Why Has No Hunter Ever Shot and Killed a Bigfoot?

This is the classic question that is used by Bigfoot skeptics to deny the existence of Bigfoot.

Actually, it’s a dumb question, because the answer is supposedly no, no one, hunter or otherwise, has ever shot a Bigfoot. But it’s not true. As I will show, humans have shot and killed Bigfoots 36 times in the last 182 years. Humans shoot and kill Bigfoots on average of once five years.

Bigfoots Shot Dead by Humans

Unknown date: Klakas Inlet, Southern Alaska. In far southern Alaska on Prince of Wales Island, a Bigfoot was reportedly shot and buried at the mouth of a stream on the north side of the inlet. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

Unknown date: Sonora, Mexico. Rich Grumley reported that a hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then buried it.

Date unknown, modern era: Location unknown. A wealthy hunter reportedly shot and killed a Bigfoot, then paid a taxidermist to stuff it, and it’s presently on display in a ritzy country club on the East Coast. Reported by Ray Crowe.

Unknown date, modern era: Yankton, Oregon. Near the Colombia River north of Portland, a hunter shot a Bigfoot four times between the eyes and killed it. It rolled off the road. The man came back 24 hours later, and the body was gone. There was a set of three tracks, possibly a family group – a male, a female and a juvenile. Reported by Ray Crowe.

Unknown date, modern era, Amboy, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, a hunter reported that he shot and killed a male Bigfoot on an old logging road. Upon hearing that there was a $10,000 fine for killing a Bigfoot, the hunter hung up the phone on the researcher. Reported by Ray Crowe.

June 20, 1829: Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia. A team of hunters set out in an attempt to track down and kill a Bigfoot in the swamp. After tracking for two weeks, they were set upon by the Bigfoot one night. The men opened up with all their guns, but it seemed useless. Five of the men were killed by the Bigfoot, who then tore all of the men’s heads off. The surviving men opened up on the Bigfoot, finally killing it. Reported by Augusta Chronicle, March 12, 2000 – “Hunters Told of Swamp Creature’s Attack.”

1855: SE Oklahoma, Choctaw Territory. Bigfoots had been raiding Choctaw settlements for some time, mostly stealing crops. But then they started stealing human children, apparently to kill and eat them, and the Choctaw had had enough. A party, organized by Joshua LeFlore, set out to get the Bigfoots. They tracked them to a mound where the dead children were that the Bigfoots had been killing and eating. The Bigfoots were covered in hair and smelled bad.

The search party’s horses all reared when they saw the Bigfoots. LeFlore emptied his pistol at a Bigfoot, but it was useless, and the Bigfoot ripped his head off. The rest of the team opened up on the Bigfoots with elephant guns, aiming at the head. Two Bigfoots dropped. The final Bigfoot was finished off with a hunting knife. The party makes a fire and burns the Bigfoots on the fire. 3 Bigfoots were killed in all.

1856: Ohio or West Virginia. Possible Bigfoot skeleton found with bullet holes in its skull. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

July 4, 1884: East of Yale, British Colombia. In the Fraser River Region, railroad-men from the British Colombia Express Company’s train’s stopped their train when it seemed that someone was asleep near the tracks. A juvenile male Bigfoot woke up, barked, and started to climb up a steep bluff. The workers decided to chase him. One got up above him on the slope and dropped a rock on the Bigfoot. It disoriented him enough that they were able to get a rope around him, capture him and put him on the train.

They named the Bigfoot “Jacko.” Jacko had bruises on his head and upper body, and they assumed that he had gotten too near the edge of the bluff and had fallen over and landed, stunned, near the tracks. Jacko had been seen in the area where he was captured recently, but residents thought he was either a bear or a stray Indian dog.

Jacko was 4’7 and weighed 127 pounds and was covered with shiny black hair. He was extremely strong. Jacko did not communicate other than making half-bark, half-growl sounds. He was fed berries and milk. There are conflicting reports on what happened to Jacko. Some reports said he was taken into Yale where a man made a pet of him. Other reports said that Jacko escaped from the train before it got to Yale.

There are reports that soon after, a Bigfoot matching Jacko’s description was shot and killed in the same general area by a group of men.

There are other reports that say this whole matter was a hoax, but I believe it was true. For one thing, John Green received a letter from Adele Bastin, whose mother remembered that people in town continued to talk of Jacko long afterward. The best analysis of the case was by Myra Shackley. Reported by The Colonist of Victoria, British Colombia, July 4, 1884.

1900: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. An Eskimo shot and buried a Bigfoot. The Eskimo came out of the forest onto the beach and was met face to face with a Bigfoot. He opened fire and killed the Bigfoot. He and two other Eskimos then buried the Bigfoot on the beach. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

1905: Gardner Canal, British Colombia. On the coast of central British Colombia, a Bigfoot was reportedly shot and killed, but there are no further details. Reported on the British Colombia Scientific Cryptozoology Club website.

1921: Terrebone, Louisiana. Hunters killed a Bigfoot and dumped the body in an old well. Later a skeleton was found in the well and taken to the Tulane University anthropology department, where it disappeared. The anthropologists were not able to identify the skeleton and were mystified by it.

This is probably one of the best verified cases of the killing of a Bigfoot. After the skeleton was found in the well, many of the local college boys from Terrebone and Tulane University came around and took photos of it. Residents of Terrebone said that for many years afterward, as the college boys grew up, many of them still had photos of the Bigfoot skeleton.

Unfortunately, 90 years has now passed, but someone ought to go track this down and see if we can find any of those old photos. The skeptics will reject them anyway, but it would be nice to have them. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

1924: Ape Canyon, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, miners shot and killed a Bigfoot, which fell off a cliff into a river below. Other Bigfoots retaliated and bombarded their cabin with rocks. There are reports saying that Ape Canyon was a hoax, but I don’t believe that. Reported by Fred Beck.

1928: South Bentnick Arm, near Bella Coola, British Colombia. On the coast of central British Colombia, George Talleo shot and killed a Bigfoot. He left the scene and did not come back. Reported by the Sasquatch-BC website.

After 1937: Green River, Washington. In the Cascades east of Tacoma, a hunter saw a bear grubbing in a log and shot and killed it. Turned out he had killed a Bigfoot. Feeling that he had shot a “hairy man” (a human being), he buried it under a pile of rocks and never told anyone until he confessed on his deathbed. Reported by Datus Perry.

1940: Southeastern Missouri. Jared Sparks killed a Bigfoot (he described it only as “like a gorilla”) that had been killing horses and cattle by tearing them apart. Disposition of body unknown. Reported by John Keel, Strange Creatures.

Fall 1941: Near Basket Lake, Manitoba. A 17 year old boy hunting out of season shot and killed a Bigfoot that he thought was a moose. He left it in the forest because he thought it was human and because he was hunting out of season. He went back sometime later, and the body was gone. The old man who shot this Bigfoot as a boy was recently extensively interviewed by Dr. John Bindernagel, PhD in wildlife biology. Bindernagel felt that the man was telling the truth about killing the Bigfoot. Reported on BFRO site.

1943: Georgia, near the South Carolina border. A Bigfoot was shot and killed by a shotguns, hit with 60 bullets after it was tracked by a group of men because it was killing sheep and calves by tearing off their legs. The reddish-brown Bigfoot was buried on the outskirts of town. Reported by Rich Grumley.

1953: Alder Creek Canyon, Sandy, Oregon. East of Portland, a hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then buried the body. Reported by Peter Byrne.

1958-1960: Overton County, Tennessee. Bigfoot stealing chickens was shot dead by the owner of the chickens. They drove it around the area to see if anyone could identify it. No one had the faintest idea what it was. Disposition of body unknown. Reported by Mary Green.

196o: Whiteface Reservoir, Minnesota. A hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then put the body on ice and displayed it for awhile before replacing it with a plastic replica. The famous Minnesota Iceman story. Well documented case of a dead Bigfoot that was actually on public display for a while. It was examined by PhD scientists who said it was a real corpse and thought it was a “Neanderthal.”

The owner was very afraid of being prosecuted for homicide so he replaced it with a dummy and sent the real body packing. Then he changed his story multiple times, apparently out of fear of prosecution. The real Iceman is probably still with the estate of Jimmy Stewart.

1960′s: Douglas, Oregon: In the Cascades west of the Umpqua National Forest, a farmer shot a Bigfoot and then somehow managed to take it back to his house, where he left it outside. Other Bigfoots then came that night and retrieved the body. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

1965: Kitimat, British Colombia. On the coast of central British Colombia, a Kitimat man shot and killed a Bigfoot near town. He was trying to drag the body away when other Bigfoots came out and tried to attack him. He barely escaped to his canoe. Reported on the British Colombia Scientific Cryptozoology Club website.

December 1967: Teton National Forest near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Two college students from Marshalltown, Iowa – Lyle Bingaman and Mike Burton – shot and killed a Bigfoot, thinking it was a bear. They were terrified that they had killed a human being and that they would be prosecuted for murder, so they left it where it was and didn’t talk about it for a long time. Reported by Peter Byrne.

1968: North of Carson, Wyoming. Three men were hired by a rancher to kill a Bigfoot that was killing his cows and sheep by tearing off their legs. Afterward, the body was picked up by a government helicopter and taken to a research facility in Almogordo, New Mexico to be autopsied and studied. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.

After 1968: Alabama.  The same man involved in the Carson, Wyoming case above shot another Bigfoot later on. This time the government found out about it and was angry that he killed the Bigfoot.  Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.

After 1969: Clark, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, a man shot and killed a Bigfoot, then tried to sell it, but stopped when he thought it might have been illegal to kill the Bigfoot. No further details. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

1970: Spokane, Washington. Grover Krantz reported that a hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot.

June 1976: Baltimore, Maryland. As unlikely as it sounds, a Bigfoot was reported here in May 1976. Police were called, and K-9′s initially refused to track it. Finally, the dogs tracked it to an interstate tunnel. A police officer then saw it run under the interstate. The next month, US army personnel were called out to deal with the Bigfoot. Reports indicate that soldiers captured or killed the Bigfoot. No further information. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. Government coverup.

January 1976: Elm Creek, Texas Panhandle. Three men shot and killed two Bigfoots. The first one charged them, so they shot it. Then another one charged them, so they shot it too. They dropped both Bigfoots, a male and a female. They buried the bodies down by a nearby creek. They were afraid they would be prosecuted for homicide. Recently told their story anonymously on a radio show.

January 2000: Honobia, Oklahoma. The Siege of Honobia.  Bigfoot apparently shot and killed as part of a group that was raiding and harassing a rural residence. Other Bigfoots apparently carried off the dead Bigfoot. Two senior and well trusted members of the BFRO were there that night shooting guns at the Bigfoots and witnessed the killing. Reported by the BFRO site.

November 12, 2003: Lafollette, Tennessee. A Bigfoot had been killing peoples’ animals. A goat and cat at the very least had been killed. A woman called the sheriff, and they came out with a team of deputies and told everyone to get their pets indoors as they were going to eliminate these animals. They tracked the Bigfoot and shot it dead over the next hill.

There were sirens wailing, and the Bigfoot screamed as it was shot. The woman left the scene. People saw a black body (the Bigfoot) lying in a field the next morning. Ten minutes later, it vanished. Planes flew around the area night and day for two weeks. Many locals reported that there had been a hostile Bigfoot in the area and they were trying to appease it by leaving food out for it so it would not kill their animals.  Reported by Mary Green. Government coverup.

August 2006: Slim Buttes, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. A Bigfoot that had been named Chiye-tanka was shot and killed on the reservation. It was later given to the School of Mines to study. They sent it back and it was given a ceremonial burial by Lakota elders. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.

Conclusion

From 1829-present, a 182 year period, 36 Bigfoots have been shot dead by humans, hunters or otherwise. Humans shoot and kill Bigfoots once every 5.1 years, or about once every 5 years. In most cases, after the Bigfoot was shot, it was simply left in the woods where it fell. In some cases, it was buried. In the modern era, people who shot Bigfoots were often afraid to talk about it for fear of being prosecuted. They often thought that they had killed some sort of a human being and would be prosecuted for manslaughter or homicide.

In recent years, government officials seem to be taking the bodies away after Bigfoots are shot dead. There is a possible government coverup occurring in recent years, since 1968.

In the future, humans will continue to shoot and kill Bigfoots in North America. In order for science to make use of these bodies, the legal question regarding shooting a Bigfoot to death needs to be resolved somehow. Otherwise, people who shoot and kill Bigfoots will continue to abandon them or bury them in the woods.

Bigfoot organizations should establish procedures about what to do the next time a Bigfoot is shot and killed. Probably the best plan would be to say that the organization is willing to accept any Bigfoot shot dead, no questions asked. The person could then donate the body to the organization without fear of being prosecuted. It’s doubtful that the government would go after the organization merely for holding a Bigfoot corpse.

The organization should then contact a scientist such as Dr. Meldrum immediately and probably arrange to have the corpse delivered to him. At the same time, notify the media. The government would have a hard time stealing the corpse away from Meldrum after the media have been notified.

Anyone who shoots and kills a Bigfoot should try to protect the corpse and notify either Bigfoot organizations or prominent scientists such as Dr. Meldrum. Do not notify the authorities. If you do, you’re likely to never see the body again.

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Wolverines in the Upper Midwest

Repost from the old site.

Separate posts on this blog deal extensively with wolverines in Oregon, Washington, Idaho (here and here), Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, Nevada and New Mexico. There are also five posts on the wolverine in California.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Rediscovered After 85 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the Upper Midwest. Until recently, wolverines had been extinct in the Upper Midwest for 85-200 years.

However, one was photographed recently in Michigan. Furthermore, there have been some tantalizing sightings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and even a few in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri in recent years. It is distinctly possible the wolverines may be reclaiming some of their historical territory in the Upper Midwest. If so, this is fascinating indeed.

In 2004, a wolverine was photographed in Ubly, Michigan, 90 miles north of Detroit. They were extirpated from Michigan almost 200 years ago.

DNA testing of this wolverine showed that it was from Alaska. How it got from Alaska to Michigan is anyone’s guess. On March 14, 2010, this wolverine was found dead in Sanilac County, Michigan, south of where it was originally sighted in Ubly.

There has been one other sighting in from lower Michigan. A wolverine was sighted around 1998-2000 in Tawas, Michigan.

The reason it could have come down is because there are wolverine sightings on the Upper Peninsula, and I believe they exist there. Or possibly it could have come from Southern Ontario near Port Huron, though that area is densely populated.

The sightings on the Upper Peninsula have been in Delta County, Tahquamenon Falls State Park and the Keweenaw Peninsula. I assume that the Upper Peninsula population came from Ontario, possibly across the St. Mary’s River, if it freezes over in wintertime.

A forest road in Delta County, Michigan. This road is in Escanaba State Forest. A wolverine was sighted here in an unverified sighting sometime between 1999-2004. During this period, there was about one wolverine sighting a year in Michigan, all from the Upper Peninsula.The forests here have been changed massively from 100 years ago, when most of the White Pine was logged off. I assume what we have here is Eastern second-growth forest coming back in after the old growth was logged off. This second-growth explosion is fueling an increase in wildlife numbers, especially deer, all over the East Coast.

Tahquamenon Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. This area is located at the far east end of the UP near Ontario. The town of Paradise is nearby, as is Whitefish Bay. If the St. Mary’s River is frozen over, wolverines may well come down from Ontario to the UP. The part of Ontario near Sault Saint Marie is pretty sparsely populated. An unverified sighting of a wolverine was reported here in 2002.

There was also an unverified wolverine sighting in the UP on November 21, 2001 at 3 PM, crossing Highway M-64 1 mile south of Silver City in Ontonagon County.

There has been a rash of wolverine sightings lately around Babbitt, Minnesota, which is near Ely in the far northeastern part of the state near Canada. A tiny lynx population has recently also been confirmed there. The sightings around Babbitt appear to be genuine. Babbitt is surrounded by the Superior National Forest and there are frequent sightings of bears and even wolves in the area, even inside city limits.

There was also a sighting on Koochiching County on the Minnesota border with Canada in 1982. That sighting was deemed credible. In addition, there was one documented sighting in northeastern Minnesota between 1961-1995, but details are lacking.

There have been reports of dog and horse kills in and around Rollag, Minnesota lately. Certain things about the killings indicate that a wolverine may be doing this. Rollag is far to the north, getting up near the North Woods. It is east of and not far from Fargo, North Dakota.

In 1974 there was a report of a wolverine in a hay field in north-central Minnesota, near the North Woods.

There is also a report of a wolverine captured on a security camera at a Ford dealership in the town of Zumbrota in Southeast Minnesota. This land is very much prairie. The last positive record of a wolverine in Minnesota was from 1922 in Itasca County.

Old State Route 52 north of Zumbrota, Minnesota. It’s hard to believe that wolverines inhabit such terrain. Wolverines are recolonizing their old habitat on the US prairie. Why?

Many have questioned whether wolverines were actually common in prairies or if prairies merely served as population sinks. It is looking more and more like prairies are a natural home for wolverines, strange as it may seem. If these reports are accurate, it means that wolverines are re-colonizing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and possibly also Iowa, which is fantastic news!

Prairie Island (Sioux) Indian Reservation near Zumbrota, Minnesota. Is it possible that wolverines in the past preyed on the vast buffalo herds of prairie, perhaps especially on dead buffaloes?

The occurrence of the wolverine in Wisconsin is very rare but documented. A wolverine was photographed on top of a woodpile in Green Lake County, Wisconsin in recent years. There are also recent sightings in the Black River Falls area and to the north. A 2003 sighting in Lafayette County in the far south of the state was regarded as credible by the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Furthermore, we received a number of undocumented sightings by email to this site. One man grew up in Land O’ Lakes in far northern Wisconsin on the border with Michigan in an area known as the North Woods. This is an area of very thick, wild forest and swamps. There are supposedly many wolves, bears and wolverines in this part of Wisconsin.

In 1982, he saw three wolves in his front yard. In 1990, they treed 22 different bears in a single day while training bear dogs. They also had a frightening standoff with a wolverine on that day. From about 1983-1995, when he engaged in frequent deer hunting, he saw one or more wolverines every year.

In September 1990, a wolverine was seen several times over two weeks. The last time he saw one was in 2006 near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. All sightings took place between 1983-2006 in the North Woods approximately between Rhinelander and Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. The bear density in this region is said to be incredible, or at least it was 20 years ago (Bangs 2009).

There have been a few unverified sightings of wolverines in North Dakota recently. In 2004, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine near Minot. The observer watched it for a good five minutes. In 1988, two wolverines were seen along the Little Missouri River in the Badlands of far western North Dakota by a very experienced fur trapper.

There have also been wolverine sightings in South Dakota in the past 30 years. There was a verifiable wolverine sighting in the south-central portion of the state in 1961.

There were reports some years ago of a “black animal” going south through eastern Iowa killing dogs. It may have been a wolverine. A female wolverine was shot dead by a farmer on May 21, 1960 in a cornfield in central Iowa. She was infected with Trichinella spiralis, a parasite. No one quite knew how she ended up in central Iowa. However, one report said that this wolverine had been transported into the state in 1960.

Incredibly enough, there have been a number of wolverine sightings in Nebraska in recent years. All sightings have been in northern Nebraska near the South Dakota border. In particular, wolverines have been repeatedly sighted in and around Antelope and Knox Counties in far northeastern Nebraska near the Missouri River and the South Dakota border.

This area is near Louis and Clark Lake and the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation. In this area, there have been repeated sightings along the Verdigre and Niobrara Rivers.

Photo of the area of NE Nebraska around the Niobrara, Verdigre and Elkhorn Rivers where there have been numerous wolverine sightings. That is probably the Verdigre River in the foreground.

There has also been one sighting north of Gordon in northwestern Nebraska on the headwaters of Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This area is east of the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, now the scene of a famous fight over selling booze to Pine Ridge Indians.

A view of the terrain around Whiteclay, Nebraska. A wolverine was sighted on the South Dakota border about 17 miles east of here.

The first Grey Wolf in 94 years was seen recently in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It was a lone male. The UP, Minnesota and Wisconsin all have healthy populations. The Black Bear and wolf populations in Minnesota have shown dramatic increases in recent years and there is now a healthy population of over 25 lynx in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the first time in 30 years.

In other great news along similar lines, an Eastern Grey Wolf, the first in 160 years, was detected in Massachusetts. It killed over a dozen lambs before the farmer shot it to death. The killing was probably justified, but it is unfortunate that the first wolf in the state in over 150 years got shot to death. There will probably be more wolves coming to the state after this one, though.

Click the wolverines label at the end of the post to see other posts on wolverines in the US, including many sighting reports and photos.

References

Aubry, K. B., McKelvey, K. S., Copeland, J. P. 2007. Distribution and Broadscale Habitat Relations of the Wolverine in the Contiguous United States. Journal of Wildlife Management 71(7): 148-158.

Bangs, Ray. 2009. Personal communication.Haugen, A. O. 1961. Wolverine in Iowa. Journal of Mammalogy 42: 546-547.Jackson, H. T. 1922. Wolverine in Itasca County, Minnesota. Journal of Mammalogy 3:53.

Zimmermann, W. J., Biester, H. E., Schwarte, L. H., Hubbard, E. D. 1962. Trichinella spiralis in Iowa Wildlife during the Years 1953 to 1961. The Journal of Parasitology, 48:3:1, pp. 429-432.