I read many references to the idea that Sasquatch have seasonal migratory patterns. That sounds plausible enough to me I guess. I can't find the image, but I believe in one book or web link I read somewhere it tracked density of sightings at time of year and traced a hypothetical migration route to coincide. I think the party line there is that they move pretty freely from and through Northern Canada, Oregon and Washington.

So, how do they ford the Columbia River? Though I've lived in Washington all my life I don't have intimate knowledge of the Columbia and can't speak to its character for the entire length, but the numerous places I've encountered it, it has been formidable. Certainly down by the caostal areas they're supposed to haunt. I would imagine that most mammals would balk at jumping in and trying to swim across it. Even if they did/could, they'd be in open water a LONG time, which seems counter to the Sasquatch psychology of stay hidden at the priority of almost anything else.

Have there been reported sightings of them crossing the Columbia? The Snake? Anyone know if their are easy spots to ford? If there aren't many, has anyone thought about staking them out during supposed migratory times of year? Or any time for that matter. I know there's been reported sightings of them swimming, but paddling around in a lake surrounded by cover is a far different task, physically and pyshologically, than fording a large river.

In my opinion there is no more evidence for migratory patterns in Bigfoot populations than there is for rock stacking and clacking, tree twisting and strange tree formations, and the king of them all, Bigfoot mimicking the calls/sounds of other known creatures.

Just too much assumption mixed in with these types of claims for me to come to the conclusion that it could be considered "sound evidence." Just my opinion though.

mkianni, I tend to agree with you.

As far as I can tell there is no evidence for really long migrations (like from Oregon to BC, say). And for other land mammals in temperate forest, they don't do this.

Now when some talk about "seasonal migration" I think they mean up high on the mountain in summer, down in the valley during the winter.

Some experienced 'footers here in Colorado think they are seeing this kind of thing, where the Sasquatch basically follow an elk herd.

The Columbia River? How about the Straight of Georgia? I suppose the Sasquatches here on Vancouver island just migrate from North to South island, if they indeed do migrate at all.

Maybe thats what they keep the flying saucers for. (To get across large bodies of water)

Or, adam 777, how about the Queen Charlotte Islands!

Robert Alley, in his Raincoast Sasquatch, I believe, has some reports from there even. Fifty some miles across the Hecate Strait if we're to take the reports seriously!


I blame the Flying Saucer People for breaking their GPS and landing Sasquatch (Yowie) mistakenly in Australia.

I'll see if I can find that source unless someone beats me to it.

Hope these help you Make me Believe..

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=1651

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=3624

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=1383

http://www.oregonbigfoot.com/report_detail.php?id=00380

http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?fo...hreadid=1510816

I agree with most that the evidence for long distance migration is weak (though seasonal migration within a pretty big territory (while following those elk for instance)seems to me to be another kind of behavior) but I can't think of any physical reason a 1000 pound primate wouldn't be able to cross rivers and ocean straites. I've watched a surprising number of animals (brown bear, black bear, moose, deer)swimming miles from shore in some pretty cold deep water. A combination of surface to volume ratio and a physical&psychological toughness/insensitivity to cold would explain a lot of their ability to travel over and through a wide array of environments. As for their reported proclivity for stealth, there are very few environments that are as good at hiding an animal than the water since once swimming in it, one sees only a little grapefruit sized ball bobbing and dissapperaring on the waves.

now u know what those big feet are for, .......... swimming

I think that if there is such a critter as Bigfoot then it nearly became extinct to the Columbian Exchanges effects on it's population. I think introduced European diseases may have negatively affected Bigfoot population numbers just as they devastated Native American population numbers.I also think that the rapid decrease in native game animals also negatively affected Bigfoot populations. I think that during recent decades the Bigfoot population may have bounced back as game populations increased and a immunity to most introduced European,African and Asian disease developed. Assuming this is correct then Bigfoot may be migrating down river systems from it's high mountain refuges.There's cover to hide in along our river systems and food is abundant.

From looking at the maps I'd have to say that any migration would have to be local - elevational, ect. Looking at the map of the west coast the sightings are mixed pretty evenly throughout the year with no areas showing only winter/summer sightings.

I've been recently treated to some fascinating information.

A few years ago this article told about a troublesome black bear collared in Anchorage and his remarkable journey down and across Turnagain Arm (a most treacherous multi-mile swim, with some of the highest tides on Earth, complete with common bore tide) to cross to the Kenai Peninsula.

This story tells about multi-agency biologists putting satellite trackers on brown bears on Ft. Richardson, Alaska (just outside of Anchorage).

Well, one of the Army biologists told me one of the brown bears collared in that project was harvested in the river delta in front of my home, within sight of where I'm sitting right now. It had travelled across Knik Arm (another treacherous multi-mile swim through some of the highest tides on Earth), then overland to the Big Lake area where it wintered. Then this spring it awoke and wandered over here.

I called the ADFG biologist who seals bear hides and skulls and he confirmed it.

Animals swim across incredible waters (sometimes multi-mile trips) rather commonly.

If bigfoot in a non-human primate, which diseases that were brought over by the Europeans could they have contracted? Not every disease man get can be transmitted to animals, including other primates and vice versa.



What information do you have that supports there ever was a rapid decrease in "native game animals"? What if bigfoot is a herbivore, and not a carnivore/omnivore? If the decrease in animals did occur his food supply should have increased significantly so if anything there should have been a population explosion.



I try never to "assume" anything, at least not without significant evidence that tends to make me lean strongly that way.

What makes you think bigfoot takes refuge in high mountain areas?

I've seen deer swim across a raging river before like it was nothing.


And look at polar bears......then can swim something like 80 miles?

And if you see how humans swim and bf's are pretty much just big humans (proportion wise)

and if you take into account their long arms, long legs, big feet, big ands and powerfull muscles then its completely plausable that they could be long distance swimmers.


As far as being out in the open....only their head would stick out of the water.....and from afar I'm sure it could be mistaken for something a lot smaller (seal, duck, etc)

Moregon; it seems like every modern wildlife program on primates there is mention of how humans and other primates are susceptible to a lot of the same disease, though sometimes with a variation of the immune response, Ebola being the latest one to make the news with the recent decimation of the population of apes in the Congo. AIDS has been linked to wild primate populations and I've heard of both the common cold and pneumonia contracted presumably from humans being troublesome for captive populations.
The species barrier, so eloquently described in Jared Diamond's "Germs Guns and Steel" is widely recognized, and crossing from species as distant from one another as ducks or swine and humans is not very frequent but it is a practical inevitablity and has indeed been a real and serious impact on those affiliated species with whom we share the vast bulk of our genetic lineage and for whom the natual immunological responses have not yet been developed.

As for the rapid decrease in "game animals", I presume you mean the use of the word "rapid" which would be subject to some interpretation. There is no uncertainty that the post-european introduction of commercial hunting, agriculture, habitat destruction and invasive species has annihilated quite a few populations that were robust, caused the extermination of a number of identified species (Eskimo Curlew, Passener Pigeon, Eastern Forest Buffalo, Sea Mink, Shrag whales...the list goes on) and presumably a certain number of unidentified species (modern biology and systematics still being centuries away in the future as the first commercial harvests took place in the 1500s).

One of the most common assumptions made by those observing the landscape we see all around us is it to think that except for the pavement, houses, cars and people, the original sight is much the same. I guess it is if you're not very discriminating but if you are aware that the ecosystem is a complex relationship of unique populations in a dynamic equilibrium then one would have to concede that there has been a lot of change, leaving us relatively impoverished, and the genetic legacy squandered for short term advantages, unwittingly or otherwise.

Depends on the disease. Chimps can carry the HIV virus, but don't develop AIDS like humans do. (This is a great example of the specificity of some diseases affecting one closely related species, and not another)

From my limited knowledge of animal diseases I know plague can kill rodents, rabbits, cats and humans, but not dogs.

But tuberculosis is easily caught and expressed in a variety of not very closely related primates like marmosets, rhesus monkeys and humans, at least (which I learned from working in a monkey lab back in college; we had to wear masks just in case the workers were carriers). And TB was a major factor in devastating Native American populations.

It's a speculation, of course, but it's not too far fetched to think that TB may have hit Sasq. populations hard also.

You're right the word "Rapid" would depend on interpretation. Some animals like the White-Tailed Deer it's believed have seen a dramatic increase since the time Columbus landed, which would probably be a more logical food source than a small bird. By the arrival or Europeans I guess the most significant influx of European settlers would have been with the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620. Of the species you mentioned the Eskimo Curlew became extinct in 1962, Passenger Pigeon 1914, and the Sea Mink in 1894 all of which were long after the Europeans first came to America. As you mentioned the Passenger Pigeon was heavily hunted, however records show the population only declined slowly until 1870. Between 1870 and 1890 there was a catastrophic drop in their population. Some scientists now believe that drop was caused by Newcastle Disease, which unfortunately was imported to America from fowl brought in from Europe. Even so with all of these their population was still significant for quite some time after the Europeans started to come here, almost 300 years.

The other two species you mention, the Shrag Whales I can't find any mention of them on the Internet, is that the correct spelling? In reference to the Eastern Forest Buffalo there's a question whether they were actually any different than the Plains Buffalo (Bison) just living in the Eastern US.



http://raysweb.net/specialplaces/pages/endofwild.html

So here again the time for buffalo to become scarce was almost 300 years which I guess could be considered "Rapid" in the overall history of the planet, but it's a long time in comparison that North America has only been inhabited by Europeans for less than 400 years. Certainly there are and were a number of other animals that bigfoot could exist on, nothing points to his diet consisting exclusively of any of the species you've mentioned. If he's omnivorous there was and still are plenty of moose, bear, deer, elk, antelope, coyotes, wolves, bobcats, lynx etc etc etc he could have lived on. I don't see where anything you listed would have made that dramatic of an impact on the overall availability of food sources.

If you go to this site, http://www.usapopulationmap.com/race_1790.html there's an interactive map of the Census Reports in the USA, starting with the first census of 1790. The map also shows which states were inhabited at that time. In 1790 there were just over 3 million people and as you see the only states with people in were located primarily on the eastern seaboard. Just a rough guess it looks to me like 90% of the rest of the country was still basically undisturbed. 1800 went just over 5 million and still a good 80% of the country undisturbed. If you keep clicking on the dates of that map, you'll see there wasn't any impact on the Western half of the U.S. until 1850.

So if bigfoot is/was impacted it looks like it only occured over the last 150 years. So if his population was much larger before 1850 one would expect to find many more reports or references to them than what we've come across. Since there is a scarcity of reports back then, such as found in old newspaper articles etc, I would guess there hasn't been an increase in their population and at the same time nothing suggests there's been a dramatic decrease either.

(Edited to add)

The REALLY SCARY PART of that interactive Census map, also projects the future population of the US. Right now in 2007 we are just over 300 million people, in about 53 more years they project our population will double to over 600 million and less than 30 years after that they project we'll hit over 1 BILLION!!! Where are they going to put them all? I doubt I'll see the double of population when it comes around but I'm sure many of the young people around today will and the youngest may even see the 1 Billion mark hit. To me that's really scary because I just can't imagine what life will be like with that many people tromping around. We're probably seeing the last of much of the wildlands in our lifetime, make way for more and bigger cities coming soon. I suppose at some time in the not-too-distant future the only wildland left will be National Parks.

Moregon, You're right about the dates of extinction, but the issue actually is how rapidly their populations decreased. Wouldn't you agree that if over the course of a couple of generations (40 years) the abundance of prey becomes so depleted that it becomes difficult to rely on getting what a species needs to sustain its population, that would be a fairly rapid decline? There has been a lot of that.



I think what looks statistically like sustained populations of some species is actually a result of the intensifying commercial hunting and other practices that continued to expand westward, or into previously untapped resources, followed by new technologies and new markets for what might have previously been surplus, for a century or so, leaving in their wake wide areas exhausted of commercially valuable animals despite there looking like more than ever on the market. The fact that there were still millions of bison in Nebraska,or a vestigal pocket of sea mink in Newfoundland, would not have lessened the significance of the local extinction on the region, its people and its now weakened ecosystems.



Sorry 'bout the term: "shrag whale". Didn't know its old english name wasn't still current. I refer to the Atlantic Gray Whale (Eschrichtius gibbosus gibbosus). An early industrial resin factory:lamp oil, corsett stays, buggy whips...gone by late 1600s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_Deer verifies what I was refering to.There were drastic declines in numbers of native species.Deer and Turkey populations have recovered in Oklahoma recently. The following is a quote from Wikipedia "Market gunning, unregulated hunting and poor land-use practices, including deforestation severely depressed deer populations in much of their range. For example, by about 1930, the U.S. population was thought to number about 300,000. After an outcry by hunters and other conservation ecologists, commercial exploitation of deer became illegal and conservation programs along with regulated hunting were introduced to solve the problem. Recent estimates put the deer population in the United States at around 30 million. These changes were so successful that, in their range,the white-tailed deer populations currently far exceed their carrying capacity and the animal is considered a nuisance. Motor vehicle collisions with deer are a serious problem in many parts of the animal's range, especially at night and during rutting season, causing injuries and fatalities among both deer and humans. At high population densities, farmers can suffer economic damage by deer depredation of cash crops, especially in maize and orchards."

QUOTE(Bog @ May 14 2007, 11:13 PM)
I think that if there is such a critter as Bigfoot then it nearly became extinct to the Columbian Exchanges effects on it's population. I think introduced European diseases may have negatively affected Bigfoot population numbers just as they devastated Native American population numbers.


MOREGON: If bigfoot in a non-human primate, which diseases that were brought over by the Europeans could they have contracted? Not every disease man get can be transmitted to animals, including other primates and vice versa.
BOG: Native Americans were the keystone species in the America's and they experienced a drastic decrease in numbers due to introduced disease.Why do you think the introduction of disease by domesticated animals wouldn't have a similar effect?
Quote:I also think that the rapid decrease in native game animals also negatively affected Bigfoot populations.


Moregon: What information do you have that supports there ever was a rapid decrease in "native game animals"? What if bigfoot is a herbivore, and not a carnivore/omnivore? If the decrease in animals did occur his food supply should have increased significantly so if anything there should have been a population explosion.
BOG: I read a lot. There was a drastic decrease in many wildlife populations due to the Columbian exchange. Everything I've read leads me to srmise bigfoot are omnivores needing meat in their diet .
QUOTE
I think that during recent decades the Bigfoot population may have bounced back as game populations increased and a immunity to most introduced European,African and Asian disease developed. Assuming this is correct then Bigfoot may be migrating down river systems from it's high mountain refuges.There's cover to hide in along our river systems and food is abundant.


Moregon:I try never to "assume" anything, at least not without significant evidence that tends to make me lean strongly that way.

What makes you think bigfoot takes refuge in high mountain areas?
BOG: I think they may have resided there in the past since there are fewer people in mountain areas. They would have followed the game. Wildlife was an important food source for early settlers. At one point in time scientist's have estimated that their were only 300,000 total deer remaining in the USA. Today there are 30,000,000 and Bigfoot reports are seeming to become more commonplace. hmmmm