Sorry, not enough of a reason. I suggest you -again- to use the advanced search function. Try fossils+bigfoot, or something like that, looking for my posts.
The "acid soil & mountain forest" excuses are nothing but footer misinformation.
I don't pretend to be an expert in this area. I derived my information on montane forest fossil decomposition from the NASI report, which of course has been shown to be incorrect in other areas and which is not immune to criticism. Nonetheless, in the report, author Glickman quotes British paleontologist
Richard Fortey, a non-bigfooter who has written nothing about bigfoot, regarding rapid biological decomposition in montane forest (italicized section, below; the rest is Glickman).
Please point out the errors in Fortey's description and/or in Glickman's observations about them.
From
http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/nasi3.html:
Some species leave behind records in the form of fossils, although few individual animals are converted to fossils. There are several possible reasons why fossils of Bigfoot have not been found:
* Non-existence. The phenomenon does not originate from an uncataloged animal.
* Environment. Certain environments are more likely to support fossil formation than others.
* Misclassification. Existing fossils attributed to an inappropriate genus or species.
* Undiscovered. Fossils exist but have not been unearthed.
The process of fossilization does not convert all deceased animals to fossils — most decompose before they can be fossilized because specific environmental conditions are required to create a fossil. Fortey explains fossil formation:
All fossils are found in rocks that were originally unconsolidated sediments... Certain environments which today support a rich and varied plant and animal life have no sediments forming in them, and the organisms living there have virtually no chance of being preserved in the fossil record. Mountainous regions, for example, are dominated by the erosion of the rock forming the ranges, and therefore no permanent sediment is formed there. Torrential rain and rapid weathering, aided in some climates by the action of frost, rapidly destroys much of the organic material: the chances of any preservable remains reaching a lowland river where permanent sediment is accumulating are remote. The faunas and floras of mountainous regions of the past are most unlikely to be represented in the fossil record. The fossilization potential of a mountainous environment is low. [Fortey 1991]
Thus, where the deposition of undisturbed sediment dominates, fossils may form. Where erosion dominates, such as the montane, fossils rarely form. Suspending disbelief momentarily, of the sightings deemed credible by TBRP, most are in the montane environment. Asian reports, such as the so-called Yeti of the Himalayas, are from a similar environment. If these are sightings of an uncataloged animal, then such an environment would rarely produce a fossil.
When the environment of an animal is restricted to a sufficiently small region, and if this region does not support fossil formation, a gap in the fossil record of an animal may form.
The fossil record of ape evolution is confined almost entirely to the Miocene epoch, from 23 million to 5 million years ago... Ape lineages did persist into the Plio-Pleistocene, although some subsequently became extinct. All these surviving lineages were probably more widespread than they were today. However, their record after about 8 million years ago includes only scanty remains of a recently extinct giant ape (Gigantopithecus) and Pliocene fossils of uncertain affinity, all from southeastern Asia. There is no fossil record of chimpanzees or gorillas at all. [Jones 1992]
Science accepts the existence of the gorilla and chimpanzee through the observation of type specimens even though there is no fossil record. As a single dimension, the lack of fossil evidence does not constitute conclusive proof of an animal's non-existence.
