A fraction of what is invested today in either the ivory-billed funding, or what SETI has spent annually.
A rapid response capability (which is primarily on "standby" until a good quality, current sighting event occurs) shouldn't cost much more than a hundred thousand or so to set up, mere pennies to operate annually until an event occurs which justifies a more expensive response.
Then funding (or a "line" of rapidly authorized funding) should be available for:
1) News monitoring, in order to get initial information on any current reports. This really won't cost a nickel. There are plenty of places where volunteers for this type of "armchair research" is already going on. All that is needed is a once per day Google News search, daily BFF and BFRO scan, etc. Anything fresh or promising is acted upon with initial phone interviews. This will require a few long distance phone calls. Intitial phone results that have promise are reported to the fund authorizers, who determine if the media reports/initial phone interviews justify expending funds for 1st Responders.
1) Immediate transportation of "1st Responders", who perform the first face-to-face interviews, on-the-ground investigations, and the "1st Responder" decision of whether or not enough evidence is present to bring in additional assets. This can be accomplished by a two person crew. They would have to be able to go at any time, be able to then perform at location for perhaps two weeks away. These people should have good interviewing skills, good knowledge of Sasquatch historical reports, and decent outdoors/hunting/tracking skills. Costs to transport (RT) and lodge two people and provide basic vehicle rental for a week will run approximately $6,000, and salaries for two qualified 1st Responders per week shouldn't run much more than $8,000.
2) There should be funding set aside for a contract for immediate response for an established and active dog handler who has dogs experienced in tracking bear. The contract should be set up in advance, and the handler prepared to perform ASAP upon a telephone call. Funding should be set aside to provide for the transportation of these dogs and handler to the site. Finding such a dog team and handler will be difficult, and his ability to react quickly might not be possible, especially during the hunting seasons when he is usually busy. Experienced bear hunting dogs are extremely rare on this continent, but I've been told they exist. Just a guess, but round trip transportation might cost $5,000 or so, and a handler with 4 or 5 dogs might cost $500 - $750 per day, to total about $5,000 for a week of operations (only spent when the 1st Respond team thinks their use might bring fruit, ie fresh tracks/reports/ongoing reports). Total amount of about $10,000 in reserve.
3) Funding or a line of funding set aside should be available for any on-site transportation needs which might become necessary; air taxi operators, horse wranglers, ATV/ORV rentals, motorhome rental, etc. This cost will vary widely. A small aircraft can run $250 per hour, but will only be required during an on-site hunt, which has already shown some promise. This can include morning and evening aerial recon in a small airplane for a few days up to a contract for a one-time overflight with an IR equipped aircraft with a firm experienced in game counting for Fish and Game organizations.
4) There should be some equipment purchased and stored for a response event:
* A dozen or so top quality trail game cams
* At least two top quality night-vision goggles
* A couple of top quality tree stands
* A couple top quality pair of binoculars and a spotting scope
* One full top quality outfitting for a professional wildlife photographer, both still and moving, day and night, with zoom capability.
All this equipment is purchased and stored until a response event. It would be prepared to be shipped (crated/boxed/etc.) simiultaneous with the 1st Responder's deployment. All this might cost $25,000.
So, maybe a total of $50,000 to initially set up, $10,000 per year for phone/administrative/equipment storage/etc. per year, a funding reserve/commitment of $14,000 per week of 1st Responder operations (which I don't think would happen more than twice per year),
Twenty five years for a response capability.
I also think an initial electronic interview of all current government biologists should occur along with a simple policy change.
A mass emailed poll/questionnaire to all state and federal biologists in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Ohio, and Florida should be conducted, asking if any of them have ever had an experience, found any possible evidence, or had any hunter or other public user report anything to them.
Also a policy change which simply required the reporting of any possible sasquatch activity or evidence to the Response organizers would be in order.
Cost of that?:
Virtually nothing.
