Stalking Sasquatch
The Audubon Society of Portland offers many summer camps that take kids into the woods to learn about nature by tracking insects, amphibians, wildflowers or birds.But the kids in one Audubon camp this summer might have a tough time finding a specimen to observe. They'll be studying a far more elusive creature: the legendary Bigfoot.
Most scientists doubt that the beast exists, but looking for the apelike creature also known as a sasquatch is a good way to get kids interested in science, said Steve Robertson, education director for the Audubon Society of Portland.
Some educators praise that approach, but others say studying a mythical creature isn't the best way to teach science.
"We don't want to give people the wrong idea, that the Audubon Society believes there's a sasquatch," Robertson said. "The idea is to use the Bigfoot as a vehicle to increase children's wilderness awareness skills, to get them to carefully interpret the animal signs they encounter," he said.
During a weeklong camp called "Bigfoot: Fact or Fiction" that begins Aug. 21, students will look for signs of the creature in the foothills of Mount Hood in Oregon and Mount St. Helens in Washington. The fifth- through eighth-grade students will look for such signs as hair, scat or broken branches and record them.
"We aren't expecting to run into a sasquatch, but we'll run into a lot of other animal signs," Robertson said.
If his students are lucky enough to find a sasquatch footprint, they'll make a plaster of Paris mold of it. If they encounter a Bigfoot, they'll have a video camera to capture it on film.
"We're going to take a real nonbiased look at this, just listen to people, evaluate evidence as it is presented, and do a minisearch ourselves," Robertson said. "We'll talk about what qualifies as science and what doesn't."
Robertson said the class will consider eyewitness accounts, such as a recent one by a Grants Pass psychologist who reported seeing a Bigfoot while hiking with his family at Oregon Caves National Monument in Southern Oregon.
"What value does an eyewitness have?" Robertson asked. "Science says not much, but when you have a lot of eyewitness accounts, it's something that should be considered."
But many such accounts are simply mistaken identity, said Cliff Crook, who directs Bigfoot Central in Bothell, Wash. The Bigfoot tracker said he's received 26 reports of sightings this year, but typically 90 percent of eyewitness reports are by people who mistake a stump or shadow for the creature.
A small percentage actually provide encouraging leads, he said. Crook recently checked on a report on the Lower Hoh Indian Reservation in Washington and found footprints that he thinks are authentic and hair he plans to have tested.
Still, Bigfoot research may not be the best way to introduce kids to science, said Grover Krantz, even though he spent much of his anthropology career studying Bigfoot and is convinced that it exists. "There's a big snag in it: Scientists reject the idea," said Krantz, who retired last year after 31 years at Washington State University.
Krantz has written two books about sasquatch. He's gathered enough evidence to think that perhaps 2,000 such creatures wander the wild in the Northwest, he said, but proof requires a body.
"There's an awful lot of lunatic fringe out there looking for Bigfoot," Krantz said. "Their science is rotten."
But he acknowledged that Bigfoot might inspire kids to study science.
The Bigfoot class is a wonderful idea, said Robin Wright, an associate professor of zoology at the University of Washington, who also works to bring science education to elementary and high school classrooms. Although the scientific consensus is that Bigfoot doesn't exist, that gives the class an opportunity to talk about standards of research and evidence.
"A lot of times you need a hook, something that's going to answer the question, 'Why should I be interested?' You use Bigfoot, then the hook is there," Wright said.
Bigfoot has an edge when it comes to keeping youngsters alert in the forest, Robertson said. "Picture going out looking for a black-capped chickadee in the afternoon; then picture going out in the woods in the dark at 10 o'clock at night looking for sasquatch. You're going to be as aware as you've ever been."
• Story originally published by •
The Oregonian / OR | By Erin Middlewood - July 19 2000
