If Sasquatch had a large sized population, what might we see that we are not now?

1. 1. We would have more sightings and track finds then we do now, forest workers and visitors would be seeing them more. If they numbered as many as black bear we may still not be finding bones but we would be seeing more damage caused by them. If they were as numerous as deer or elk then we would be finding bones… or we would be seeing an increase in population for other animals like porcupines.
2. 2. We would be seeing more resources being utilized by them. More foraging of eatable flora, more fishing, more gathering of insects and amphibians. A larger population would impart within tribal knowledge of such resources, just like fishing areas for grizzly are in Alaska. This would congregate the animals or focus their presence at specific times and places.
3. 3. We would be seeing more reports describing behavior. The animals would not be so fast in moving off when finding themselves if safer numbers.
4. 4. We would be seeing more reports of multiple creatures in each instance. A larger population doesn’t mean that death gets reduced… it means that there are more infants.
5. 5. We would have more competition between them and other animals including humans. Berry patches and fishing grounds would get discovered and utilized more.
6. 6. We would have more films, video and still images of the animals. With more and more people on this planet and more and more availability of photographic means (from cell phones to digital cameras the size of a pack of napkins), people would be recording the encounters if there were more of these creatures.
7. 7. We would see more of the pattern embracing their niche. The animals would essentially stop being cryptic in its life story.
8. 8. We would be able to predict their occurrences or presence more often or more reliably.
9. 9. We would have developed a successful capture of an individual or at least have a much better chance of finding one dead from natural causes.
10. 10. We would be seeing more infant Sasquatch.

• What is a large size population? Probably on the order of wolverine in the area equal to the size of Washington State I would think. Certainly no more than that for cougar.
• Right now I am leaning towards a population density on the order of Grizzly in areas where they inhabit the land. I would say that I would be surprised if there were more than 5 or 6 individuals per 400 square mile area.
• An animal fills out its population when resources allow it. So whatever resources the animal needs or possibly uses is a valid inquiry and monitoring project for this mystery.
• What areas might we find the bulk of the population of Sasquatch in?

1. 1. On the edges of human habitation and environmental impact.
2. 2. Designated wilderness where human vehicular transportation is limited as well as environmental manipulation.
3. 3. Protected watersheds gated off from the public and with limited use.
4. 4. Native American lands that are undeveloped and protected.
5. 5. Areas that have equal amounts of surface in X, Y and Z. Areas that contain hills, mountains, cliffs, slopes, etc. This can effectively multiply a given area its actual usable surface. A flat 20 by 20 square mile tract of land can contain 400 square miles if flat or almost 1000 square miles if mountainous.
6. 6. Swampy and boggy areas.
7. 7. Areas with good, reliable, unimpeded water sources.
8. 8. Coastal areas.
9. 9. Areas with potential unmonitored food resources such as herds of ungulates, bivalves, small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and insects.
10. 10. Areas that have potential shelter.

• These animals probably find areas were they can lie down and forage, hiding their height and thus reducing their discovery with casual observations.
• The animals have to contend with thermoregulation in some way. It might be that they simply are built to handle heat and cold but I would venture a guess that their behavior has developed around this aspect as well. We might eventually find them traveling between the sides of remote valleys, chasing or avoiding the sun as it were as it hunts and forages. To a casual observer seeing a Sasquatch foraging on a steep green mountain slope climbing on all fours it could look like just another bear. Certainly standing on such a slope would be precarious at best.
• The animal’s behavior, as are all animals, would be geared for preservation, taking as little risks as possible to its life and potential offspring. They would avoid confrontations with animals as large and strong as them. This might be why documented grizzly habitats have less reportage of these creatures than non grizzly habitat. Even an elk could be considered a potential threat. A full grown cougar would not attempt to take down even a healthy deer for fear of being injured by horn or hoof and having infection setting in. Only the sick, injured, constrained, old and small infant reduce this threat to manageable means.
• Is the Sasquatch a predator or prey? I can not see them being prey. Maybe occasionally a grizzly might get an infant but a full adult would be a good match. I visualize a chart showing a typical individual Sasquatch traveling through its years from infant to maturity and only there find that Sasquatch as prey fits either end of the spectrum.
• I also believe that a lower population is only possible with a longer life span. Maybe as much as that of humans.
• Nature seeks a balance. The balance that is documented, at least in the Pacific Northwest dictates a small population at best for Sasquatch.

To hit your question from the other side,

That Sasquatch does not fulfill most of your criteria for a large, or dense, population in any given area suggests:

1.)As you suggest, a small, dispersed populaion, or. . .

2.)It doesn't exist.

Given that the majority of accepted evidence suggests that it does exist (argument over that we can save for another thread), the question then becomes, why is it rare, even if geographically it is widespread?

Off the top of my head, the reasons may be (and some of these aren't mutually exclusive): (damndirtyape, you've got me making lists now too):
1.)Carrying capacity doesn't allow more, as you suggested.
2.)Long life span (which is to be expected for a presumed homonoid), as you suggested.
3.)Carrying capacity hasn't been reached yet because the population is still slowly recovering from European human diseases (John Green hypothesis) or some other cause. Because of long generation times, the recovery is slow.
4.)Competition with humans makes it retreat further into appropriate areas that see few humans. Competition here can simply mean a general aversion to each other. We frequently skeedaddle when we see each other, though there are reports of more aggressive behaviours coming from both species directed at the other.

I'm sure there are other hypotheses that aren't coming up in the noggin right now.

Though I'm at the reasonably convinced stage for Sasquatch existence, I am bothered that such a widespread, if rare, animal has not yet been officially documented. This after 400 years of European firearms existing on this continent.

Would you really call the wolverine population large? Widespread, but large? Wolverine density may be a good model for Sasquatch, except for local family clustering in the latter.

And yet there are plenty of wolverine pelts around, but no hunting cabins with a Sasquatch skin rug in front of the fire place. Ongoing arguments about why it can't be "collected" (intelligence, etc.) border on special pleading for me. (In any case, there is the rare account of one being killed, but with the end result of no body part being recovered).

For me, that is the most legitimite argument today for its non-existence, and one that I think you were hinting at.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Wolverines are not anything like sas, except that they are rare and mammals. How much rarer is a sas? Who knows.

The reason there are no sas rugs in hunting cabins might be because sas is much smarter, and much more elusive than a wolverine. Also, how many reports have been written about someone shooting a sas? Most of the time the hunter could have taken a shot, but decided not to, for fear of shooting something that might have been a human being.

Maybe we are witness to the very end of a already critically endangered species. Maybe populations so small, a single male of the species could go its entire life without finding a mate. I believe if this creature exists, its numbers are much smaller than previously thought.

Hey Robert, point taken.

Just to play devil's advocate here (remember, I think the evidence better supports existence than otherwise), I live in Colorado. Here grizzly bears are officially extinct. For the last few decades, the number of sightings reported = 2. In both cases, the sightings ended in the killing of the bears and their documentation. Though keeping my ears open, I haven't heard of any grizzly here besides those two (and I half suspect that humans may have brought them in).

Grizzly bear in Colorado can be said to be extremely rare.

The number of Colorado Sasquatch sighting reports on the BFRO = 84 over roughly the same time period.

Sasquatch can probably be said to be much more common than grizzly in Colorado today.

And despite being possibly human level intelligent (an argument I'm not convinced of), nocturnal, naturally shy of people, etc., etc. we see them on a fairly regular basis, certainly alot more than we do grizzlies. Even given a hunter's reticence in shooting a human shaped animal, this all seems a weak argument about why one has not been "collected."

Fellow hunters with blaze orange vests have been "collected" in Colorado. A big hairy form in the aspen during elk season seems a more likely target.

So, Colorado Grizzly sightings: 2, bodies collected, 2.

Colorado Sasquatch sightings: 84, bodies collected 0.

These numbers aren't really big enough for a real statistical comparison, but you see what I'm getting at. It's a problem that nags me because none of the given explanations seem terribly satisfactory given time and number of sightings in North America.

All these metrics are great, and useful for comparison. But if this is a creature that has evolved some specialized characteristics to avoid man, then that could change these comparisons with other animals. Maybe bigfoot has developed:

1) Specialized camoflage abilities to hide from humans
2) Specialized defense mechanisms to repel or discourage humans
3) Specialized sensory abilities to avoid contact with humans

I can't think of any other animal that inhabits this particular ecological niche: avoid man at all costs.

These instincts and/or specialized abilities could been developed over thousands of years during partial contact with humans. Think about other interesting abilities in the animal world. Cobras spit poison to blind their prey. Komodo dragons have incredibly lethal germs in their bite. The octopus can change color and texture to camoflage itself. Mosquitos use blood for reproduction. Viruses, nematodes, parasites, etc. So I am suggesting co-evolution with man plays an important role in the sasquatch niche.

Hey Morgoth,

My little devil's advocate argument above showed that, for whatever reason (probably relative size of the populations), Sasquatch are encountered much more often than grizzlies in Colorado.

An individual Sasquatch is almost certainly better able to avoid humans than a grizzly. But if the Sasquatch population is so large that we do see alot of them anyway, despite their great avoidance abilities, it stands to reason that a small percentage of those sighting should result in at least an accidental killing of a Sasq.

It's hard for me to get past the logic of that, despite my favor of Sasq. existence for other reasons.

I don't disagree with your logic. Although specialized abilities might be a reason why there are so few kills in the first place. I'm also not sure the sightings are a fair comparison, notice that the Grizzleys were mainly sighted when killed, which suggests sample bias.

But it seems like DDA is moving towards an ecological and statistical model which could be used for field work. I'm thinking back to Meldrum's claim that they are nocturnal and non-territorial, which makes them difficult to find. So we need a profile which fits the available evidence. Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

tsitakov,

I read your posts and am amazed at how intelligent you are. However, you seem to be missing my point.

2 griz seen, 2 shot. Good, fine. We all know what a griz looks like. We know it's a man-killer. Shoot one if you can, I suppose.

84 sas seen, 0 shot. Why does that amaze you? They look like humans, not grizzley bears.

Whose to say that all the sas were even seen by hunters? Apparently the griz were, or they wouldn't have been shot.

DamnDirtyApe, only briefly have I been reading the discourse on this forum, and with minor noise, the signal-to-noise ratio has in areas been refreshing. Perhaps it's a bit soon to jump out and say this, but every response or contribution I have read from you thus far has fallen nowhere short of engaging and thought-provoking. In this battery of postulates and questions for mulling over (provided by you at the start of this thread), I am compelled to ask you and others here whether anyone has heretofore assembled a working draft of a sasquatch ethnography, and if not, would this be anything to consider as a productive project?

What I could see from this (in terms of being useful) is a solid distillation of everything now documented and hypothesized, but organized in such a way that it lays down the main points with concise, but informative (and peer-reviewed, though not strictly academic given the simple lack of a field with academic peers who research this formally, Dr. Meldrum and a couple of others excepted) summaries. I started thinking about a loose, draft ethnography around the end of last summer, but it was shoved away as full-time uni, plus a trio of jobs, all came crashing at once and owning my life.

After finals, I'm thinking of revisiting this idea and wondering if an open "committee" (though not literally a committee, given the closed nature of the formal meaning) might be the way to proceed with this. It would take a long while, many provisional drafts, and undoubtedly strong debate and dissent at each step ("sasquolitics", heh), but assuming diligence persists, over time a basic outline -- behind which a majority of peers can concur with when interacting with the academic realm, lay public, press, and the like -- could form a less nebulous, and less disputable comprehension of what is presently understood and agreed to by "the field", if you will.

Does this sound far-fetched? Has it been attempted in the past? I guess I'm curious as to whether it can be done, and I'd be inclined to pick your brain about this, though anyone here can certainly chime in. Thanks.

I agree that would be the ultimate goal. What a device it would be to actually have such backing for planning purposes.

Several people may be working on it without even knowing they are. Throwing away or refining concepts that fail testing is a pretty big pill to swallow for some but it has to be done to get to the bottom of all of this. Testing costs and speaking for myself, I wish I had more of both.

What about comparisons with other great apes of whom we know more about their behavior. Grover Krantz frequently compared alleged sasquatch behavior to that of the orangutans, and I think he was probably pretty close to right. A large asian ape with limited food supplies that lives a basically solitary existence and is oddly highly intelligent. While comaparing sasquatch to a northwestern mammal like the wolverine obviously has its benefits, I think that we need to consider other animals as well that are not native. This is of course being done, but still.

How effective would a behavioral model be when coupled with an ecological/geographic one? Bindernagels book seemed to start to hint at such a model, and I think he did a brilliant job.

I don't see that the sasquatch has any specialized abilities when it comes to avoiding humans, people see them all the time. I know of more than one that I have met who have, they aren't too clever at avoiding us.

I suspect that somebody has accidently shot one in the recent past but did not know what to do with it. We should remember that while the nature of these animals seems like a big deal in our lives, the layman couldn't care less, nor do they know anybetter. Most people I have talked to feel that they cannot exist, and worse, that there's only one of them, that was filmed, and it was a man in a gorilla suit. It's no suprise that a hunter who accidently shoots one doesn't come forward.

Morgoth and Robert,

Good points all. I won't belabor my argument anymore, because I know there are plenty of legitimite counters. I've probably hijacked damndirtyape's thread enough.

FredSneakers/David suggests rightly that Bindernagel's North America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch is a very useful overview of behaviour. (unfortunately it isn't available new, and used copies are going for $90)

What that book doesn't cover, like geographical distribution, can be found in other authoritative sources.

I just bought this same book two months ago :Beachcomber books
Box 3286 Courtenay B.C. Canada V9N 5N4 $26.00 three day delivery