I have been thinking about this for awhile, if it were possible to tranq a BF. Of course one would need to be found first, and that person would have to be calm, cool and collected and a good shot. Likely the amount of tranquilizer would be about the same to bring down a large bear and nowadays the tranquilizer are quite safe and fast acting. Then BF could be properly examined, blood and hair samples taken, pictures, etc, maybe even micro-chipped. Of course I see a down side to this then he'd no longer be a 'mystery' and all the fun would be gone. Seeing a BF in the woods would be about as exciting as seeing a racoon or porcupine.

Patty........this has been in the threads before............I think after having seen both critters you named.............seeing a real Sasq would be a life changing experience!

This has been discussed a few times before so please please search under "tranquilizer" and you'll find at least a dozen threads- a couple apply.

It is certainly possible but riddled with all the problems that prevent anyone from even getting a decent photo. In my opinion, if you can't photograph it, you're never going to dart it.

IF you ever did get one darted it could cover a lot of ground before it might go down. Unlike anything you see on TV, the best and safest drugs (that you would use to do this) take at least 5 minutes to take effect. Think about how far you can run in 5 minutes? Of course this can also be overcome in a number of ways...

You'll see a lot of talk about measuring drug doses, problems with dart guns etc, but I assure you that those are not significant issues. They are easily overcome by people who know what they are doing. But as Robo said in June....

The drugs used in tranquilizer guns are controlled substances and can only be utilized by licensed individuals, at least in my state, and I'd bet that applys to most if not all others. I'm sure a list of such licensed individuals could be obtained if necessary, through the state's relevent freedom of information act. I'd love to see what happens if someone would give a licensed wildlife tranquilizer a call and ask him/her if they would like to come and try to dart a bigfoot next weekend!

This is very true but there are ways of getting 'around' it. I know at least one wildlife veterinarian who would be willing to lose his DEA license given the chance to dart a uncatalogued animal.


It would be at least the second time this has happened that I know of. I assure that there are people that are ready to respond but they would need strong convincing that there was even remote chance of success. Rest assured that this is the easiest part of the problem to solve.