http://www.internationalbigfootsociety.com...ort.php?id=1336

Heard of SAS burying their own, but why? Maybe a Tony Soprano Squatch covering up the evidence?

Dang for a minute I thought that said Union County Arkansas.

So all them rock piles are actually BF grave markers..........

hm, that is pretty weird, they weren't even chewed on by any other animals? cougar,bear etc. ?

I always heard it was where hippies marked the spot after doing the nasty.

They marked those spots?? Might explain some of the rock piles...

Does Ray / IBS still publish the Track Record?

That's creepy. Twenty dead sheep hanging from trees.

Didn't say how they were killed, assume they were beaten or strangled.

Maybe a flock caught in a flash flood?

I guess no one considered flash flooding along the ravine? After all the mess we have had with flooding during the hurricanes, you wouldn't believe the crazy stuff we have found in trees around here in the past three years.

The problem there is that natural causes don't equal bigfoot, and if it doesn't equal bigfoot people don't want to hear about it.

Unfortunately it gives the year, but doesn't give the month nor the season. I looked up the location using Google Earth and believe I found the ravine they are talking about. I was hoping to narrow down WHEN the sheep were found, whether if during the spring/summer or fall/winter to get an idea of how they may have come upon their resting place naturally. Flash flooding has been mentioned, as a possibility. However there are no bodies of water around including creeks, streams or rivers that could have swollen over their banks due to heavy rain or spring run-off from melting snow. So if flooding was the culprit it would have had to be strictly from spring run-off as the snow melted. Trying to get an idea of how much snow may have fallen in the area around Starkey, OR in 1979 I went to Weather Underground and checked the historical records for 1979. The nearest city with any data for that year was for La Grande, OR located 28 miles east of Starkey. For most places in the US that would be sufficient, however there is almost a 1,000 foot difference in elevation between La Grande at 2,717 feet above sea level and Starkey at 3,705 feet. When it comes to snow that is a BIG difference. When I lived in Oregon my house was approximately 2,750 feet and the city where I worked as at 1,382 feet. In town they rarely got any snow that stuck and on the same day I could have 12 inches or more of snow that had fallen in the past 24 hours.

IF the area of the ravine had significant snow, there is a possibility that the sheep had wandered onto a level of snow 10-15 feet deep and starved or froze to death, then as the snow melted it would deposit their bodies on the tree limbs below their bodies. I'd be curious to know where the sheep came from as I only see one house/ranch and that's in Starkey.

Approximate Location Of Sighting using coordinates from sighting report...

Click to view attachment

My guess the dark area to the east is the ravine they are talking about..

Starkey, OR located a few miles NNW of this location. I wonder if Starkey refers to the other ranches in the surrounding area and not just this one place. Information online claims a population of 143 with a population density of 0.2 people per square mile and land area of 628.1 square miles. Starkey, OR Info



Click to view attachment

Thanks moregon, good info.

Just looking at a map I see that this is in Eastern Oregon. Having lived on the East side of the Cascades as well as the West side I know that the snow if very different from one side to the other.

This incident, however, is not in the Cascade mountains but rather in the Blue Mountains. There are no flash floods in either of these mountain ranges at that altitude. The rivers of the Western side of the Cascades will flood if there are heavy rains sometimes combined with spring run off, sometimes not.

Cougars are not known to do mass killings, nor do they hunt in groups, nor do they 'store' their food. They eat fresh kill only and will leave what is left of a carcass after taking their fill only a few times.

The idea of a small herd being stranded somehow is the most plausible, however I would still put it in the 'very unlikely' column since 10 to 15 feet of snow would be an accumulation over time. If an inexperienced sheep rancher decided to take his herd to the mountains for grazing and took them way too early in the year seems most likely.

The strangest part is that they show no sign of having been fed upon, even the crows or ravens should have found them an easy meal.

Hi

Anyone think it is possible they fell from a plane or helicopter, Some low flying transports don't have doors, it is possible they broke loose from what ever was holding them in and fell or panicked and ran out,

Peace
Tim

Yeah - so? What's the problem?

Or maybe a stampede over the edge of the ravine and landing in the treetops getting stuck there.

You forgot to include the description of the picture right from the Reuters photo information which is as follows..

counselor - NICE!

I was on site in Red Sky Ranch the other day doing a framing inspection and the super pointed out a "hole" with rocks around it. It was an exploratory hole from when Vail Resorts Development Company checked out the place when they put the road in. WHen I get back from vacation, I'll get some picks. The hole was fairly deep with what appears to be a deer carcass (just bones) at the bottom. Really no way someone would have went out of there way to dump the carcass after a hunt. What we came up with was the snow had drifted over it and maybe the deer dropped in to the hole and got stuck there....died in the hole. Moregon's point that the snow melted and deposited them is a good one, I think.

good point

[quote name='RedRatSnake' date='Sep 18 2008, 03:09 PM' post='489149']
Hi

Anyone think it is possible they fell from a plane or helicopter, Some low flying transports don't have doors, it is possible they broke loose from what ever was holding them in and fell or panicked and ran out,


Do people move sheep by helicopter or plane?? I have never heard of this.

My curiosity is with the story of the cougar found with it's head bashed in.
I think that just had to be a Bigfoot who got tired of the cat messin around
in his territory....

Hi

There is some story's on the net about it, I checked it out before posting, Animals take the Air Ride all the time,


Welcome to the forum : " Caveman "
What else could fill the trees full of sheep like ornaments for the holidays, Then top it of with a bashed in Cougar carcass as the angel, Some folks argue that BF could be just some old mangy ape from China, A few think it is feral Man eating out of dumpsters, There is talk of a super natural Sasquatch that can Blur even the best of Cameras,
We know what the problem is and i have been speaking about it since i came here to the Forum 11 months ago tomorrow, It is those Frigging CATS . . . . Sure there all cute and fuzzy when there small, But grow one up and you got yourself one hell of a reason to get ticked off, Always peeing and leaving there stink on the ground, No wonder why BF threw the SOB up the tree

Peace
Tim

Timmy-Bro, you're in top form tonite!!

BTW, welcome to the forum Caveman!

From '94-2000 I lived in eastern Oregon about 90 miles from LaGrande and used to elk hunt the Starkey region. In the area, "Starkey" refers to a huge area and not just a ranch or couple of ranches.
Don't think you'd see any flash floods at all in the area.
It would seem more likely to me that a predator chased the sheep off into the ravine. There are plentiful bear, cougar, bobcat, coyote in the area and the occasional wolf.

By the way, cougar will make mass kills. During the time I lived there, the Oregon legislature outlawed the use of dogs in cougar hunting and the cougar population just exploded. They started becoming a nuisance in the area of Umatilla county where I lived. One of my neigbors (Ok, maybe that's stretching it, they lived 5 miles away, but in that country, that's a neighbor!) kept having one drink out of their pool in the morning.

One night in the around 1996 or '97, the Cunningham sheep ranch (between Echo and Pendleton) lost over 20 sheep to one cougar. A worker there told me it looked like it just spent part of the night just playing with them, the way a cat would a mouse.

As to the sheep in the report not being eaten, I don't know why that would be. I know in 1979, when the reported find occurred, there weren't near as many cougar in the area as are today.

It also seems to me that the area may have been recovering from a forest fire around that time, but, I may be off on the years.

Back a few years ago a 3000 plus ft wide tornado passed through here and we were finding animals all over the place in the trees. We found a spot about a mile from the nearest edge of the ground path that had several dozen broiler chickens and a horse in the trees.

The horse and chickens belonged to the same people. And it was just a strong F4 tornado not even a 5

A small 100 yard wide twister went through and dropped a 3-400 lb calf through a guys house from about 1/8th of a mile away. Hardly even damaged anything else. Just a few limbs down here and there

Interesting Bigdave. Here in Oregon, we may have a little twister that might lift one chicken once in awhile but doesn't explain the sheep in the tree in Eastern Oregon. Assigning this deed to BF doesn't make sense either unless as Red suggested, this was BF's answer to a Christmas Tree! Someone was talking about moving sheep by helicopter and some could have fallen off. However, it seems like most would crash through branches and hit the ground. Maybe this was retaliation after the sheep rancher shot at BF. This is the only reason that would make sense for now.


The rock pile issue has been going on here in Southern Oregon. I have noticed some way out in the sticks and hills above the Rogue River and can never tell if they are human made. Most are not too far off remote gravel roads, so people may have made them for some reason. Usually the rock pile is 12'' high with 3 or 4 rocks stacked.

Some may of heard of the fellow who watched a BF lifting 200 pound boulders up and away to catch hibernating ground squirrels. This happened a few years back some where in Oregon. The stacked rocks are still there along with deep pits.

Here's a picture of the area where rocks piles have been found and a suspicious tree break is shown. I'll get some stacked rock pictures next time.