Sasquatch Population in the Appalachians – 1600 A.D. to 2021 A.D.

I am Guy Luneau, the 58 year old (here in August 2021) retired chemical engineer from Arkansas who met Thomas Marcum for my first time ever and went into the Bell and Harlan County, Kentucky foothill forests with him on May 18-20, 2021 to search for Sasquatch evidence.  In May and June, Thomas posted the two stories I wrote, and they can be found on this website.  I was stunned to have witnessed the fifty-plus Sasquatch footprints in the mud that we found from at least 6 individual Bigfoots in two locations in just 2 days of poking around in the woods, as well as Bigfoot stick structures and sapling snap-offs that we witnessed.  Sasquatch sign was present in an astonishing abundance – much more than I had ever thought possible when I had asked him to take me on this two-day field trip.  It set my brain to work in ways that I never foresaw putting my brain to work.  Eye-opening.  Riveting.  Tapping into things that I had not seen coming my way.

To briefly recap my June 2021 population estimates for Sasquatches based on 5-mile-by-5-mile home ranges for families of four Sasquatches throughout the forested, mountainous Appalachians, I arrived at some 2,640 Sasquatches in the eastern third of Kentucky and conceivably 100,000 Sasquatches throughout the Appalachian chain of mountains and foothills.

Upon further pondering of these estimates, the thought comes to mind that if there are even one-third the number of Sasquatches that we estimated to be present in the Appalachians, there are still A LOT of Sasquatches present there – some 900 of them in eastern Kentucky and 30,000+ of them throughout the entire Appalachians.

This means that Sasquatch population steadily died off after 1600 A.D.  And the populations of every other species of animal and bird that must have forest for its adapted ways of life also died off.  Many people think that animals can “relocate” when their home-range habitat is destroyed.  While it’s true that the affected individuals do have to move, we must extend our thoughts to “Where did they move to?”  They moved onto still-existing forestland.  But that forestland was already occupied as home ranges for other Sasquatches (and other home ranges of Gray Squirrels, Red Foxes, Worm-eating Warblers, and every other species of mammal and bird that lives in such forest).  Soon after moving onto such occupied land, those refugees died.  They died, and furthermore they died brutally, due to either of two reasons: (1) they died due to starvation because the land was already occupied to its biological carrying capacity, or (2) they died due to fights to the death.

When I think about reasons for human wars throughout history, it becomes quickly apparent that “violation of sovereignty of one’s property” has played a heavy hand in causing many wars.  When the sovereignty of a human’s land, a Sasquatch’s land, a Woodrat’s land, and anything else’s land that you can think of becomes violated/intruded-upon, what happens?  Fights break out.  Wars begin.  And humans, mammals, and birds die.  It’s brutal.  But it’s true.  Nature does not tolerate overpopulation of any square foot of any habitat.  And the laws of nature demand that excess animals must die until the carrying capacity is balanced and achieved.

Fast-forward from 1600 A.D. to the early-to-mid 1900’s when forest cover in the eastern USA was at its minimum.  Probably in the 1920-1970 A.D. time frame, the Sasquatch population was at its minimum in the Appalachians – perhaps down from the original 100,000 to only a few hundred surviving Sasquatches.  The “hit” in Sasquatch population was no different than the hits that all eastern USA mammals and birds suffered.  Whitetail Deer nearly went extinct.  Wild Turkeys nearly went extinct.  Gray Squirrels, believe it or not, nearly went extinct.  There were very few acreages of forest remaining for any and all forest-adapted mammals and birds to live in.  When something doesn’t have a home that can feed, shelter, and water it, it dies.  A forest animal cannot survive on bare soil, in grassland, or in a corn field.

But thank goodness that nature is resilient.  Life finds a way.  That is, if its habitat regenerates.

Fast-forward to today – 2021 A.D.  Forest cover has regrown in a huge way in the Appalachians since the mid 1900’s.  The 70-plus-year-old trees are now mature.  The forest now looks probably very much like what it looked like in 1600 A.D.  And the populations of all the species of mammals and birds, great and small, have rebounded right in stride with the maturing of the forest.  Whitetail Deer are again abundant.  Raccoons are abundant.  Black Bears are abundant.  Scarlet Tanagers are abundant.  Even elk – in this case, with the help of humans reintroducing them to the Appalachians after they were extirpated from the eastern USA by man’s ways and means in the 1800’s and 1900’s – are now common.  Extending those thoughts to all the creatures that are adapted to eastern USA temperate forest, there is also a massive, hairy, athletic biped once again abundant – as abundant as its forested habitat allows – in the Appalachians.  And that gargantuan, barefoot beast is living its secretive, elusive-to-humans, normal lifestyle that has been etched in its DNA since time immemorial.  A true master of its environment.  A lucky human sees one only when the beast has a momentary slip-up and either (1) our headlights happen to shine right where one of them happens to be in the darkness of night, or (2) we catch a daytime sighting of one that happens to be briefly outside the cover of its forest home.

        
Guy Luneau, August 4, 2021

This post by Guy Luneau, Guy is a retired chemical engineer, outdoorsman and avid bird watcher. In fact, Guy can identify well over 600 birds by their songs alone. Guy has had a growing interest in Sasquatch for numerous years now.

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