The Problematic Secrecy of Bigfoot

Summary of Points

1) What motivates bigfoot to avoid humans?
2) If bigfoot has special behavior to avoid humans and covers its own tracks, then this would require constant vigilance on their part, requiring significant energy and limiting their movements.
3) From an evolutionary perspective, its seems dubious that bigfoot would evolve such intricate behavior to avoid humans because their are no significant, fitness-reducing effects of encountering humans.

Many bigfoot proponents believe that bigfoot actively avoids contact with humans. Even more remarkable, many believe that bigfoot will go to great lengths to avoid leaving tracks, even covering or obscuring tracks. If this is true, it would require extreme vigilance for bigfoot - they would have to be acutely aware of every movement they made, by making sure they weren't stepping in soft substrate that would leave a print, constantly scanning the horizon to make sure no human is around the corner, etc. This phenomenal behavior would require a fair amount of energy, and more importantly, it would result in significant opportunity costs, i.e., it would surely limit where bigfoot could go to forage, find mates, and how fast they could travel.

As would be true for all wildlife, such a unique and energy intensive behavior must be beneficial to the organism, and it must be subject to evolutionary principles, including natural selection. For a trait to evolve and persist, there must be a natural, selective force that reinforces the beneficial nature of the trait. For example, imagine a mouse that has evolved a special trait that causes the mouse the suddenly jump the moment a snake strikes. Mice that have this jumping trait survive more snake attacks, live longer, and reproduce more - in other words they are more fit. As long as snake attacks persist, evolution will favor the mice with the jumping trait. But if snakes suddenly become extinct, then the trait no longer provides a benefit to the mouse and natural selection no longer favors them over non-jumping mice. In fact, if the jumping trait requires the mouse to devote more energy to muscle development and sensory perception, then this energy is wasted and the mouse becomes less favorable in the eyes of natural selection. In that case, the theory of evolution tells us the jumping trait will gradually vanish from the population.

In the case of bigfoot, one has to wonder what evolutionary force is maintaining their special, secretive behavior over thousands of years. For bigfoot to evolve a trait that makes them spend significant effort avoiding humans, then there must be some detrimental cost of encountering a human. But what is that detrimental cost? We don't hunt or otherwise kill bigfoot. We don't harass or maim them. There are no historical accounts of Native Americans hunting or harassing bigfoot. And because we hardly ever even glimpse them, let alone come in close contact with them, I can't think of any routine, negative effect that would maintain such a complicated and energetically costly behavior. And while we can envision that potential encounters between humans and bigfoot could be costly to them, this doesn't mean that bigfoot can make the same conclusion since to date there are no negative costs to human-bigfoot encounters. Simply put, from an evolutionary perceptive, there is no basis for bigfoot to take such drastic actions to remain secretive.

I'm not arguing that bigfoot doesn't exist, I'm merely contradicting those that claim that bigfoot goes to great length to remain hidden from humans. The more likely explaination for the scarcity of bigfoot sightings is that they are extremely rare and prefer isolated, wilderness habitat.

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.