and were never seen or heard from again, not even remains. Maybe they pulled the trigger. Of course the skeptics will say that these hunters never existed because we do not have a body, just witnesses that they went into the woods and never came back. As for a live capture, if these things are social can you imagine the back-up that will be called in when you spring the trap. I would not want to be you. I have been stalked in the woods before and it is not an easy feeling. If you find one or see one, be rest assured it is not alone. Just my thoughts.
wolferun says “I do not go anywhere unarmed. That said if it was a kill or be killed moment the monkey gets a high speed lead injection.” I have to agree with that. I’m disabled & have a permit to hunt from a vehicle. If I see a Bigfoot while deer hunting & it throws a rock at me or charges me, mainstream science will have all the proof they need that Bigfoot exists. In that case I will shoot to kill, & I rarely miss what I shoot at. I’m sure my Stevens Model 110E bolt action 30-06 with 180 grain pointed soft point ammo is very capable of dropping a Bigfoot in its big tracks if I hit its chest or head.