The Malaya Mail is reporting the logical next step in the unfolding “Bigfoot” story in Malaysia. Local scientists want to beat all the promised international media and expeditions to the punch.

What will the locals discover their unknown hairy hominoids actually look like? And how do these cryptids compare to other hairy hominoids seen in the region, as shown in The Field Guide to Bigfoot?

“Local experts want priority in the hunt,” proclaims today’s headline.

The Kuala Lumpur newspaper on January 23, 2006, notes:

Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Animal Science Department head Professor Dr Azahar Kassim said, with numerous Bigfoot sightings reported and physical evidence like footprints and hair samples, it was high time Johor launched a full-scale search for the creature.

“I personally would like to join the expedition. I am sure many other experts in the country are looking forward to it, too, so I hope the Johor Government and other authorities go ahead with it,” said Dr. Azahar.

Yes, I would enjoy being on that expedition too. But short of that, I hope the Malaysians utilize the id-kit availability within my forthcoming new The Field Guide to Bigfoot, to be published this spring by Anomalist Books. The old edition’s drawing were employed in Cameroon and Indonesia to narrow down what locals were seeing, and such a tool certainly would be good to zero in on the descriptions of what the Malaysians feel their “Bigfoot” looks like.

A local expedition is a fantastic idea. They would have the liberty to perhaps search longer for the important evidence. And their discoveries could be earthshaking. A veterinarian by profession, Azahar is quoted today as saying an unknown hominoid DNA “find would revolutionize the scientific community’s understanding of human existence in the world.”

I always encourage locals to do as much of their own investigations as possible, because of specific regional knowledge of their own animals, folklore, and language. The eventual goal of cryptozoological inquiry is to have well-respected and established local field operatives conducting round-the-year investigations. Then this network of worldwide individuals can cooperate and collaborate with other zoologists and anthropologists, as well as supportive credible specialists in cryptozoology, those few of us known as “cryptozoologists.” The advent of the internet and emails has made such inquiries not the hope of the future, but the rather common standard practice of today.

I congratulate those in Malaysia who are organizing a serious search and collection of data on their local reports.