I've been working on a simular topo map using the National Geographic Topo Zone.

MAJOR UPDATE - New Map Website

At the request of Texas Tracker I have added Texas Bigfoot Research Center data to the mapping project. Here are some example maps including the enhanced data.

Texas Maps © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com) Topo USA®





Belemnoid informs me that he also plans to incorporate this data into his GIS maps.

I have made several other changes and have plenty more in mind.

What's New:
• Added TBRC data for 1990 + later sightings.
• Separated the data into the three draw files according to source. This allows the data displayed on the map by source.
1. BFRO
2. TBRC
3. Other

Draw File Tab Screen Shot


Where TBRC reports are duplicated with BFRO, I have left them in the BFRO data set.

• Standardized the date format to mm/dd/yy wherever possible.
• Set the draw symbols reduction to the small icon at zoom level 6.
• The biggest news: Set up a web site http://www.penn.freeservers.com/bigfootmaps/ to better display the maps.
• Links to the enhanced data and .dmt files are now on the new web site.

What I would still like to do:
• Add some detailed topo maps of hot spots to the web site.
• See more of Belemnoid's GIS analysis and hopefully include some of his maps on the web site.
• Consider adding sighting data from other research groups.
• Add hyperlinks for all reports
• Add pre 1990 Sightings
• Add a provision for display/analysis of reports by date

Unfortunately several of these objectives will take a long time. It took plenty of work to get as far as I have. ("..and it's hard work!" - G.W. Bush ) I do enjoy it for the most part, but it can get tedious if I spend too much time on it. Feedback and encouragement from anyone using the maps and data will likely influence my motivation and determine how much time I devote to this effort.

I see that I've screwed up the address in the link at the top of the previous post. Too much time in front of the computer.

It should be Bigfoot Maps.


PS

I wish the administrators could give us a longer time window to edit our posts here before they are locked.

Nice work. I'll play around with the new data this weekend. Plus, I think I can add topo to some detailed views of the hotspots if I dig around in my data.

Only thing about the text files is that that urls aren't seperated by commas - but I figure that's a problem with the export and nothing you can do about it.

That's correct, the date and URL are treated as one field. It could be that DeLorme added the URL feature as sort of an afterthought, and did not actually create a field for it, just added it to the existing date field. However when I re-import the text files, dates and URLs in the same field are somehow parsed to display properly.

If you want to separate them, I believe it could be accomplished by importing the file into Excel and parsing the combined field into two. That's one reason I wanted to standardize the length of the date field.

Since the Texas sample maps still aren't displaying in my first Dec 17 post, here is a direct link to the files.

While I haven't had much time to do anything major with this project lately, I have been keeping the sightings up to date as new reports are added at BFRO and TBRC. In addition I have cleaned up the sample maps on the BigfootMaps site, eliminating the city names and highways that previously cluttered the maps, now making the sighting locations much easier to see. I also increased the number of regional sample maps from four to six to provide better visibility for the middle of the continent and the extreme northeast and northwest.

Also a couple of observations from reviewing the maps:

- BFRO has been posting a number of reports from West Virginia lately, a state where previously they did not have much data, but which seemingly has plenty of great habitat. There now appears to be a hot spot in the Seneca Rocks area.


- There are now two reports at BFRO from Kansas, which as I wrote here previously is a state with presumably limited habitat, particularly in the western plains. However the reported sightings are where you might most expect them, based on the sightings reported in surrounding states. One is in the northeast near Missouri and the other in the southeast on the Oklahoma border.

- On the topic of where sightings are not - which also interests me, as I feel the fact that sightings are not distributed randomly supports the view that we are dealing with real creatures - there appears to be a "hole" on the map in East Texas, around the Davy Crockett National Forest. The sighting reports in East Texas are solidly concentrated to the North and South, with some to the East, yet there is a void in this area. So I am wondering if Texas Tracker and other TBRC members can provide any theories why there are no reports from the Crockett National Forest environs?


Maps Images © DeLorme (www.delorme.com) Topo USA ®

Possibly Belemnoid's satellite map post provides a clue to my question about the apparent sighting void around Davy Crockett National Forest in east Texas. If you download the big version of his map and view it at full size it appears that the forest cover may be denser in this area. I have never been there, so this is just speculation, but perhaps it actually is a BF habitat, but because the woods are denser there is simply less opportunity for human contact.

Mangani, good question.

Let me start by saying that I do not presume to speak officially for the TBRC or BFRO. I will provide what is simply my own assessment based on my experiences as a BFRO/TBRC investigator in the area.

Until early 2004, Liberty County, Texas was seemingly devoid of sighting reports. BFRO and TBRC had none that were considered to be legitimate until about March 2004, when a couple who had had a sighting on Highway 105, east of Cleveland, submitted their sighting to the BFRO and TBRC.

I investigated the report, sanitized it (removed all personal references), and with the witnesses' permission, subsequently published it.

After that, reports began to steadily come in from Liberty County. Now, it may be the leading county in Texas in terms of published reports.

My point is this: An area may not necessarily be a "void" of sightings just because no bigfoot research groups have published any reports from there. Many times, people are just downright reluctant to talk about it, because in the past, when they have brought up the matter, they've been ridiculed. After word gets out that there are those who will take their experiences seriously, some folks will step forward to talk about their encounters. Also, people realize that they are not alone in their experiences.

So, Davy Crockett National Forest may not be a "void" after all.

I hope this addresses your question to your satisfaction.

Mangani, I was thinking the same sort of thing is probably responsible for the lack of results in northcentral idaho. That's all prime habitat but there are few reports. The obvious answer IMHO is that that area is some of the most inaccessible wilderness in the lower 48. Some serious backcrounty - Selway-Bitterroot, Frank Church-River of No Return, Sawtooth, etc.

Sure. That is certainly one reasonable explanation. I have to remind myself occasionally that the reports submitted and published are not necessarily a true sampling of the actual encounters. I was just curious whether you folks also considered this to be an anomally and what you thought about it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yep. We have to remember that the reported sightings don't necessarily tell us where all the bigfoot are, rather they tell us where both people and bigfoot are.

Another possibility to consider is that Davy Crockett National Forest may in fact be a void after all.

The most notable difference that I can see between Davy Crockett Nat'l Forest (DCNF) and Sam Houston Nat'l Forest (SHNF) is that there is no major body of water in or immediately adjacent to DCNF. SHNF has Lake Conroe situated in its western third. The northern part of this beautiful lake is undeveloped. SHNF is bordered to the east by Lake Livingston, and a major river in Texas, the Trinity River. Also, the East and West Fork of the San Jacinto River cuts through the middle of SHNF.

Conversely, regarding the DCNF, the only major watercourse in its vicinity is the Neches River.

In addition, all the federal land in the the entire SHNF is a Wildlife Management Area. This is not the case with DCNF. Of course, it's not that sasquatches know that it's a WMA, but I believe they know that the area is a sanctuary of sorts, perhaps instinctively or through a process of learning.

So, I believe SHNF offers several characteristics that make it perhaps more suitable to being an area to which sasquatches may be habituated.

Again, all the above is only my personal assessment and not necessarily shared by others in the TBRC or BFRO.

This is a reasonable deduction. The proximity to significant watercourses could certainly make a difference. This reasoning is also supported by the fact that there are a couple of reports from the Angelina National Forest about fifty miles to the east of DCNF. Angelina NF also encompasses a major lake, the Sam Rayburn Reservoir.

However this line of reasoning leads to another question. Why are there no reports from the much larger Sabine National Forest 25-40 miles further northeast, when Sabine NF lies on the even larger Toledo Bend Reservoir and there are several reports further up and down the Sabine River?

Not sure how all this jives with your Wildlife Management Area theory, also wonder if the WMAs not only imply sanctuary but also more potential food supply for BF...

I've never been to DCNF, but if you look at the map the forest doesn't seem to favor any water sources.

BF seems to favor close relativity to the water...although there probably is water sources near the forest that map doesn't show one.

The Sabine and Sulphur rivers and it's off-shooting creeks and lakes also seem to be very consistent in terms of BF sightings.

The Davey Crockett NF was abused for decades, the deer popluation was poached to the point were the state wildlife dept stopped hunting for a few years in the early 80's and before that strict bags limits were in place. Also drought and insects destroyed thousands of acres. Two major companies were active here during this time which added to the overall problems, the only thing good to come out of this was the heavy infested areas ( southern pine beetle ) was stopped. The new trees planted by one of these companies had there ratio wrong ( Hardwoods vrs pines ) I don't know if this was intentional or just bad follow-up by the state, Hell the state main office is in Lufkin just to the east. The local people are from an older generation not much industry for younger people to stay and have families, in fact if you drive though there its like going back in time. Water may have alot to do with it but IMHO its only part of it.

If I were a bigfoot I wouldn't hang out in a place like that either.

Thanks for the input Texan.

Texan, thanks for that input. That could very well play a role in the DCNF's apparent void of sasquatch sighting reports.

In my opinion, SHNF is very well managed. It is home to the rare and endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. The USDA Forest Service there takes great measures to ensure the survival of these birds in this forest. Perhaps, in doing so, they are unwittingly also helping to promote a suitable habitat for a rare species of primate. Not that sasquatches and Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers are similar or have the same survival requirements, but that perhaps USDA's close management of the forest keeps it suitable for all the wildlife.

I also think the WMA designation also helps, since it means that the entire forest there is a sanctuary, and can only be hunted legally at certain times and with certain permits.

The DCNF has the same protections as the SHNF I believe both were designated WMA about the same time mid 80's. The two companies are Champion paper and Temple wood products.


Oh I would add during the closed hunting seasons in the DCNF hunters came to the SHNF area in great numbers.

Texan, actually, the only WMA in the DCNF is the 14,500 acre Alabama Creek Wildlife Management Area. That's a fair size for a WMA, but it is small in comparision to Sam Houston Wildlife Management Area. The entire SHNF is designated as the Sam Houston Wildlife Management Area; it is a special designation for the SHNF.

I have 4.0 and will upgrade soon. It's a great program.
If I upgrade to 5.0 how long before 6.0. I guess if I need
it I will buy it. Is it compatible to all GPS receivers?

I believe you can use Delorme Maps with any GPS that supports NMEA output, but I can't answer your question for sure. Suggest you check at the DeLorme forums. There is a link at the BigfootMaps site. They might also be able to tell you when V. 6 is due.

Just checked out your website and immediately bookmarked it. Most excellent work!!!!

Thanks for your hard work and sharing the fruits of your labor with the rest of us!!!!



A big thumbs up for belemnoid too!!

You guys did a fantastic job. Are the organizations that provided you the reports linking to your page? They should!

Thanks. One guy actually. Belemnoid has been supportive though.
I have seen a few links on some BF related pages, but none that I know of from the organizations I've cited. I've sure provided plenty of links to them though. :laugh:

Mangani,

First, thank you for the wonderful tools you have provided and all the hard work it took to create them. You've done what many of us have wanted to do for a very long time, and the results are impressive.

I did notice one problem with the website as it currently is: the file 'OSR Track Sign Reports' has a dead link ( http://penn.freeservers.com/bigfootmaps/osrtracksign.txt ). Hopefully you have a copy of the file available, or the problem is some sort of spelling or capitalization error.

Keep up the good work!

Sorry I've been away from the forum for awhile. Yep. File naming error on the server. It's fixed now. Thanks for your feedback!

Mangani,

> Sorry I've been away from the forum for awhile. Yep.
> File naming error on the server. It's fixed now.
> Thanks for your feedback!

I greatly appreciate your prompt response, the minor correction, and thank you again for all your hard work. I attempted to do something similar to your maps a million or so years ago with an Apple II, but technology has advanced a little bit since then, so you have me at a disadvantage. 8)

Are you interested in adding reports from non-internet sources (publications, for exampe)? Have private databases from long-term bigfoot researchers (John Green, et al.) been included in any of the various group's public databases? If not, that would be something to pursue as seperate databases for the map project, as some researchers believe that with the advent of the internet the number of hoax sightings increased. While I'm not certain that is the case myself, there is the possibility that as time goes on it becomes more difficult to distinguish 'signal' from increasd 'noise', and comparing early to late data might give some clue if this is really a problem.

My final question: has the possibility of duplicate entries (i.e., the same reports) in different databases been compensated for?

Many thanks,

Prehistoric Fisherman

The question on John Green reports, etc. was answered not long along on the companion thread here dicussing the Google Earth version of this project.

The duplicate report question is answered on my web page.

I appreciate your interest, and don't wish to be impolite, just have limited time to repeat the answers now.

I agree with concerns regarding filtering of reports by credibility. That's way beyond the scope of this project though. It takes enough time just to do all the mapping single handedly and there still is a lot of work to be done to cover the remaining reports available on line (not to mention keeping up with newly added reports, which can be quite difficult, as many web sites don't log new reports as they are added). So credibility filtering is in the hands of the organizations or individuals running the web sites and it certainly varies. Best I can offer is that I have kept the data organized by source, so it can be filtered by source.

Mangani,

> The question on John Green reports, etc. was answered not long along on the
> companion thread here dicussing the Google Earth version of this project.

I thought I had already scoped that out before posting. Perhaps I confused it with something else. I'll re-read it, perhaps *slower* this time. Unless I was looking at the wrong thread. In any case, my apologies for missing that. Of course, if we could get the mods to give "Mapping" its own category and stick all your posts in there, they would be easy to find. 8)

> The duplicate report question is answered on my web page.

I quote:
"For the most part these maps do not duplicate reports when they appear on more than one research organization web site."

You're right. I guess I didn't duly note it as it was off in a column to the left towards the bottom of the page. Did I mention this week has been incredibly hectic? Again, my mistake. 8)

> I appreciate your interest, and don't wish to be impolite, just have limited
> time to repeat the answers now.

Similarly, if I weren't perpetually rushed myself, I wouldn't be asking redundant questions. The fault is mine, again.

> I agree with concerns regarding filtering of reports by credibility. That's
> way beyond the scope of this project though.

Actually, I meant looking for patterns, and getting *hints* of what is noise or signal based on those observations. All the data would be included, studying it was what I suggested. If pre-internet reports show a consistent pattern(s), and many reports after don't, that could be slightly useful information: either the phenomena changed or the quality of the reports has. Its just a possibility.

> It takes enough time just to do all the mapping single handedly and there
> still is a lot of work to be done to cover the remaining reports available
> on line (not to mention keeping up with newly added reports, which can be
> quite difficult, as many web sites don't log new reports as they are added).

In terms of adding reports from off-line sources, I might be able to assist if you are interested, though exactly how soon or how much are a little uncertain at this point. Presumably gradual help would be better than none. Helping keep all the online reports straight as new ones come in seems a bit problematic for a neophyte like myself.

> So credibility filtering is in the hands of the organizations or individuals
> running the web sites and it certainly varies. Best I can offer is that I
> have kept the data organized by source, so it can be filtered by source.

Filtering is difficult or impossible to do even first hand. Unless obvious indications of a hoax are present, it usually ends up being a case of prejudice and bias as to what a "real" report consists of. A lot of the things that are "believed" now as being valid in a report were filtered out entirely by early investigators.

Thanks again,

Prehistoric Fisherman

Now that I have a little more time, let me apologize and elaborate. The question I was thinking of actually referred to reports in Robert Alley's book, not John Green's.

"Thanks. My MO has been to work primarily with reports published on the web. This allows me to include a link to the report details. So I have mapped reports from Robert Alley's research that are included on the WCSRO, IBS, BE, etc. web sites. It is possible I don't have all the reports from the book, but I suspect I have the majority of them."

This answer may apply to many of the reports from John Green's work as well, but I have not attempted to verify this.


I think I understand. Bear in mind that I am not working with truly analytical software. GoogleEarth can filter by date, and by folder. TopoUSA only the latter. So to accomplish what your are suggesting might require careful thought and planning, or the conversion of the data for use with more sophisticated GIS software.


I am completely open to assistance from anyone willing to do a diligent job. You sound like that sort of person. One way to assist certainly would be to map reports that appear in printed works, and not necessarily on the web. I'd suggest that if you are interested you jump in and give it a try, see how it goes. I'm a big believer in learning by doing! See if you find the effort rewarding. I am completely willing to answer questions and offer tips (and to receive suggestions). Certainly it makes sense to keep any parallel effort consistent in methodology so it all can be combined into one project.

Excellent points by you and Texan. Also, there are more people in the SHNF. More campers, hikers ect... More opportunities for sightings. There are sightings in the Big Thicket, but not as many because it is less camper friendly (although probably great habitat).

Mangani,

> Now that I have a little more time, let me apologize and elaborate.
> The question I was thinking of actually referred to reports in Robert
> Alley's book, not John Green's.
[...]
> This answer may apply to many of the reports from John Green's
> work as well, but I have not attempted to verify this.

No apology needed, we both sound like we're working spreading ourselves a bit thin.

Well, if two reports show up in about the same area with the same date, its something to check out. I would guess converting to spreadsheet, sorting by date, and then eye-balling would be the logical method to figure this out. If the dates really are *identical*, its easy enough to construct a formula to give a "warning" message in another column (I've done this before to sort out data duplication). The problem would come with duplicate information which is not identical (one description has month and year, the other just year, etc.).

BTW, I managed to pull out my old file cards with info culled from books, whipped one out, and the location description (from the original) was something like "Indian Reservation, British Columbia". That's one that will be easy to pinpoint. 8)

My resources are not entirely focused on books, I have attempted to get as many newspaper reports I have had access to as well. But it does raise a concern that a lot of reports from books are extremely vague on location. Usually the nearest town is given, and anything beyond that is gravy. Do you feel its worthwhile to plot these when it will probably be necessary to describe them as "+/- 25 miles"? I would prefer all data to be included, but others might feel its unimportant.

I guess the implicit part of my original question is, are you interested (or have you) in contacting the major researchers and asked if they would be interested in "donating" data. I'm sure the original files have more information. In Green's case, they have been computerized, and the difficulty would be in converting data files, presumably. He has stated that he has allowed others access to do statistical work, he might be interested.

> I think I understand. Bear in mind that I am not working with truly analytical
> software. GoogleEarth can filter by date, and by folder. TopoUSA only the
> latter. So to accomplish what your are suggesting might require careful
> thought and planning, or the conversion of the data for use with more
> sophisticated GIS software.

Well, its just a possibility to consider. In the past when I attempted to create such databases the hope would be that correlations could be detected from all sorts of data, numerically reported, and projected onto maps if needed. I never got the time to master all the skills necessary to create such a system from scratch, and all the DB systems I attempted to play with didn't seem properly designed for the task. I would think someone in the wildlife community must be doing something similar, but maybe not. Looking at your work, for example, I would love to be able to get indicators of foot size displayed and look for regional differences. Increasing size is one possible adaptation to colder climates. Quite a number of the reports out of Alberta are *really* at the upper end, if an increasing trend in size could be found that would go a long way (in my opinion) to making them more plausible. I know this is beyond the scope of your current data, but expanding the scope of external data files could be possible, and then subsets of that data (columns) could be selected and exported to Topo or Google Earth for display (using the TXT files). In theory. Its something to consider, long term.

> I am completely open to assistance from anyone willing to do a diligent job.
> You sound like that sort of person. One way to assist certainly would be to
> map reports that appear in printed works, and not necessarily on the web.
> I'd suggest that if you are interested you jump in and give it a try, see how
> it goes. I'm a big believer in learning by doing! See if you find the effort
> rewarding.

Thank you for the compliment -- I try to do the best job I can, with what resources I can get my hands on. I'm going to see if in the next couple of weeks I can at least do a trial run. Depending upon your response regarding the issue, I can see if connections to primary sources are possible, but the ultimate decision on that would be with the original researchers (obviously). I'm not a big fish in the BF research pond, so it might be better to snail mail them some examples of your maps with a request from you.

> I am completely willing to answer questions and offer tips (and to receive
> suggestions). Certainly it makes sense to keep any parallel effort consistent
> in methodology so it all can be combined into one project.

With that last sentence, you're talking my language! 8)

I'll probably need quite a bit of advice, I'm not sure if it should all get put in this thread or not. At the moment I can't send PM's or create threads, evidently due to my low number of posts having just signed up. If you sent me a PM I *might* be able to respond to it (and continue to do so), alternately a seperate "BF Data Entry for TOPO" thread could be created for such traffic, or you could PM me an email address and take it off forum (I would not recommend putting your email in a message as bots could harvest it). Whatever you think is best.

Long live E.R.B.! 8)

Prehistoric Fisherman

P. F.,

No you apparently do not yet have access to PM, as I have tried. But it does make sense to discuss the details of any collaboration via PM, once you have it, rather than expend a lot of "bandwidth" on the forum where most readers are not likely to be interested.

Briefly to respond to your main question. No I have not contacted any of the Sasquatch research luminaries to ask for access to their data for mapping, though I certainly do not have any objection to your doing so.

What I have been doing, in what amounts to a hobby, is reading the reports available on line, as time permits, and, because I am interested in geography and curious about the locales described in the reports, attempting to locate the site of each report on a map. Since I use mapping software to do the locating, it naturally followed that I mark the locations on my software. Over the years(!!) the number of reports I have mapped in this way has become fairly comprehensive. But since I am never at a loss for new reports to map from on-line sources I have never really considered looking further than what I find available on line.

So, by all means, if you have an "in" with John Green or anyone else with a collection of reports, go for it. I'd be very pleased to see those reports mapped in conjunction with my own work.

As to your other question. I attempt to map all reports that have any "specific" information. So, for example, if all I have to go by is the name of a nearby town, I would map that report close to that town, and set the margin of error to half the distance to the farthest town among the surrounding towns. I "draw the line" (or don't draw the "point"), that is don't bother to map, when the location description is something like "Idaho", similar to your BC Indian Reserve example. I don't see any real value in mapping a report like that, with no locality information to at least get to within say 50 - 100 miles.

"Mangani"

Mangani,

> No you apparently do not yet have access to PM, as I have tried. But
> it does make sense to discuss the details of any collaboration via PM,
> once you have it, rather than expend a lot of "bandwidth" on the forum
> where most readers are not likely to be interested.

I saw somewhere else that you need 15 posts to qualify. Assuming that is correct, this is post five.

An alternative, which is probably a better idea all around, is to start a seperate place for the mapping discussion all together, one that is fairly permanent. I've used Yahoo Groups since before it was Yahoo Groups and it might not be a bad choice, but I am certainly willing to take the discussion wherever you think is appropriate. One of us can create a group, post the URL of the Yahoo Group in one of your threads. As these groups function as mailing lists with a web archive, it allows people to participate either via email or web interface. So far the archives have been permanent( with the exception of the great attachment purge around 2000 or so, when all attachments in messages in the archives were zapped without warning). Currently, I'm not sure if attachments are stored in the web archives or not, but each group has a files area where members can add files. Other than the virus scan of uploads being slow, this generally seems to work well. It could also serve as an online backup to your own files, in case something should happen to your website. It would probably be best for one of us to act as moderator and the other as a backup moderator, in case of someone being unavailable for an extended period. If you want to create it and manage it that's fine, otherwise I can, or you can create it and I can manage it. We can name it along the lines of your website, or have a more general name to bring other topics in for mapping, even from other creators. Let me know what you think.

To anyone else reading this, this proposal is not to isolate other forum members, its about not cluttering the forum with technical discussions and routine daily messages concerning the creation of these files, i.e., administrivia.

> Briefly to respond to your main question. No I have not contacted any of the
> Sasquatch research luminaries to ask for access to their data for mapping,
> though I certainly do not have any objection to your doing so.
[...]
> So, by all means, if you have an "in" with John Green or anyone else with a
> collection of reports, go for it. I'd be very pleased to see those reports
> mapped in conjunction with my own work.

John Green was very kind to have had some extended phone conversations with me a long time ago, but I've been 'retired' from cryptozoology for a long period so I'm sure he doesn't remember me. At some point I'll see if we can find someone (through my contacts) to provide a proper 'letter of introduction'. Assuming someone here on the forum doesn't have a closer association and volunteers first. A cold contact is also a possibility.

> But since I am never at a loss for new reports to map from on-line sources
> I have never really considered looking further than what I find available on
> line.

Yes, keeping up with websites, especially if they don't have a "new reports" page, would be a job.

> As to your other question. I attempt to map all reports that have any
> "specific" information. So, for example, if all I have to go by is the
> name of a nearby town, I would map that report close to that town,
> and set the margin of error to half the distance to the farthest town
> among the surrounding towns. I "draw the line" (or don't draw the
> "point"), that is don't bother to map, when the location description
> is something like "Idaho", similar to your BC Indian Reserve
> example. I don't see any real value in mapping a report like that,
> with no locality information to at least get to within say 50 - 100
> miles.

I agree, and your rule of thumb for vague reports of putting a radius half-way to the nearest town is the logical one, which of course I didn't think of. Yes, reports without at least a general locality are useless for map making, though for other statistics they might have some value (statewide statistics, etc.), but from a biological point of view provincial demarcations are somewhat meaningless (the animals don't know or care where the state line is). Date is another factor that is often vague, but it looks like the software is allowing you some leeway in describing that.

Well, we will have to see what I can come up with. My card files will be a good start, as they include all (I think) the pertinent data from the classic old BF sourcebooks, some more obscure sources, and more recent additions. Supplements beyond that will take a bit more effort. I'm not 100% sure I've located my clippings files (I've a box to dig though), but since I'm not located on the pacific coast it would be good to find additional sources of such material to supplement vague or terse reports from the west. Its something to keep in mind.

Let the Administrivia begin!

P.F.

Belemnoid,

If you or any other investigators have more precise locations for any of the reports shown on Mangani's Bigfoot Maps, I'm sure he would appreciate any input you might have on making them more accurate. Assuming there aren't issues of confidentiality, more precise locations would be in everyone's best interests. It might even be possible to get confidential cases a bit closer to their actual location without pin-pointing them on the property of the witness. A log of such changes of the website would also be useful or confusion over the new position and the original report descriptions could arise.

P.F.

Since this thread is about TOPO USA, here's a couple of things that may or may not be generally know here.

To see current Garmin "On the Trail" products go here:

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/

While some TOPO products exist for Europe, they aren't advertised on this website, so whether they are available for sale in North America is an open question. Its really only an issue if you live in those countries or if your Hominology Mapping project is transnational.

Here's what's available for North America (no, I don't work for Garmin, I'm just pointing out some of their useful products):

***

TOPO U.S. 2008 (1:100,000 scale) is now available seperately for *Macs* as well as PCs

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/topous.jsp

"Mac System Requirements: Any Intel-based Mac or PowerPC G3, G4 or later Mac, 512 MB RAM, OS X 10.4 or later, 10GB free disk space, DVD drive, USB port, USB cable, DVD drive, 1024 x 768 display. Cable and GPS not included."

***

TOPO Canada (1:50,000 or 1:250,000 scale)

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/topoCanada.jsp

It doesn't say if it is for the PC or Mac, or both. Presumably its just for the PC at this time. Its possible that if one has the Mac version of the Mapsource software (say from the Mac version of TOPO US 2008) these other products might work, but that is entirely speculative.

***

TOPO Great Britain (1:5,000 to 1:50,000 scale)

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/topogb.jsp

This also doesn't say if it is for the PC or Mac.

***
U.S. TOPO 24K (1:24,000 scale)

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSour...po24knpeast.jsp
http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSour...4knpcentral.jsp
http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/topo24knp.jsp

Covers "national parks, national forests and some state parks". Again, Macs are not mentioned.

***

MapSource - Trip and Waypoint Manager

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSour...andwaypoint.jsp

"... transfer waypoints, routes and tracks between your Garmin GPS and PC"

***

Garmin also has a series of "On the Water" products

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheWater/

Probably the most interesting of which to BF hunters is U.S. Inland Lakes

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/inlandlakes.jsp

Again, Macs are not mentioned.

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The Lakemaster series is similar

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/lakemaster/michigan.jsp
http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/lakemaster/
[This is product is for Minnesota]
http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/lakemaster/wisconsin.jsp

***

Inland Lakes Vision would be an interesting product if one had the correct hardware to use it

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/inlandv...nlandvision.jsp

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Finally there is a WorldMap product:

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/WM.jsp

Its not very detailed, but better than nothing.

***

You don't have to buy the Topo & Lake products to view their maps (at least to some extent). At the upper right hand corner for the pages of these products there is a link to an online map viewer. I tested it, and for the most part it works, though occassionally I couldn't get an image to load (my workaround, when refresh didn't work, was to change the size, scale, or location being viewed). Apparently, not all map images are available at all zooms and sizes. The biggest problem is it doesn't give you exact coordinates, but it does let you scroll to locations and zoom in on the topography. The full products would be more useful, but this provides another free online topographic viewing option. Below are direct links to the map viewers (on the official pages there is the following note: "Mac users using Internet Explorer must use v5.0 or above to view this Map Viewer.")

http://www.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webma...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webma...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...&smap.y=221

http://www8.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webm...mp;k=1&sc=1

http://www.garmin.com/cgi-bin/mapgen/webma...mp;k=1&sc=1

If these links don't work, go to the product pages listed previously and use the link there.

P.F.

P.F.,

This thread is actually about DeLorme Topo USA. You are confusing Garmin's "Topo" products with DeLorme's Topo USA product. Garmin also makes fine GPS and mapping products, but the mapping work I have done, and am sharing here, was done with the DeLorme software. Garmin's products will not allow anyone to view the DeLorme files I have created without conversion via a third party utility.

M.,

> This thread is actually about DeLorme Topo USA. You are confusing Garmin's
> "Topo" products with DeLorme's Topo USA product. Garmin also makes fine
> GPS and mapping products, but the mapping work I have done, and am sharing
> here, was done with the DeLorme software.

Did I mention I'm an idiot?

Hopefully, everyone will read your post prior to purchasing... something.

When I went online to check out what was new with 'Topo' (particularly if there was a Canada product), I think I first tried searching 'Topo US' and I thought I was eventually looking at the right web page. The difference in name I put down to company mergers or map licensing (I'm kind of used to that happening every few years for graphics products). I hadn't considered that two Cartography/GPS companies would give almost identical names to their competing products. Also, I have seen Garmin's product referred to as "Topo USA" instead of "Topo U.S."... no doubt by my fellow idiots.

On the plus side, alternative topography products have been discussed in the thread, and this certainly *is* an altenative. Plus, the free online maps should give me a couple of points, right? 8)

> Garmin's products will not allow anyone to view the DeLorme files I
> have created without conversion via a third party utility.

If the conversion is without errors and is easy to do, I suppose it would be possible to offer it on your website as well as DeLorme & Google Earth files?

Ducking for cover,

P.F.

Possible yes, but beyond the scope. I already offer the .txt files on the site as a starting point for anyone wishing to convert to another format. Anyone interested in conversions is free to do their own thing and see how well it works. GPSBabel is one available tool for the job. Actually for some time I have considered dropping the .txt files, since GPSBabel can be used to translate directly from Delorme and Google Earth to other formats, but I have not done so yet, only because someone who wished to that would need to have access to either Topo USA or Google Earth to break down the consolidated .dmt or .kmz files prior to conversion.

> Possible yes, but beyond the scope. I already offer the .txt files on
> the site as a starting point for anyone wishing to convert to another
> format. Anyone interested in conversions is free to do their own
> thing and see how well it works.

If I convert to Garmin, would you be interested in offering a file for download?

I converted the DB to Garmin Friday night. I ended up combining the txt files with HJ-Join, edited out the extra Begin/End lines, had to make a minor revision to prevent an error, and converted with GPS Babel. Everything seems to be imported but there were a few issues. First, all pin (waypoint) coding (color, etc.) is lost. The bigger difficulty is that the text portion with the date and url get turned into the waypoint name. For states with few sightings, this is only slightly annoying. For states with even moderate numbers of reports the entire map becomes blocked out. Zooming out results in the entire country being obliterated by the labels.

So I loaded the new txt file into wordpad, did a find and replace to add a comma before "[URL=", saved, imported into a spreadsheet as CSV, changed the number of decimal places & date format to be correct, moved around some data that was in the wrong column, deleted the URL column, saved as CSV, renamed to TXT, fixed the begin and end lines, converted with GPS Babel, and the result was the map is viewable at much lower magnification as the tag now consists only of the date.

This is what i did for personal use, and I doubt if you will find it suitable for public distribution. At present, its still hard to say exactly how to convert the data so that it displays correctly, as what type of report it is is lost, what organization it is from is lost, and the link to the reference is lost. It might be possible, but it will take more work on my part. The program does seem to allow looking up waypoints in Google Earth, so for broadband users it would still (in theory) be possible to open up the map in Garmin, click on the report, open it in Google Earth, and get the reference URL from there.

Mangani,

I guess I should add that at this point, unless I bungled the job, GPS Babel doesn't do a complete enough conversion to make the DB easily or fully usable in Garmin Topo. *If* I can work out how to do a conversion that presents the data fully in a usable format it will fall into the category of a custom conversion, and even if I provided instructions it might be difficult for other users to complete the conversion. In that case, it probably would be useful to provide the file for download.

While I have no numbers to back it up, there seems to be a little anecdotal information supporting the number of Garmin users being relatively large, perhaps even more than DeLorme users, irregardless of the strengths or weaknesses of either company's products. If either proposition is the case, presumably there are some BF researchers out there using Garmin products, and I know they could find your data useful.

Regards,

P.F.

Hey Mangani,

Long time no chat.

I think you've had your points uploaded into GE community now, but if you need I can now host KML data. All the end user would need to do is click the link and GE would launch and hit the data on my server. Let me know if you're interested.

Fisherman, I think you won't be satisfied with off the shelf mapping products. Sounds like the analysis you want to do will lead you to GIS. If you purchase "Getting to Know ArcGIS" from a bookstore it comes with a demo license - think it's 6 months and includes all the analysis extensions. Add something like this http://www.spatialecology.com/htools/overview.php and you might be able to run the queries you're thinking about.
I've run a few myself but haven't found any real patterns. I was looking mostly at habitat and elevation. The problem I find is too much noise from dubious sightings.

How you doing man? Thanks for the offer. There are pluses and minuses to having the file on the GE community. It depends on one's perspective. Without getting into all that here and now, I'll just say I very much appreciate your offer for an alternative since it may prove to be helpful at some point in the future.

belemnoid,

Apologies for the long delay in replying, I've been very busy and haven't logged in to the forum.

> Fisherman, I think you won't be satisfied with off the shelf mapping products.
> Sounds like the analysis you want to do will lead you to GIS. If you purchase
> "Getting to Know ArcGIS" from a bookstore it comes with a demo license -
> think it's 6 months and includes all the analysis extensions. Add something
> like this http://www.spatialecology.com/htools/overview.php and you might
> be able to run the queries you're thinking about.

Yes, ArcGIS was something I've had my eye on and I'll check the other link you mentioned. At some point, if I ever get around to trying to analyze data, I would be very appreciative of being able to ask your advice from time to time.

> I've run a few myself but haven't found any real patterns. I was looking mostly at
> habitat and elevation. The problem I find is too much noise from dubious sightings

That's certainly one possible outcome. One solution might be to start "hand-picking" which reports are valid and which are "bogus", but I think that ends up being a slippery slope.

Regards,

P.F.

Sure, ask away. I might not know much about BF, but I can help with GIS. Best bet would be to send me an email as I don't make regular visits here. Can be reached via belemnoid at AOL.