Ken Gerhard, author of Big Bird! Modern Sightings Of Flying Monsters, sends along word of the death of Guadalupe Cantu III, a historically significant participant in Texas Big Bird matters:

I was very saddened yesterday [July 8, 2008] to learn of the passing of my friend Guadalupe Cantu III recently. Guadalupe first rose to prominence in the classic cryptozoology book, [Creatures of the Other Edge] by Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman [(NY: Warner, 1978; reprinted, NY: Anomalist, 2006], when the authors had discovered the then teenage Cantu investigating Big Bird reports in San Benito, Texas. Years later, I rediscovered him as a grown man, following his own Big Bird sighting during the 1990s. According to Guadalupe, he and his brother-in-law had spotted the man-sized bird perched on a telephone poll near Rangerville, Texas while driving their newspaper route early one morning. Cantu was an integral part of my research in the Valley and appeared with me on local news broadcasts in San Antonio, as well as making an appearance on the Birdzilla episode of “Monster Quest.” He will be dearly missed.

Guadalupe Cantu III is shown in the following video clip, briefly, beginning at the 2:50 mark: