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Monday, June 30, 2008
Do hoaxers not like the snow?
Summary of Points
1) Tracking elusive animals is easier in the winter because tracks are easily made and seen in snow. Why don't we find any snow prints of North American bigfoot?
2) Is the lack of bigfoot tracks in the snow because hoaxers can't fake tracks in the snow?
3) From a biological viewpoint, it's unlikely that bigfoot hibernates through the winter. However, if it does hibernate through winter, it would likely leave snow prints in late fall/early winter and at the onset of spring.
Why doesn't bigfoot leave tracks in the snow?!?
Any tracker can tell you that animals prints are easier to identify and follow in the snow. For this reason, many scientific studies of elusive and rare creatures like wolverines and lynx occur during winter when tracks are obvious and can be followed for long distances. Considering this, why is it that all or most tracks of North American bigfoot (non-yeti) are found in normal substrate (dirt, mud) and not in snow? If we're able to find bigfoot tracks in dirt, shouldn't we find twice as many or more in the snow?
By way of comparison, think about how many snowshoe hare tracks can be found during the summer. You'd have to look hard and carefully to find many tracks. However, during the winter you'd be hard pressed not to find tracks within a few minutes time! The point here is that the amount of tracks found during the summer (in dirt) is a small ratio of the amount of tracks found during the winter. Applying this to bigfoot, since we find a modest handful of tracks in the dirt during spring, summer, and fall, we should find many times that number of tracks during winter. The reason being that tracks in the snow are easier to make, they are easier to locate and identify, they can last longer, and the surface conditions are more uniform making long sets of tracks available. The fact that bigfoot snow tracks are never found,or mostly never, appears contrary to what would logically be expected. In other words, if bigfoot does exist we should find significantly more tracks in the snow than in dirt or mud.
One explanation could be that bigfoot hibernates during the winter, which would subsequently mean that they are not out-and-about while snow is on the ground. However this seems unlikely for a few reasons: 1) many animals enter hibernation after first snow fall and leave hibernation before the snow melts, meaning that they would still leave some tracks in the snow, and 2) hibernation (or more correctly, 'torpor') is a special behavioral/physiological adaptation that, from what I know, has not evolved in primates. However, the argument could be made that bigfoot independently evolved such an adaptation, but such a major adaptation as hibernation does not come easily - the body's whole physiology needs to be rewired to allow the tissues and organs to survive at significantly lower body temperatures (think about how easily humans can die from hypothermia). So, while it is theoretically possible that bigfoot have independently evolved hibernation behavior, the odds are against it. But for the sake of argument let's say that they are physically able to hibernate, they would still leave prints in the snow at the beginning of winter and the onset of spring.
An alternate reason why we don't find bigfoot prints in the snow is because its much more difficult to fake tracks. This assumes that bigfoot is not real and all foot prints are faked. Let's consider what it would take to fake a believable set of tracks in the snow. First, the set of tracks would have to be fairly long and the point of origin and termination would have to seem plausible. Second, the hoaxer would also have to conceal their own tracks, including how they got there and how they left. This is a very formidable challenge and would prevent fake tracks from being left in the snow.
Tracking animals in the snow is one of the best ways for biologists to track rare and elusive species. The fact that we don't find bigfoot tracks in the snow is very suspect and strongly suggests that bigfoot may not exist.
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4 comments:
as i was reading i was thinking hibernation the entire time until i got to the debunking of hibernation paragraph. is it possible that bigfoot may not hibernate but is much more inactive during the winter? maybe they migrate to more remote areas during the winter where humans would rarely go. from what i've gathered, finding bigfoot tracks is not a daily or even a monthly occurrence. snowfall and a frigid climate added to rugged terrain would greatly lessen even the most avid bigfoot hunter's chances of finding tracks. i am assuming that if they didn't hibernate, they must continue to occasionally forage for food to keep up there body mass for energy. although being much more inactive, taking their size into consideration, they would still need to eat quite a bit. i'm going to put this one on the unexplained mysteries list. there is so much unknown about this creature, it is very possible that we are underestimating its intelligence level. bigfoot may be capable of collecting and storing food for the winter months so its need for foraging is nearly non existent. if a pea brained squirrel can do it a large brained big foot certainly could. this theory leads me into your point about bigfoot being a social creature. if we can assume that it is capable of storing food for the winter in a remote area, maybe underground in a den of some type, why not assume that its partner or peers are kickin it back there too. it does seem like that type of thing would be discovered by a hunter or something but then again hunters are able to be basically invisible in the forest so i don't see why a bigfoot couldn't do it. i have also seen a moose and elk move through the forest without leaving any sign at all, not even a broken twig. returning to the large size of a bigfoot, i would guess that it is able to cover large distances in a short amount of time, you know like 15 miles or more, much farther than a human could easily hike into crazy rugged terrain. vocal communication may actually be something similar to another animal in its habitat. for instance, unless you are an expert bird watcher and you have carefully studied and memorized the songs of various birds, a bird sounds like a bird more or less. a bigfoot could use all sorts of audible communications, it may sound like an elk bugle or a beaver smacking its tale on the water. each of these can be heard for miles but no human can hear one and decipher it from an actual beaver or a bigfoot call, unless we had some expertise in the matter. also is there a chance that your typical backpacker or snowshoer may just walk right by tracks in the snow? they may appear similar to snow shoe tracks if someone didn't take the time to really study one.
Hi anonymous, thanks for the comment.
In response, I'd agree that its possible that they have some extraordinary behavior where they migrate or store food in caves, etc. However, there is no evidence to suggest this. For example, if they migrated then they'd use predictable migration corridors where there would be a higher probability of sightings at certain times of the year. From what of I know of the sightings record, this pattern doesn't exist. Furthermore, if bigfoot lived in caves during the winter, there would likely be some evidence of that. Consider that the whole western US used to be pristine wilderness, so we would assume that bigfoot historically used caves that are now close to human civilizations and have been explored. If huge animals were living in this caves for several months out of the year, we should find evidence of food caches, fossilized bones and scat, etc. Researchers have found forensic evidence of Native American's living in remote caves, so why wouldn't we find evidence of bigfoot?
I'd also like to point out that the backcountry of the western US has been scouted for the last 150 years by explorers, naturalists, forest rangers, hunters, trappers, trained biologists, survivalists, etc. In particular, hunters, trappers, rangers, and biologists are scouring the backwoods in the winter, and still no physical evidence is collected by these trained outdoorsmen, nor are any unattributable vocalizations reported or long sets of tracks indentified. Additionally, biologist are increasingly using technology like camera traps and DNA identification to collect forensic evidence, but still no bigfoot.
I have to say that if biologists can track wolverines and find their dens in the middle of winter, then we should at least have some more reliable phsycial evidence of bigfoot. Consider that wolverines occur at extremely low densities, utilize only pristine wilderness habitat, have large home ranges, and are 20 times smaller than an 800 lb bigfoot, yet we can routinely track them down! So why can't we at least find bigfoot evidence like large, abnormal scats, or unidentifiable patches of hair, etc.?
While hunting in a remote swamp, I saw footprints in the snow twice that I assumed were the bootprints of another hunter and didn't even think to look at them closely. Despite the fact that they looked as if they were made effortlessly. I have never seen one other man back in there in all my years of hunting. The prints were large, boot sized or bigger and they were spaced at least a few feet apart. Walking in the swamp by a man produces footprints that are spaced a foot apart or less because of the difficulty in walking on uneven mucky ground with fallen dead trees. Bigfoots are known to avoid making visible tracks and have been observed "erasing" the tracks behind them as they walk.
Thanks for your comment. To respond, first I'm wondering what you're doing hunting in a swamp - in winter? Sounds strange. Second, you admit you didn't look at the tracks closely, but then you imply that the tracks were from bigfoot. Lastly, we don't have any conclusive evidence of bigfoot's existence, let alone knowledge about their behavior - so we can't say definitively, as you did, that bigfoot cover their tracks.
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