TO SEE JOHN BINDERNAGEL'S NEW WEB SITE GO TO http://www.bigfootbiologist.org
Welcome to the website of John Bindernagel
I am a wildlife biologist who is seriously studying the sasquatch (bigfoot) in North America. My interest in this animal began in 1963 when I was a third year student in wildlife management at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. My field work began in 1975 when our family moved to British Columbia, partly in order for me to begin field work on this species. In 1988, my wife and I found several sasquatch tracks in good condition in the mountains not far from our home on Vancouver Island. Plaster casts which we made from these tracks provide the only tangible evidence I have for the existence of the sasquatch. But wildlife biologists regularly depend on tracks and other wildlife sign as evidence for the presence of bears, deer, wolves, and other mammals. We recognize that tracks constitute more reliable and persistent evidence of a mammal species than a fleeting glimpse of the animal itself. Although I now have no doubt regarding the existence of the sasquatch, this was not always the case. However now that I am satisfied that the sasquatch is a real animal, subject to study and examination like any other large mammal, I am much more concerned with addressing ecological questions such as how it overwinters in the colder regions of North America, than with dwelling on the controversy of whether it does or does not exist. I remain aware, however, that many people are not aware of the large volume of information that exists about this species and I understand why others are less ready than I am to treat it as a real animal. For this reason I began writing a book on the sasquatch in 1996. The book is entitled:
NORTH
AMERICA'S GREAT APE: the SASQUATCH
A wildlife biologist looks at the continent's most misunderstood large mammal
It has just been published by Beachcomber Books and is now
available from the publisher. Orders may be placed by mail, e-mail, or by phone
through a toll-free order line. The price is U.S.$ 25.00 postpaid. Payment can
be made by money order, VISA, Mastercard, or through PayPal (button below).
ISBN 0-9682887-0-7
270 pages including 9 appendixes, 5 tables, 560 supporting endnotes, and a
glossary.
24 pages of illustrations including 27 photographs and 10 drawings.
5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, perfect bound.
Beachcomber Books
PO Box 3286
Courtenay, BC
CANADA V9N 5N4
beachcom@island.net
Toll Free Order Number: 1-800-487-1494
To purchase using PayPal, click on the button below:
About sasquatch tracks:
The upper cast is that of a track made by my size 11 foot (11 inches long). The lower image is a plaster cast of 15 inch-long sasquatch track found in October, 1988 near Lake Helen Mackenzie on central Vancouver Island, British Columbia by my wife and I.
As many visitors to this site may already know, a 15 inch-long sasquatch track is slightly smaller than average. John Green's files indicate that the average length of the several hundred tracks measured and reported over the years from various parts of North America is 16 inches.
As Grover Krantz points out in his book, Big Footprints, sasquatch tracks are not simply scaled-up human tracks--they have different proportions and are usually some 30 per cent wider than human tracks of the same length. Unfortunately there are very few human tracks even 15 inches long (size 20) for comparison.
Visitors to this site are invited to contribute sasquatch reports to me at (250) 338-8482 or by e-mail at johnb@island.net. Contributors names will be gladly be held in confidence.
A SUMMARY OF
NORTH AMERICA'S GREAT APE: the SASQUATCH
A wildlife
biologist looks at the continent's
most misunderstood large mammal
In the introductory chapters of the book I have briefly addressed some of the problems of belief and knowledge to help us understand the widespread resistance to accepting the sasquatch as a real animal. I continued on to challenge two commonly held ideas that sasquatch sightings can be accounted for by (1) hoaxes, or (2) misidentified bears. My main goal in the book is to provide readers with a more complete picture of sasquatch appearance, anatomy, food habits, and ecology based on existing, but not readily available, reports. Most of the book is devoted to bringing us up to date on what is "known," or at least reported, for the sasquatch regarding its appearance, anatomical details, gait, sign, food habits, and behavior. The last few chapters develop the hypothesis, first suggested by the appearance and anatomy reported for the animal, that the sasquatch is a great ape, similar in many ways to the great apes of Africa (chimpanzees and gorillas) and Asia (orangutans). The most significant differences from these better-known great apes are, of course, (1) the habitual bipedal (two-footed) gait of the sasquatch, compared with the normal quadrupedal (four-footed) gait of other apes, and, (2) the humanlike foot of the sasquatch in which all five toes are aligned alongside each other rather than having an opposable big-toe as in the more arboreal African and Asian apes.
It should be acknowledged that author John Green has been referring to the sasquatch as an ape since the 1960s, based on the many descriptions of "gorillalike", and "apelike" animals he has accumulated (see his book: The Apes Among Us). And Grover Krantz (in his book Big Footprints) discusses details of ape anatomy which help us understand several details of reported sasquatch anatomy. In my own case it was the writing of these two men and the presentatons of Dr. Henner Fahrenbach, Beaverton, Oregon, and Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Idaho State University, at the 1996 Sasquatch Forum held in Harrison Hot Springs, B. C., that provided the impetus for following up this avenue of research. My studies led me into what I consider the most interesting aspect of sasquatch biology-- its behavior, and especially its behavior in reponse to human presence.
For years we have had reports of truly bizarre behavior being attributed to sasquatches. This has ranged from relatively benign responses to humans, such as the throwing of small stones, to more aggressive behavior in the form of shaking vehicles, slapping and shoving dwellings, throwing large rocks and chunks of wood, and chasing people. Loud, resonant calls and overwhelming (even "eye-watering") odor has also been reported.
To find other examples of this behavior in the animal world, we must go to
the primates: monkeys, apes, and humans. In the writing of Jane Goodall and her
co-workers and colleagues (The Chimpanzees of Gombe) we find numerous examples
of chimpanzees throwing rocks both large and small. From Dian Fossey (Gorillas
in the Mist) we learn that gorillas occasionally produce a "gagging"
odor. From John MacKinnon (In Search of the Red Ape) and Birute Galdikas
(Reflections of Eden) we learn of orangutans dropping branches on people and
pushing snags toward them. And from George Schaller (The Mountain Gorilla) we
learn about primate displays in which apes and humans release tension by
throwing things, beating on things, stamping their feet, etc. Essentially all
the remarkable behavior we have heard about in sasquatches is present in the
better-studied great apes of Africa and Asia. But whereas we accept the reports
made by well-known primatologists concerning animals in exotic places, we have
been much more reluctant to accept reports of an apelike animal which
occasionally behaves in a similar way closer to home. Readers with an open mind
willing to accompany me as I review the highlights of some 150 sasquatch
reports and compare them with similar reports from Africa and Asia, may
conclude, as I have, that the sasquatch is indeed North America's great ape.
Praise for the Book
"In the past thirty years numerous books have been published about reported observations of giant, hairy bipeds in the forests of North America, but none by a scientist qualified to assess whether what the witnesses described added up to a believable animal. John Bindernagel, with a Ph.D. in wildlife biology and extensive field experience in more than one part of the world, has now supplied that need. North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch could prove to be the most important book yet written on this fascinating subject."
John Green, author, The
Sasquatch File, On the Track of the Sasquatch, Year of the
Sasquatch, and Sasquatch: the Apes Among us
[The book is] "a fine summary of available information, neatly arranged with a lot of insight and sensible deductions."
Dr. George Schaller,
author, Year of the Gorilla The Mountain Gorilla: ecology and behavior
"The book lays out the evidence in just the way a scientifically minded reader would want to see it. It uses relevant data for comparisons with the Great Apes in a wholly accurate way. The result is that the readers are challenged by the many points of similarity between sasquatch anatomy and behaviour [and that of the Great Apes]."
Dr. Vernon Reynolds,
Institute of Biological Anthropology, Oxford University, author, The Apes:
the gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan and gibbon
"North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch is complete, thorough and interesting. The insights from a wildlife biologist's point of view are superb. I recommend this book for anyone interested in thinking about the fact that all of the mysteries of Nature have not been solved....Taking the 'logical approach' of a wildlife biologist, Bindernagel sees his book as groundbreaking. I would have to agree....I am struck by Bindernagel's down-to-earth and welcome insights."
Loren Coleman, author, Mysterious
America, co-author Creatures of the Outer Edge, in the Maine
Sunday Telegram
"Now comes North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch, by Dr. John A. Bindernagel, a registered professional biologist in British Columbia, holder of a hard-earned University of Wisconsin Ph.D., and, most importantly in my opinion, a man with over 3 decades of actual field experience.... It's a trade paper back of some 270 well-written and effectively illustrated pages and well worth the price...
George Early, book reviewer
and member of the Western Bigfoot Society, in The Gate
Jane Goodall and John Bindernagel in Kitchener, Ontario in 1998
I first met Jane Goodall at the Serengeti Research Institute in 1974. She
was visiting SRI from her chimpanzee study area at Gombe Stream and I was
working as a United Nations wildlife biologist in the Serengeti region at the
time. In my book, North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch, I
drew some parallels between reported sasquatch behavior and chimpanzee behavior
as described by Jane Goodall and others. When I sent a review copy of the book
to Jane for her comments, she graciously replied:
"I find it exciting that, finally, a book has been written that accepts (rather than trying to prove) the existence of the Sasquatch and carefully describes the behavioral characteristics that have been recorded. This book will interest anyone who is fascinated, as I am, by one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the natural world. It is a great addition to the Sasquatch/Yeti/BigFoot/Wild Man library."
In the fall of 1998, I met Jane again in Kitchener, Ontario where she was
lecturing. In this photograph she is holding a plaster cast of a sasquatch
track made by my wife and I on Vancouver Island, BC. (I am holding a well-worn
copy of my book.)
Are sasquatches misidentified bears?
The most common explanation for sasquatch "sightings" that I encounter are misidentified bears. This is particularly true among my wildlife biologist colleagues.
I acknowledge that we have been strongly conditioned to believe that the only large, dark-colored mammals which stand on two legs and which are acknowledged to occur in North America are bears. Most of our standard mammal field guides confirm this with a drawing of a bear on its hind legs. I suggest that these field guides hold a great deal of authority and I for one, am not in the habit of disputing them. (As a keen birder when I see a bird that I can't identify with the aid of my field guide, I always assume that the fault is mine, not that the book's.) But when someone gets a good look at a sasquatch they know that they have seen something other than a bear on its hind legs.
I think one of the larger contributions of my book is to provide field guide-type illustrations of a sasquatch and compare them with similar drawings of a black bear.
In front view, note that a bear has tapered, sloping shoulders and short hind legs. Ears are usually visible. A sasquatch, on the other hand, has prominent, squarish shoulders (like those of a human,) a short, thick neck, and arms which are proportionately longer than those of a human. Ears are not usually seen.
In profile a bear has a prominent snout whereas
a sasquatch has a flat face.