Bigfoot risks extinction, says Canadian MP

C'mon people, this is hype, pure and simple. As a former sideshow performer I'm quite familiar with exactly how extrordinary things get promoted. Any time you can get FREE publicity, you go for it. If it takes subverting or co-opting mainstream institutions like government, then so be it.

Way back when, we were able to get USA Today to post the strange contents of our stage rider for Lollapalooza. In Scotland Mark Borkowski was able to con some uptight female politician to attend a staged "protest" against our sideshow, at which point she was presented with a "key to the city of Seattle". All carefully caught on videotape...

http://www.borkowski.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rose_Circus

Why do you think people like Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson are always in the "news"? It's not because they have talent, it's because THEY HAVE GOOD PUBLICISTS!

So to understand what's really going on with this Standing guy, you should investigate the history of sideshow, and some of the better hype-masters like P.T. Barnum, Frank Hansen, and Jim Rose.

Here are two outstanding books about sideshow:

http://www.circusofthescars.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Believing-Americas-Side-Shows/dp/1550225294

I'm sure this guy Standing wants to become the Canadian equivalent of Matt Moneymaker or Tom Biscardi.
 
"When I get species protection for them nationwide....."
"but Bigfoot sightings have been reported across the country"

I cannot imagine that Big Feet would be that close to extinction if species protection is required nationwide. For an endangered species they sure seem to cover a large area. Maybe they have an unusual migration pattern.

Personally, I never heard of a Bigfoot sighting on the east coast where I grew up, or in Alberta for that matter. Maybe he is looking for a job in the oil rigs.
 
brodski said:
there is a world of difference between saying "we must protect these forests because they could contain undiscovered species" (a position I agree with)
and saying "we must protect these forests because Bigfoot may be in there".
The latter is making a specific claim for which there is neither historical president nor any supporting evidence.
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I undersrtand the difference and I guess the first position is the main one I support. But although Lake is wrong to claim he can take Bigfoot out of the realms of mythology I can see where he's coming from. Bigfoot may have never been discovered with any credible proof, but it's such a big part of folklore and mass consciousness that I think it's fair to treat it as having real potential existance, even if it doesn't have any physical existance. And, yes, I would say the same to all sorts of other kinds of meta-creatures like fairies, leprachauns, dragons etc. In fact I propose that we make the mermaid an endangered species. Mermaids are unlikely to exist, but the very fact that exist so strongly in human folklore is a good enough reason to think about how pollution, discarded fishing nets and hunting. In fact a 1920 London Times article reported an interview with an elderly Highland woman who lived on the Scotish island of Benbecula as a child in the early 19th Century. She claims that fishermen there caught and killed a small mermaid. If mermaids do exist then it's a sensible assumption that the current state of the marine environment is causing them some problems.

Lake is not my MP (mine is this slimy little oick called Andrew Smith), but if he was I would sign his pettition.

Scotland has taken similar measures to protect Nessie. In my own opinion, Nessie is far more likely to be proven real than most other cryptids, including Bigfoot. I wrote about that on this forum a few months ago.
 
bob_dezon said:
Police helicoptors use thermal imaging to find people, assuming bigfoot is manlike and mammalian, would it not have a thermal signature? why has nobody just scoured the places it is reputed to live for large mamalian figures. It would be a hell of a lot more efficient than organising massive manpower and eyeballing the location manually. I think if any form of bigfoot existed, we would have at least one piece of evidence for it now, unless bigfeet (plural?) are also ninjas.
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Apparently Bigfoot hunters have already tried this method ("Mysterious World" Arthur C Clarke). But how much of the North American forests have they so far covered. Probably not much if you take into account the size of this forest and the thousands of square miles of virtually uncharted wilderness it covers. I doubt if this project had the funding of a university or government science grant, so I wonde how far they got.
 
You make some fair points here:

dglas said:
Let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that bigfoot exists. Bear with me, please.

Assuming this bigfoot critter actually exists (and that, I know, is a big assumption), what sort of measures should we take to conserve it? Putting it on a protected species list sounds like a plan (assuming, remember), but what does that mean in terms of actual measures? Do we just make sure there's enough muddy ground for it to gleefully make footprints? Do we place a death penalty on picking blueberries? What are we doing?

Without some information on the critter, it's needs, habits and preferred environs, we have no measures we can really take to protect it. We can't find it, so we don't know its natural habitat. We have no feces, so we don't know its diet. We don't know its mating patterns, so we can't influence increasing the growth of the population. What, exactly, are we supposed to do?
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In the case of a cryptid with no information on its diet, behavior, habitat etc, then it makes it impossible to speculate on what laws or methods to employ. If we're going to protect Bigfoot then we can't do it in the same way we do the whale and elephant. We have to bring in a kind of "Proptection in Principle" clause.
 
Questioninggeller said:
"... comprehensive legislation to affect immediate protection of Bigfoot..."

So what's this mean? How you do protect something that there is no proof of...?
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brodski said:
there is a world of difference between saying "we must protect these forests because they could contain undiscovered species" (a position I agree with)
and saying "we must protect these forests because Bigfoot may be in there".
The latter is making a specific claim for which there is neither historical president nor any supporting evidence.
Click to expand...

dglas said:
Let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that bigfoot exists. Bear with me, please.

Assuming this bigfoot critter actually exists (and that, I know, is a big assumption), what sort of measures should we take to conserve it? Putting it on a protected species list sounds like a plan (assuming, remember), but what does that mean in terms of actual measures? Do we just make sure there's enough muddy ground for it to gleefully make footprints? Do we place a death penalty on picking blueberries? What are we doing?

Without some information on the critter, it's needs, habits and preferred environs, we have no measures we can really take to protect it. We can't find it, so we don't know its natural habitat. We have no feces, so we don't know its diet. We don't know its mating patterns, so we can't influence increasing the growth of the population. What, exactly, are we supposed to do?

Let's get down to it.
The problem with placing it on an endangered species list is that this entails recognizing the existence of the critter and legitimizes those who want to advance the cause of privately-held "knowledge." Suddenly these "experts" on "knowledge" only they can access begin to influence policies and laws. This is not a good path to tread on; we've been down it before...

Nearly all of the progress we have made, and specifically the rise of science, has been because we moved away from privately-held, inaccessable-to-others "knowledge" in favour of independant verification in the public realm. This is why we must not permit a particular species not proven to exist to be the foundation for our laws and policies. Anyone could make up anything and influence whole aspects of society on the basis of whatever-it-is-today.

Now, this is not the same thing as the protecting of bio-diversity suggestion (as alluded to, I think, by others) and to confuse the two is to misunderstand the critical difference between private and public "knowledge," the difference between verificationism and intuitionism. Bio-diversity is a well-established idea and we can point to examples of it and the consequences (neutral use of the term) of protecting it or failing to protect it. And that's the critical point - we can point at it. So far we've had distressingly little ability (i.e. none) to point to bigfoot, except in the fluffy, little private realms of certain individuals who steadfastly refuse (or fail) to provide verification of their ideas. As a result, all we have to point to, is their heads. Their motives are irrelevant to the argument really. What's important is the absolute lack of verifiable, reproducable evidence to back their claims. Period.
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dglas nailed it. Every animal currently on (any) species protection list didn't get there until scientists completed an in-depth study of that animals population, habitat, migration(if any) needs, food requirements, mating practices, etc. You CANNOT protect a species that you know nothing about. How can you? Even if you wanted to, no government is going to allow entire swaths of land to be protected without knowing it is required.

Even if you were willing to say that Bigfoots exist (and I personally think that is about as woo as you can get), you have no idea what is needed to keep them alive.

If you wanted to protect forsests and habitat because it's good for the planet, that is a whole other matter. I'm all for protecting the environment and keeping as much of our forests intact as possible, but not for some mythological animal that doesn't exist, rather for the species we know exist.

kerikiwi said:
Let's detour back to "New Guinea" (which, incidentally, did not exist "a couple of years ago".)

Do you have any evidence they are real? And any reason why they, unlike all the other explorers in humanity's history, became 'mentally ill' upon seeing new things?
Are you sure they weren't extras in 'The last of the dogmen'?
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I was going to ask the same thing. What group of people was discovered a couple of years ago and what proof do you have that they became "menally ill" upon visitng a modern city? Sounds incredible to me.

And don't get me started on the highland woman and the supposed mermaid.
 
Would putting Bigfoot on the endangered species list mean a ban on Bigfoot hunting in Canada? Think about the most important thing the money. Can you get the JREF prize for hunting down Bigfoot? If so this would make Bigfoot the most valuable game in the pacific northwest. A Bigfoot hunting expedition I figure would require equipment like the following:

1.) Night and thermal vision goggles.
2.) Guns -A high powered rifle with a laser scope and maybe a handgun.
3.) A tent, rations, camouflage and all the other survivalist stuff.
4.) Surveillance equipment.
5.) A large pickup truck.

All of these goods are readily found in many Alberta areas. I fear however that putting Bigfoot on the endangered species list means a ban on Bigfoot hunting in Canada which I assume would result in jail time. This makes any prize for bagging Bigfoot unobtainable for Canadians as I figure it is quite risky to drive a truck with the aforementioned goods to the United States. I imagine you would only get in worse trouble with US Customs and Border Protection if you told them the reason why you have such stuff in your truck is because you are hunting for Bigfoot.
 
EvilTB said:
Would putting Bigfoot on the endangered species list mean a ban on Bigfoot hunting in Canada? Think about the most important thing the money. Can you get the JREF prize for hunting down Bigfoot? If so this would make Bigfoot the most valuable game in the pacific northwest. A Bigfoot hunting expedition I figure would require equipment like the following:

1.) Night and thermal vision goggles.
2.) Guns -A high powered rifle with a laser scope and maybe a handgun.
3.) A tent, rations, camouflage and all the other survivalist stuff.
4.) Surveillance equipment.
5.) A large pickup truck.

All of these goods are readily found in many Alberta areas. I fear however that putting Bigfoot on the endangered species list means a ban on Bigfoot hunting in Canada which I assume would result in jail time. This makes any prize for bagging Bigfoot unobtainable for Canadians as I figure it is quite risky to drive a truck with the aforementioned goods to the United States. I imagine you would only get in worse trouble with US Customs and Border Protection if you told them the reason why you have such stuff in your truck is because you are hunting for Bigfoot.
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I would go for the pickup truck and some high-powered rifles, but you need to add a few cases of Budweiser or Coors to the mix. That would fit my image of a "Bigfoot Hunt". And if the Border Patrol stopped you, they may want to send you somewhere to "talk to someone".
 
Skeptic Guy said:
I would go for the pickup truck and some high-powered rifles, but you need to add a few cases of Budweiser or Coors to the mix. That would fit my image of a "Bigfoot Hunt". And if the Border Patrol stopped you, they may want to send you somewhere to "talk to someone".
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You are in with me on the expedition? Good! We should get at least one more person, that way we can have somebody look behind the rocks, and another to look for Bigfoot in the thick fog, my eyesight isn't perfect so I will volunteer to comb the out-of-focus areas.

The beer is also a very good idea, I heard however that Bigfoot was a Kokanee drinker.
 
EvilTB said:
You are in with me on the expedition? Good! We should get at least one more person, that way we can have somebody look behind the rocks, and another to look for Bigfoot in the thick fog, my eyesight isn't perfect so I will volunteer to comb the out-of-focus areas.

The beer is also a very good idea, I heard however that Bigfoot was a Kokanee drinker.
Click to expand...

Make the beer Big Rock and I'm in.
 
EvilTB said:
You are in with me on the expedition? Good! We should get at least one more person, that way we can have somebody look behind the rocks, and another to look for Bigfoot in the thick fog, my eyesight isn't perfect so I will volunteer to comb the out-of-focus areas.

The beer is also a very good idea, I heard however that Bigfoot was a Kokanee drinker.
Click to expand...

Don't know much about Kokanee, but if it is anything like Sam Adams, I'm there.
 
EvilTB said:
Would putting Bigfoot on the endangered species list mean a ban on Bigfoot hunting in Canada? Think about the most important thing the money. Can you get the JREF prize for hunting down Bigfoot? If so this would make Bigfoot the most valuable game in the pacific northwest. A Bigfoot hunting expedition I figure would require equipment like the following:

1.) Night and thermal vision goggles.
2.) Guns -A high powered rifle with a laser scope and maybe a handgun.
3.) A tent, rations, camouflage and all the other survivalist stuff.
4.) Surveillance equipment.
5.) A large pickup truck.

All of these goods are readily found in many Alberta areas. I fear however that putting Bigfoot on the endangered species list means a ban on Bigfoot hunting in Canada which I assume would result in jail time. This makes any prize for bagging Bigfoot unobtainable for Canadians as I figure it is quite risky to drive a truck with the aforementioned goods to the United States. I imagine you would only get in worse trouble with US Customs and Border Protection if you told them the reason why you have such stuff in your truck is because you are hunting for Bigfoot.
Click to expand...

Apparently prizes have been offered for a dead Bigfoot before, and this is a good reason to support Lake's motion.

Why is it necessary to kill Bigfoot to prove its existance? Some good close-up photoes or film, a specimen of hair or claw good enough to extract DNA for analyisis, even capturing one without harming it (so long as the captors let it go when they'd finished examining it) should be enough.
 
Porterboy said:
Apparently prizes have been offered for a dead Bigfoot, and this is a good reason to support Lake's motion.

Why is it necessary to kill Bigfoot to prove its existence? Some good close-up photos or film, a specimen of hair or claw good enough to extract DNA for analysis, even capturing one without harming it (so long as the captors let it go when they'd finished examining it) should be enough.
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The only good (or definitive) Bigfoot is a dead Bigfoot, IMO. Or a captured one. There's been plenty of photographic "evidence" but of highly questionable value, wouldn't you say? Besides, in today's world of Photoshop, photos are not evidence.

DNA may indicate that you have something that is "unidentified" but then you would have to match it to a "specimen" and we are back to a dead body or live capture.

I think there is a reason that to date we don't have DNA, a body, or physical evidence of any kind.
 
Porterboy said:
Apparently prizes have been offered for a dead Bigfoot before, and this is a good reason to support Lake's motion.

Why is it necessary to kill Bigfoot to prove its existance? Some good close-up photoes or film, a specimen of hair or claw good enough to extract DNA for analyisis, even capturing one without harming it (so long as the captors let it go when they'd finished examining it) should be enough.
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I think you are too worried about a Bigfoot shortage, they are obviously not that uncommon if are seen all over the continent.


Besides, I think whenever a new species is discovered -endangered or not. Humans have the responsibility to discover if said species has any culinary applications, this is the only way we can know if Bigfeet are worth preserving. I therefore propose that we barbecue Bigfoot after we prove his existence. It would be cruel to cook Bigfoot alive, so he might as well be killed anyway. Whenever you hear of a new plant or animal being discovered isn't the first question that pops into your mind:"So does it taste good?" If so we may be able find a to domesticate and farm Bigfeet. This is simply the best way to maximize Bigfoot's survival for future generations.
 
Skeptic Guy said:
Don't know much about Kokanee, but if it is anything like Sam Adams, I'm there.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, it's been years since I had a Sam Adams lager, if I remember correctly it does taste similar to Kokanee Gold.

I swear normal Kokanee however is nothing more then Labatt Blue in a different package making it only a bit less watery than Budweiser or Coors. A good beer to have at a BBQ on a hot day.
 
Porterboy said:
Apparently prizes have been offered for a dead Bigfoot before, and this is a good reason to support Lake's motion.
Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly agree. There is nothing more dangerous to an imaginary creature's non-existence than being hunted out of existence. Um, what I mean to say is ... wait. What was the question?

Why is it necessary to kill Bigfoot to prove its existance?
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It's not. Find an already dead one. With the number of sightings claimed there should be dead bodies littering the landscape.
 
EvilTB said:
I think you are too worried about a Bigfoot shortage, they are obviously not that uncommon if are seen all over the continent.


Besides, I think whenever a new species is discovered -endangered or not. Humans have the responsibility to discover if said species has any culinary applications, this is the only way we can know if Bigfeet are worth preserving. I therefore propose that we barbecue Bigfoot after we prove his existence. It would be cruel to cook Bigfoot alive, so he might as well be killed anyway. Whenever you hear of a new plant or animal being discovered isn't the first question that pops into your mind:"So does it taste good?" If so we may be able find a to domesticate and farm Bigfeet. This is simply the best way to maximize Bigfoot's survival for future generations.
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Mmmm, I have a really nice rub that I think would do well with barbecued Bigfoot.

EvilTB said:
Hmmm, it's been years since I had a Sam Adams lager, if I remember correctly it does taste similar to Kokanee Gold.

I swear normal Kokanee however is nothing more then Labatt Blue in a different package making it only a bit less watery than Budweiser or Coors. A good beer to have at a BBQ on a hot day.
Click to expand...

Coors/Budweiser sucks. Sam Adams or Kokanee Gold goes well with Bigfoot.
 
"The only good Bigfoot is a dead Bigfoot!"
- Mr. Horace Bighands, Bigfoot's neighbor
 
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