In Craig Woolheater’s blog , he quotes John Green as supporting the killing of Sasquatch, cutting up their bodies, and collecting many to do the dissections he feels are needed. He ends with this statement:
So if your top priority is to make sure that no Sasquatch is killed, your most logical course is to do what over the years quite a few like-minded people have already done—drop the whole thing and hope, although of course it won’t happen, that everyone else will do the same.
To John Green’s continued support of actively hunting down Bigfoot to ready them for the autopsy table and if you don’t think that way, get out, well, I must reply to my old friend.
Frankly, proving the reality of Bigfoot is not a black and white issue where if you don’t “believe” in killing them you should leave the field. That is much too limiting and unrealistic in a modern world in which humane capture, captivity, and probable release techniques exist.
The first large unknown hairy hominoid captured will live its life in captivity, no doubt, and there it may be examined internally. MRIs, CAT scans, EKGs, and a whole battery of medical and other procedures may be used to examine it.
It is doubtful the first one will be returned to the wild, so, of course, it will die someday within the reach of future scientific examinations. Then it will be dissected, just as newly discovered animals, including various kinds of humans, have been for further study. But in the meantime, why not study the living animal’s captive and adaptive behaviors?
The days of Queen Victoria, when only killing an animal would establish it was real and not folklore, are, indeed, long gone.
Continuing to place the “kill vs no kill” debate into a political debate of “love it or leave it” is not helpful.
If you don’t wish to kill Bigfoot but are interested in studying them and proving they exist, please understand that John Green’s black and white stance is not universal. Most of us, whether Russians, French, Canadians, or Americans, as I have outlined in Bigfoot! and The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, can stand on that gray area of using telebiology, not kill Sasquatch, and yet, happily, remain in the quest. You also can stay in the field, no matter on which side of the debate you land. There is always a middle ground, too.
A couple replies to the above…
The story about the buried Bigfoot bodies comes via a caller to Coast to Coast AM when Robert Morgan was on the program. They supposedly were hidden in Texas and a map was involved, promised to Morgan. This completely fell apart. No map. No bodies. Probable hoax.
One of the problems with getting into the “kill vs no kill” debate is that it quickly becomes emotional, as per cryptohunter65′s comment above.
First off, no one is attacking John Green, who is a personal friend of mine, but only his ideas.
Secondly, if one is going to ask for the “facts to be checked,” they should do the same. Yes, John has been around a long time, but he is not the author of the first books on Bigfoot or the reason I heard about Bigfoot. Ivan T. Sanderson’s articles and books, written in 1958-1961, would have that honor. John’s booklets (which he thought of as monographs) on Sasquatch he personally published later, and his opus from the publisher Hancock House appeared in 1978.
Yes, John has earned a place of respect, and he does get it. That’s no reason to make this into a shouting match about this concept of his that ends with yet another call for people to leave the field (or join PETA) if they don’t follow the same point of view as John. If one wants to look at this scientifically, not emotionally, it then makes no sense to throw people overboard because they don’t have your same belief system.