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To: river rat

The late Grover Krantz:

“The most common question asked by skeptics is, ‘If the sasquatch exists, why don’t we find its bones?’ If it is a viable species consisting of thousands of individuals, then dozens of them are certainly dying every year. Most people think this means that someone should stumble across one of their skeletons now and then. Our museums are full of the skeletons of other animals, why not this one? No wildlife biologists will ask this question because they all know the answer... Most animal deaths may be divided into two categories, abrupt and delayed, with only a few questions in between. An abrupt death is when the animal is killed by a predator or by another natural event... A delayed death is when the animal succumbs to old age, starvation, or illness; in this case the individual can and will carefully choose the place where its death occurs... They are then quickly reduced to skeletons by carrion eaters of all sizes, from mammals to microbes. Carnivores’ bones will end up hidden under a cover of vegetation... they are almost never seen in nature. I have yet to meet anyone who has found the remains of a bear that was not killed by human activity. (A self-proclaimed naturalist once told me that he finds puma skeletons frequently; if this is true, he has a skill that no field biologist even remotely approaches) ...Someone once calculated that if all the bison skeletons from the last 40,000 years were still here, the Great Plains would be thirty feet deep in stacked bone... Frequencies of footprints suggest that there are now at least a hundred bears for every one sasquatch, and dead bears are almost never found... Desirable as it may be, the discovery of the remains of a naturally dead sasquatch is about the least likely possibility of demonstrating their existence. If someone could devise a method to locate the remains of large numbers of dead bears, then perhaps some sasquatch remains will eventually be found as well.” [Big Footprints, pp 9-11]


22 posted on 07/21/2007 10:53:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Saturday, July 21, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv

If he’s right about dead bears, this is a very good answer to the complaint that no remains have been found. Bottom line, they’re too damned rare.


23 posted on 07/21/2007 11:05:23 PM PDT by California Patriot ("That's not Charley the Tuna out there. It's Jaws." -- Richard Nixon)
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To: everyone

Also, sasquatches, if they exist, are not killed abruptly;
Only a lion or possibly a bear could kill one, and lions aren’t likely to be found in heavily forested areas. Bears are slower. And if there’s a sasquatch, it’s clearly smarter than any other animal at least in North America.


24 posted on 07/21/2007 11:08:02 PM PDT by California Patriot ("That's not Charley the Tuna out there. It's Jaws." -- Richard Nixon)
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To: SunkenCiv
"...dead bears are almost never found."

Perhaps not in New York City or San Francisco -- but there are THOUSANDS of "dead bears" registered annually by hunters, and bones of bears are found in caves, sink holes, after forest fires and as road kill.

With most of America covered by hunters, fishermen, hikers, climbers, trail bikes, ATVs and whatever -- not ONE one has ever come out of the boondocks with ANY physical evidence or photograph that was credible to scientists".

The writer of the article you quoted - could have answered his own question about the absence of Bison bones on the plains with just a little research..
http://www.kshs.org/research/topics/business/essay.htm

Collecting bones was a BIG business in the 1800s....

"Another industry sprang from the slaughter of buffalo. Bone pickers were paid $4 to $6 a ton for the dried buffalo bones. Shipped east, the bones were then ground and used in the manufacture of fertilizer, combs, dice, buttons, and bone china dishes. Some homesteaders used this business to supplement their farm income."

25 posted on 07/21/2007 11:25:09 PM PDT by river rat (Semper Fi - You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
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To: SunkenCiv
I have yet to meet anyone who has found the remains of a bear that was not killed by human activity. (A self-proclaimed naturalist once told me that he finds puma skeletons frequently; if this is true, he has a skill that no field biologist even remotely approaches...

I've spent a lot (and I do mean a lot) of time in the fields and forests of the upper Midwest over the course of my life and I've found a young moose carcass taken down by wolves and that of a young buck whitetail. Both animals were in fairly recent states of decay and the smell is what led me to the moose. In addition, I've found numerous antlers in various states but ALL were severely gnawed by rodents. In a purely subjective opinion, I'd say the odds of an average hiker or hunter stumbling upon the remains of ANY animal was small to none. Nature, as this guy points out, soon erases all traces of even the biggest critters.
34 posted on 07/22/2007 5:31:16 AM PDT by WorkingClassFilth
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