Are sasquatches merely misidentified bears?

For years I have been assured by other wildlife biologists and mammalogists that eyewitnesses who had claimed to have seen a sasquatch were actually looking at a bear on its hind legs and misidentifying it.

The problem with this explanation occurs when experienced outdoors workers such as forestry workers, hunters, trappers, prospectors and commercial fishermen--people who know bears--observe a sasquatch. People like them, who have seen dozens or even hundreds of bears, much more than the rest of us, know that, whatever they have seen, it was not a bear. And on this subject it is they that make the best eyewitnesses, even better than doctors and law enforcement officers.

Although the resemblance of an upright bear to a sasquatch is only superficial, at best, the desire of other wildlife biologists to explain sasquatch reports as those of misidentified bears has some basis. I am referring to mammal field guides which do not yet include the sasquatch as North American mammal. The authority of the published mammal field guides is a very powerful force in shaping public opinion: most of us would agree that if the sasquatch were indeed a real animal it would be included by now.

One of the major contributions of my book (in my opinion) is the inclusion of the field guide-type illustration of a sasquatch by Wendy Dyck. She drew a generic sasquatch for comparison with that of an upright black bear and the illustrations are placed on facing pages for comparison:

The prominent, squarish shoulders of the sasquatch differ from the sloping shoulders of bears and all other mammals excepting the "higher"primates: great apes and humans. It is these shoulders, and the upright stance and gait which gives the sasquatch such a human-like appearance. In addition, there are the pointed or slightly rounded ears of bears which are normally visible, while the small sasquatch ears positioned close to the head are almost always covered with the long hair of the head.

With such an illustration before us otherwise-inexplicable reports begin to make sense, since the flat face of the sasquatch is indeed at variance with the prominent snout of the bear. Had observers of a sasquatch been presented with this alternative to an upright bear, they would have had the option of choosing it, rather than be forced to conclude that they must have seen "a flat-faced bear" or "a bear with no nose." One eyewitness who is an experienced British Columbia prospector was quite sure of himelf and stated: "I don't know what it was but I know what it wasn't. And it wasn't a bear."

As a North American-educated wildlife biologist I understand that I and my colleagues have had little or no exposure to the biology of the great apes. After all, we don't think we have them here so why should we bother when there are moose, deer, elk, wolves, cougars, and other "normal" wildlife species to study and manage? The result of this omission is that, to most of my colleagues, reports of an animal resembling an upright gorilla throwing stones, beating its chest, breaking branches, and vocalizing loudly is too bizarre to make sense. As a result such reports are normally discounted and almost never filed. Had we been more exposed to lectures and the literature regarding the great apes of Africa and Asia-- and cognizant of their anatomy and behavior -we might have been much more open to such reports. I think I am correct in attributing the tendency of wildlife professionals to categorize sasquatch reports as bear reports to our ignorance of great ape biology.

The same situation applies to sasquatch tracks. Published field guides of animal tracks do not include those of the sasquatch. As result many wildlife biologists have suggested that that reports of sasquatch tracks are those of bears. They base this on rare instances where a bear's forefoot and hindfoot occasionally combine to present the appearance of an elongated footprint.

In fact, bear tracks in soft substrates such as mud or wet sand always include claw marks and are not easily mistaken for the large, humanlike tracks of the sasquatch.

Left-Grizzly bear tracks (Courtesy Tony Hamilton, Fish and Wildlife Branch, BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks.)
Right-Sasquatch track. (Credit: un-named Vancouver Island, BC deer hunter)



Similarly the trail or trackway of a sasquatch differs not only from that of a bear but also from that of a human.

Immediate Right- bear tracks (Credit: Adolph Murie, The Bears of Mt McKinley, University of Washington Press)
Far Right-sasquatch tracks.(Credit: Millie Kiggins, Estacada, Oregon)

Note the pronounced straddle or width to the bear trail. Also note the alternation of front and hind feet of this quadrupedal (four-footed) mammal..

In the case of a sasquatch trail note:
-that all tracks are "hind" feet, indicating a bipedal (two-footed

gait.)
-that they are large
-that there is a large stride or step length (up to over 6 feet apart feet in this trail)
-that they are tightly aligned in single file, showing no straddle or width (not even as wide as a human trail).
-that there is little or no scuffing as the foot is placed into and lifted out of the track.

It should be noted that at least one recently published mammal track guide, does include a description of sasquatch tracks. (Wilderness Tracks by Barbara Butler , Hancock House publishers, Surrey, BC)