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Bigfoot: Fact, Fiction or Folklore

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I attended the recent Big Foot Seminar; having earned a science degree (forestry) and having been to and completed graduate school (Forest Ecology and Silviculture) where I took classes such as non-timber resource mgt., systems ecology and population dynamics I was curious to see how two individuals with Doctoral Degrees would present this topic.  They were believable.

However, I’ve worked in the Cascade Mountain Range, the Yaak Valley, Northern and Central California (fire), the Eastern slopes of Glacier National Park, SE Montana, N. Central Montana, NE Idaho, Maine, Georgia and Alabama, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. I’ve hunted in most of the areas to include the Hell Canyon breaks, Central Montana and Saskatchewan, Canada.  I have been fortunate encounter a Grizzly bear, a mountain lion and a Mexican grey wolf in Arizona.  However, I’ve never seen anything that alluded to the presence/existence of the Big Foot.

The main presenter at the seminar described a creature that is not only elusive but very intelligent, it has to be quite intelligent to remain so elusive.  However, since the Big Foot is purported to have a relatively sparse population it brings into question the creatures’ fecundity/reproduction rates and the appearance of having a gene pool too low for it to still be in existence.  Inbreeding would bring the creature to extinction.

During my career I had the opportunity to work closely alongside Wildlife Biologists all over the United States.  Not once did a “real wildlife biologist” ever bring up the subject of Big Foot.  Not once did I read a Land Management Plan that addressed this mythological creature.

Every year millions of Americans take to the field to hunt a variety of game.  Many of the big game hunters and outfitters put out game cameras.  I should be able to pick up a copy of Field and Stream, Outdoor Life or Eastman’s Hunting Journal and read stories and view pictures of encounters with this Relict Hominoid, not so!

When I was an adolescent I read the works of Erich von Damien, it was good for my imagination and forced me into critical thinking.  Now I read National Geographic, Scientific American and books like The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Dr. Carl Sagan.

I’m sadden to know that my taxes support individuals with Doctoral Degrees who pass such folklore onto young impressionable minds as reality.  Education and apparently an above average I.Q. doesn’t always mean the individual has more credence than the myth they may promote; the Piltdown Man was proven a hoax.

Maybe that Sunday trip to the Big Foot encounter site was really a trip to invite these creatures to the upcoming NFL Combine.  Sports Agents make good money.  I guess book signings make money, just not the same amount a Sports Agent can earn.

For more credible information on Big Foot go to: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1023_031023_bigfoot.html or https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/finally-some-solid-science-bigfoot

Respectfully,

Mark George Hammond

Gallup, NM