Team! Gather! Steady! Defensive positions! Chilcutt! Where's Chilcutt!?
Yes, Jimmy Chilcutt has most definitely vetted the Skookum elk cast has containing "dermal ridges", though as far as I know, he has not done so in print. In Jefferson Texas, Chilcutt showed cast copies of the "heel" (elk metacarpal joint) to myself and Scott Herriott. There was no ambiguity in his statements that they were "dermal ridges". At the time, I had no strong opinion on the subject, and was open to the possibility that the feature really represented Sasquatch.
In case it has not been pointed out, the BFRO webpage here:
http://www.bfro.net/NEWS/BODYCAST/green_statement.asp
contains this rather hyperbolic statement by John Green:
"For more than 40 years I have held the opinion that science can not be convinced of the existence of sasquatches by anything less than physical remains. I have now changed my opinion. I think the Skookum cast can do it, provided that enough influential zoologosts, mammalogists, anatomists, primatologists, etc. will take a serious look at it."
In one of the great ironies of this episode, it WAS a qualified professional (an ichnologist) who took a SERIOUS LOOK AT IT. This would also explain the motive for Green to pay for the cast copies; to enable the relevant professionals to look at it without risk of damage to the original, and because the copies are much less unwieldy than the original.
Another great irony is that it was Bigfooter Cliff Crook who said early on that the imprint represented an elk:
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/bigfootcentral/
"Report Update: bfro's "Skookum Cast"
Source: Audubon Society Associate & Bigfoot Central Investigators.
The 250 pound + plaster cast of the alleged Bigfoot's alleged butt and heel mark, labelled and billed by (bfro) and Rick Noll as "The Skookum Cast", and claimed by Rick Noll to eventually become a find "just as big or bigger than the Patterson film", may be solved. Case investigators of this hulking plaster moulage have found signs pointing to a more credible and rational theory about just what was collected within this big plaster cast. The Skookum Cast label now gives way to a new label that could fit this cast much more scientifically. Here is the other side of the story.
Investigators strongly suspect that the cast collected is nothing more than the impressions from a kneeling elk. The hulking plaster moulage which is partially dotted with hoof impressions from an elk appears to point to a kneeling elk as the prime suspect. An elk will often kneel to retrieve food from a pool of water, or in this case, apples in a rain puddle. This was where they had baited for a Bigfoot and poured the cast after the fruit had disappeared. The most probably imagined "Bigfoot Butt Print" may have been the chest or belly area of an elk and the solitary purported heel mark impression inside the giant cast, may in fact, be nothing more than the bend (knee) mark of the elk's leg as it knelt in it's natural way to retrieve the apples from the ground. That would rationally explain why another "heel mark" or an actual Bigfoot footprint was not found inside the cast and that no Bigfoot tracks were found anywhere around or inside the cast. Another case of Wild Imagination gone bonkers. An example of mistaken identity strikes again."
Unfortunately for Crook, he never matched the features of a recumbent elk to the features of the cast, as Wroblewski did, to really make the case. Despite pointed attacks by the BFRO on Crook:
http://www.bfro.net/REF/hoax.asp
Crook appears to be vindicated after all. (Though Crook's photos may very well be fake...)
Daaaaamn.... Wonder what Noll has to say about that? 