What I got out of the article is a "how" and a "where". Well ok, there was of course a lot more info in the chapter than this...
How to track is not always as obvious as having a trackway at your disposal. You must approach this just as Search and Rescue trackers do... very slow and deliberate. Sign cutting is an art and a science. Tracking most game animals is considerably easier, just because of the hard and sharp hooves instead of a soft foot. It is harder to track a bear then a deer right? As we travel in behavior from mammal to mammal, we also have to take into account each species ability to adapt it's behavior to specific real-time needs. Tracking a chimp is quite a bit harder than tracking a deer because the chimps behavior is not as hardwired, it is more adaptable to the areas current conditions.
Where to place camera traps. I don't know if any of you have heard me say before that I think most if not all sightings and track finds are mistakes... on the part of the Sasquatch. They are not deliberately going out and finding a human to confront or leaving tracks for us to find. This is probably considered a hazard to it’s survival and well-being. They are most likely going out of their way to be unobtrusive and ghost like. There may be something to Grover Krantz's theory that Bigfoot leaves very deliberately placed tracks as a marker, something to notify other Bigfoot that it is there. But in general I think they are mistakes. This sign is a little more cryptic and the animal may know that. It is leaving very little in the way of tracks, nothing is seeing it, so why not return along the same route over and over... seems like a perfect place to put up a camera trap.
So why all the tracks on those dusty dirt roads in Northern California way back…? Human intrusion, decoy, bait and switch, communicating with others of their own kind… who knows… only they do right now.
Ok, I am going back to my corner.
Rick Noll
Posted on Sep 30, 2002, 5:43 PM from IP address 12.230.53.185