Bigfoot relaxes

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest....

Silverback

Lord of the jungle.

A Good Home for Giant Apes, Perhaps

Since arriving in Portland, Oregon, I've been out for a few volunteer projects with Forest Park Conservancy, and also some with Friends of Trees. There's something magical about planting trees, or even ripping up wood ivy when it's needed, an intimacy with the earth and soil, not found by only tromping through the woods on a trail. I found especial reward in working with a team to build a fence (to close a "social trail.") From digging the holes to assembling the fence (which much resembles Lincoln logs for grown-ups) to tamping the soil into place to secure the posts--there's nothing like building something that you can come back to revisit decades later. (As I will keep coming back to a certain stone-pillared picnic table in Whitemoore Park in Morgantown, West Virginia--which was part of my Eagle project back in the day!)

The lush rain forests of the Pacific Northwest are so full of life. A fitting habitat for squirrels, weasels, bears (rarely in Forest Park because we are in the city), Sasquatch (if they exist, probably never in Forest Park because we are in the city.) However, much of the state of Oregon consists of  vast tracts of national forests, occasionally punctuated by a small town. Out there, Gigantopithecus might lurk in relative peace, dodging hunters and logging trucks as needed.

Wild animals are elusive. I have only seen a mountain lion one time in all my years of hiking in the woods, and they have probably seen me more times than I can count. In Norway, brown bears, having been extensively hunted, learned to avoid people. (Biologists even use the term "gun selection" to describe this behavior, which has also been observed in rhinoceros.) People presumed the bears extinct from many areas, until biologists gave it a thorough investigation, and found they yet lived. After this discovery, civilian eyewitnesses to the bears came forward to describe past events, apparently no longer deterred by prevailing wisdom. All over the United States and Canada, there are native peoples who believe that Sasquatch is not only a spiritual being, but a physical one as well. The Sasquatch hypothesis has gained more credibility in recent years, thanks efforts by anthropologist D. Jeff Meldrum, survival expert Les Stroud, and others. As happened with Norway's bears, civilian eyewitnesses to Sasquatch have come forward to describe their hard-to-explain experiences. Les Stroud has propounded the idea that if Sasquatch exist, they must be even smarter than big cats or bears. To have avoided confirmed detection for so long, they must have NEAR-HUMAN levels of intelligence. If Sasquatch is real, it could be cause for a loud new cry for conservation. It could provide not only moral grounds for forest preservation, but legal ones as well. The Endangered Species Act has long been one of the most powerful forces for protecting natural habitats--and it can only be applied to species whose existence has been confirmed.

What if Bigfoot is proved real? To gain some idea for how human society might react, it is wise to look at the past record. For hundreds of years, legend had it that there were "ape-men" in the forests of East Africa, with various Native tribespeople and European explorers telling stories of their close encounters. In 1902, German officer Robert von Beringe ventured deep into the jungles of Rwanda, and shot two of these simians. With type specimens in hand, biologists named the new species Gorilla beringei. They are more commonly known as mountain gorillas. Europeans generally mistook the peaceful herbivores for aggressive monsters. And, uncomfortably, these behemoths looked all-too-humanoid; they appeared to be "between man and beast." This discovery came at a time when Charles Darwin's revolutionary theory of evolution was still relatively new, and humanity still reeled from the blow to its collective ego--that scientific evidence led to the conclusion that we are animals descended from apes, instead of divine beings who stand apart from the rest of nature. Could the giant ape REALLY be our close relative? This question ignited a firestorm of debate in the newspapers and universities, which became known as the Gorilla war. Scientists and others weighed in, in a dispute focusing largely on the details of comparative anatomy, and representing the conflict between Darwinism and human exceptionalism. An American boy named Merian C. Cooper followed the Gorilla war. After he grew up and became an Airforce pilot and filmmaker, he became captivated by W. Douglas Burden's written account of his expedition to the island of Komodo, where he confirmed the existence of the "dragon lizards." Another mythic beast had turned out to be real! Drawing upon inspiration from these remarkable animals, Cooper conceived an idea for the ultimate adventure movie: African gorillas battle Komodo dragons, with a band of human explorers caught in the fray. He revised the idea to feature a single giant gorilla who would face off against both dinosaurs and men with guns, and fall for the charms of a beautiful woman. In 1933, Cooper co-wrote and co-directed the classic monster film King Kong, with stop motion maestro Willis O'Brien bringing the beasts to life.

Today, Kong is still a movie star, and field studies by Dian Fossey and others have revealed that real gorillas are among nature's gentlest giants, a far cry from the rampaging Kong. And the Gorilla War is forgotten. It is odd how quickly the cryptic "monsters" become normalized as animals once their existence is verified. The giant squid is a recent addition to the beasts of legend who have proven to be real. Perhaps some day, the Sasquatch will similarly be featured in Ranger Rick, Wikipedia, and the San Diego Zoo, and the fifty-year debate over the veracity of the Patterson-Gimlin film will be forgotten.

The name Sasquatch is a variation of sásq'ets, borrowed from the Halkomelem language. The name is often translated as "wild man of the woods," but a better translation is "wild master of the woods," (according to Les Stroud, as he learned from his "native teacher.")  Indeed, if the great hominid exists and has survived and evaded us for this long, he is a greater master of the woods than even the best human trackers and survivalists. His connection to earth far outclasses mine, but still I am still happy to be of service, in replanting small patches of the forests where he might thrive!

Recommended video: 10 Mythical Creatures that turned out to be real by Hybrid Librarian.

The Gorilla War is brought back to light by Monte Reel's recent book Between Man and Beast. 

Artist unknown on the old gorilla image.

Kong vs. T.Rex image was used for promotional purposes by the now-defunct RKO pictures, and is used here for educational purposes only.

Sasquatch versus Condor!

Christmas in the land of deserts and caves! An odd prospect for this man of the eastern forests. The Carlsbad Caverns community has its own unique holiday traditions--importantly Rock of Ages--to be revealed in an upcoming post. We also have a Secret Santa gift exchange, which I planned not to participate in, being that I had so many other holiday engagements. Then fellow ranger Christina commissioned me to draw a Secret Santa gift for fellow ranger Lee, who is an avid fan of the Sasquatch (and less a fan of the California Condor.) This drawing was a hit among the CAVE people, and Christina has planned to cook something good for me as payment.

In the real world, Sasquatch and Condor peacefully ignore each other. IF the former is out there, which remains a matter of debate. I am told that he is often seen near Ruidoso, New Mexico, at the Mescalero Apache reservation and its environs. It is a place of Ponderosa Pine forests, and just might be right for a large bipedal ape....

The Sasquatch, Our Sibling

I have never encountered Bigfoot. My painting is a whimsical experiment with a new set of gouache paints; and the sasquatch would be a gentler giant. When I was nine or so, I THOUGHT that I detected the American great ape, in the Pacific Northwest. My mom and I went for a short tromp in the woods, and I heared a strange cry in the distance (probably some other animal.) Later, while travelling the roads by car through the small town with parents and brother, I smelled a foul odor (probably garbage.) Still enough to spark a youngster's imagination, just as I liked to regularly declared the blinking lights in the sky from airplanes at night back home “UFOs.”

However, the Sasquatch recently gained a very credible witness, which has given me pause, and made me contemplate the possibility of large hominids in the bush. Les Stroud (Survivorman) has had two close encounters with Bigfoot. (Survivorman is the best and most authentic television series on wilderness survival, wherein the intrepid star goes out to varied remote parts of the world and SURVIVES, for 7-10 days at a time, truly alone, carrying four video cameras and various tripods, and filming himself on the quest. This starkly contrasts with all other survival shows—such as Man vs Wild—where the guy pretends to be alone in the woods, but in fact has a camera crew, and only stays out for three days at a stretch.) Les Stroud's second brush with Bigfoot occurred during the making of the Alaska episode—the furry beast appeared in a tree, hooted at the lone survivor, and crashed away through the treetops when he reached for his camera. The Survivorman said that he does not know what he encountered, but it was not moose, wolf, or bear. (And he has abundant familiarity with such fauna, having lived and slept among them for years.)

Shortly after watching Stroud's fireside chats, I took the opportunity to see Jeff Meldrum, Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University, give a talk—at the Salt Lake City Comic Con. Dr. Meldrum is one of the few scientists who gives serious consideration to the possibility of the Sasquatch, and has given close review to the evidence, rather than dismissing it out of hand. He appeared at Comic Con because so many scientists started out as science fiction fans, so he knew there would be an attentive and appreciative audience. Meldrum has extensively researched and taught on the evolution of bipedalism in primates, on various branches of evolutionary tree, including modern humans—and the alleged distant relative of Sasquatch. He has constructed a proposed anatomical model of the Bigfoot's foot and leg. He claims that the Sasquatch's foot is more prehensile than ours, and lacks our rigid arch, giving a distinct flexion curve to the tracks. He has noted this and other anatomical consistencies across many Bigfoot tracks, in many parts of the world (including the information-isolated rural China,) and finds it extremely unlikely that so many common folks could have independently made up the same plausible bipedal ape anatomy. He also points out how the Patterson-Gimlin film is consistent with his model of Bigfoot anatomy, and with the proposed skeleton of Gigantopithecus (inferred by various Anthropologists from limited fossil remains.) Meldrum accepts the convention in zoology that for an animal to exist, there must be a type specimen. He argues that there is compelling evidence for the Sasquatch, therefore a search for said ­specimen is a worthwhile endeavor. And he is not alone: the veterinarian Dr. Melba S. Ketchum led a research project to test samples of hair, blood, saliva, etc from Bigfoot encounters, and concluded that some of the samples did belong to a hitherto-unknown species of ape-human hybrid. (Although these claims have not yet been tested by independent researchers.) Obviously, most scientists disagree with Meldrum and Ketchum. But I must admire these researchers for daring to challenge the status quo, with evidence-based arguments.

In a radio discussion among Les Stroud, Jeff Meldrum, and the Bigfoot seeker Todd Standing, the three contemplate: if the large hominid does exist, what implications would it have for conservation of the American wilds? The great apes are our siblings; and the intelligence of a Sasquatch might be comparable to ours. (Granted, the coal companies in West Virginia don't let a legacy of ravaged ecosystems and people with cancer and birth defects interfere with their profit margin; so the discovery of an endangered and intelligent mega-hominid might have little effect on resource extraction.)

In the meantime, tales from the annals of science fiction and science nonfiction have communicated and expressed our closeness to the apes, at a deep level, as only stories can. In the nonfiction realm, Radiolab has produced multiple killer episodes about the hearts and minds of animals—the story of Fu Manchu, an orangutan with a penchant for picking locks, is good one to start with. Then check out "Animal Minds," "Zoos," "Lucy," "Wild Talk, " "the Shy Baboon" and "New Normal?." In science fiction, the Planet of the Apes series (in both its older and newer installments) has been quite effective at making us contemplate the thin line (or perhaps imaginary line) between great ape and human. When the ape-rulers of Earth argue that humans are unthinking brutes because they cannot speak (in the original 1968 film,) it is mostly the same argument that René Descartes ominously made towards animals centuries ago, his flawed logic giving a lasting foundation to western cruelty towards our fellow earthlings. In recent media, Writers of the Future Volume 30 contains a gem: the short story “Animal” by Terry Madden.  In a future earth overpopulated and overrun with humans, a nonstop mega-metropolis, zoologist Mackenzie Guerrero is devoted to the preservation of species, and runs a complex where the last members of extinct animals endure. She must face the closure of her beloved facility, which the government has decided to sell for other developments (and the animals for steaks.) There is little public outcry, since everyone is lost in virtual reality safaris of the mountains and jungles that once were. While the feds claim that the animals will be regrown from frozen embryos at some undetermined time in the future (when birth control measures have returned human populations to pre-2075 levels), Mackenzie has a bolder plan to bring back a great ape--and I won't ruin the surprise. Brilliant speculation, and it truly gives one pause, both a cautionary tale and an uplifting one.

We share the world with thinking, feeling creatures. Not only apes but also elephants and whales and wolves and ravens have shown remarkable emotional bonds and logical problem-solving abilities. If Sasquatch is real, it will be one more to add to this cognitive menagerie. I really hope that we can preserve our furry family, against the forces of population growth, resource extraction, pipelines and oil spills, omnipresent plastic trash, pesticides and herbicides, invasive species, and global climate disruption.