Kill Or No Kill?
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.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
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.
8) 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.