The cameras have been implemented. There are some ten of them, arranged in a way that it is very difficult for anyone (human) to access the area of implementation without being seen, or for any animal passing through that zone to be missed. It is a very narrow canyon, with steep walls. We set up the cameras to cover all reasonable routes through the zone. It would be pretty darn difficult for any larger, terrestrial animal taking a reasonable path of least resistance and seeking access to best food and water sources to avoid one of the angles of view.

Updates are going to be posted on this dedicated web page, when available.

If we get a Bigfoot on there, great! If not, I’m sure we’re going to have some very good images of bears, mountain lions and deer for you coming soon.

See… I don’t need a scientist to tell me whether this is a real phenomenon or not. The evidence speaks quite eloquently in favor of such. And my daughter and my ex had an up-close-and-personal encounter on a road in north central Virginia on 4/19/2006, that was described to me in great profusion of detail, and consistency, within minutes of the sighting. This was not more than ten miles from where I lived. I had my own close experience a few months later in New Mexico, though it was not a sighting, but a really, really close auditory one that involved actual speech, a la the Sierra Sounds, although it would be years before I heard those recordings…

I think the selection of the Bluff Creek site works for me. While ranges tend to be big for animals like this one seems to be (think: bears and orangs), we aren’t sure what the case is here. Patterson and Gimlin followed a lot of evidence into Bluff Creek. We don’t know the seasonal, annual or other pattern of that evidence…but since we have that film, hey, I’m interested in taking a look. We don’t know what Patty was doing …a state of affairs that greatly complicates the decision about camera placement in the first place. Placing cameras for known species takes known and accepted sign and trails into account.

Now, ongoing research by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy seems to indicate that these animals – at least the ostensible population they are researching – aren’t either as solitary or as wide-ranging as conventional wisdom holds. (They haven’t looked at all their camera footage yet; but they’re saying they’ve had just about every other kind of encounter one can have, including sightings. And knowing these guys personally, a clutch a Biscardis they ain’t.) Now, chimps have been shown to have local cultures; these may too. But until we know more, we can’t tell, and to go to a place where an authentic encounter seems to have occurred is as good a decision as any. Where are “prime Bigfoot habitats”? We can guess (start: what do bears like? Plus sightings have a tendency to occur close to or in water) but we aren’t sure. In what other places where sightings have occurred do we have photographic evidence that leads one to allow that the witness might not have been lying or mistaken? Right. Why not here.

One more thing, I guess: cachet. Science not being about the search for truth but about the search for funding, Bluff Creek is gonna pull more of …well, a very very limited resource in this field, that pays for cameras, among other things.

And, Patty walking with a cane could be a scientific breakthrough of the first water. ;-D

Target-rich environment. But I’ll pull one.

“I’ll take your word for it that you are well-read on the subject. That will do you little good, though, if you are simplistic in your thinking about what you have read.”

A., boys and girls, is: don’t ever say something like this, then announce your ignorance of the literature.

B., boys and girls, is: that sentence (never mind the post) shows clearly that he didn’t understand what he read.

Every single bingle gingle zingle nuance Fhqwhgads mentions – plus 1,001 more – is captured, pristinely, in my post. What Fhqwhgads does – once again – is commit the unforgiveable, constant, and apparently irremediable pseudo-skeptical slip of believing that there are only two kinds of evidence: proof, and BAD EVIDENCE.

The situation is, precisely and pristinely, as I have described. The reason Fhqwhgads fails to understand this is that he believes that evidence is either proof, or rotten apples. (This appears so ingrained that the practitioner doesn’t recognize he’s doing it.) THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF BIGFOOT EVIDENCE, CLASS: clear fakes, and the stuff that might be something else. The stuff that might be something else is, again, pretty damned consistent, for something that isn’t real, or that is something like (Heinz!) 57 varieties of false positive.

To presume, as Fhqwhgads does, that

“a statement that, “All the [fake] footprints show obvious signs of fakery” just means that you are setting yourself to be fooled by anyone with a little cleverness who is willing to put in the effort,”

is to utterly misunderstand this state of affairs. THE FAKES SHOW SIGNS OF FAKERY. THIS IS WHY THEY ARE FAKES. The stuff that hasn’t been nailed down as fake shows consistent (read Meldrum’s paper! read Meldrum’s and Bindernagel’s books!) signs of an animated source that aligns with an animal of the size, weight and gait that people are describing. Presuming they could be fakes is to say “we cannot move off this spot until a body lands on us and crushes us.” Not how science works, boys and girls. When science is working, which (“The Discovery of the Sasquatch,” Bindernagel, 2010) it is most decidedly not here, not in the foggy foggy mainstream, anyway. Is there smudgy, third category stuff? Yup. DISREGARD IT. Could be real, could be fake. Tracks are that way. Focus on the compelling stuff…which one only can when one is conversant with the topic, and not announcing one’s conviction that the topic isn’t serious. A crippling error, that.

Now, my mission done, it really is onward! Next thread.

“But do I *have* to dedicate myself to reading all the Bigfoot books? Uh, no. You really overestimate my interest in this. Reading about cryptozoology is a diversion for me, and not a very serious one.”

Right, and quarks are stupid, and the only reason physicists can go on believing that crap is that none of the rest of us care.

Come ON. That commment is an INDICTMENT. Know how much time I spend on physics websites? The time commensurate with my interest: none.

You are spending WAY WAY too much time here to make that statement. No, you are.

Yawn.

John Bindernagel’s two books: Jeff Meldrum’s one; the reports on the BFRO and TBRC databases.

At a minimum. I’ve read considerably more.

Or debate those guys.

This just gets tiresome. The evidence says: scientists need to get into the field, and confirm. Those guys didn’t tell me what to think; they confirmed what I had independently discovered for myself.

Done. Next thread.

And don’t we already know that trail cams don’t work at all? These are smart, wary beings. They couldn’t still be here if they weren’t. They know how to survive.

As for migratory behavior, I just don’t believe it’s so. I may be proved wrong, but I don’t think that’s precisely it. I think they have a pretty honkin’ big home range, and wander in search of food (or mates, or whatever) within that range. It would not be surprising if their range changes shape and size from time to time, because of food needs. But higher primates are generally not great wanderers. We have our explorers, and perhaps they have theirs, but by and large, I think they stick to generally defined territories.

The first thing that comes to mind is the possible ranges of this creature (if it exists). How do we know that Patty wasn’t just passing through? It is not uncommon for some animals, especially those with high caloric requirements, to roam over a very large territory. Bigfoot could very well be nomadic foragers that travel wherever the food takes them, stopping for awhile where the getting is good before moving on.

I’ve always sort of hypothesized that Bigfoot migrate constantly over wide areas. I’d even venture to say that there is some reason to think so, and that the evidence (such as it is) points to this in some ways. For instance, it could be an explanation for why there is sometimes a rash of sightings in an area followed by the creature never being seen or heard from again. It could also be why many attempts to find the creatures end up in frustration. By the time you get there, they are long gone. This happens a lot even when researching confirmed animals that you know are there.

If Bigfoot is a wide ranging scavenger like this, then there is a very real possibility that one of these creatures will never pass that exact area at Bluff Creek again, and you would have just as much success putting game cameras in any other area that is a prime Bigfoot habitat or where sightings have occurred.

Another thing that I wonder about concerns the circumstantial evidence (or lack thereof) at hand. Let’s face it, almost every even halfway descent photograph of Bigfoot has been taken by a person with a camera. In comparison, our collection of serious photographic evidence supplied by game cameras is woefully meager. One reason that is often postulated for why we have captured so little of Bigfoot on game cameras is that Bigfoot somehow sense the cameras are there and are spooked by them, which leads to them staying away.

Now this may be complete hogwash, but the fact is there is a lacking of game camera photos of Bigfoot. For whatever reasons, we just don’t have them. If Bigfoot does indeed exist, then whether it is some way of sensing the cameras or whatever, there is likely some reason for that. It seems that this perhaps poses a bit of a problem when trying to use game cameras. Until we either learn more about these creatures, alter the technology somehow to overcome this obstacle (hard to do when we have no idea what the cause is), change our approach to game cameras (also hard to do when we know so little), or all of the above, then I don’t see any very compelling reason to think that we will suddenly be getting high quality game cam shots just because it is Bluff Creek.

At this point, I just don’t see any concrete reason to treat Bluff Creek as some sort of key to the whole phenomenon. Yes, it is a place where we got some good footage. That’s it. We know nothing of whether a Bigfoot will ever be there again or why they seem to stay away from game cameras. Is Bluff Creek some sort of Bigfoot mecca? Sure, could be. I don’t know. Until we do, I just don’t see any real reason to suppose it is at this point.

I’m not trying to attack these efforts. Not at all. If they want to put in the effort and money to put those cameras there, then that’s great. More power to them. It certainly can’t hurt to have them out there, and who knows, maybe I’m totally off base. I’ll wait for the results. I just think that with as little as we know about these creatures, putting game cameras in Bluff Creek isn’t any more reason to get particularly excited than putting them in any other location where Bigfoot are thought to be.

These are just things to think about. I do wish the best of luck to them and I hope it turns out well. Like I said, it certainly won’t hurt if they don’t mind going through the trouble.