Bigfoot (and bears) coming to your local conference center
Bad news for Bigfoot aficionados, published just before a Bigfoot conference. What could go wrong?
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Bigfoot fans will be congregating this weekend in Longview, Washington for sQuatch Fest 2024, featuring a super diverse group of older, bearded white guy speakers such as Jeff Meldrum and Cliff Barackman. As it’s not far from my neck of the Oregon wilderness, I nearly went; but I have to wash my hair that weekend. (Seriously though, I wanted to go, but I have a legit conflict.)
The twist is that this year’s Fest will come right on the heels of the publication of “Bigfoot: If it's there, could it be a bear?” in the Journal of Zoology. This peer reviewed article finds that the more bears there are in an area, the higher the number of sasquatch reports:
Sasquatch sightings were statistically significantly associated with bear populations such that, on the average, every 1000 bear increase in the bear population is associated with a 4% increase in sasquatch sightings. Thus, as black bear populations increase, sasquatch sightings are expected to increase.
How will the diverse cast of older bearded white guys handle this? —as it’s a certainty some questioner will bring it up. They will handle it in two ways: