It's open season on Bigfoot!
It's open season on Bigfoot!
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- It's open season on Bigfoot! The population of the once-rare creatures has exploded so spectacularly in recent years that state officials in Tennessee have quietly authorized hunters to shoot them!
"We have to do something to trim their numbers," confirms a Department of Fish and Wildlife official who asked not to be identified by name. "If we don't, they'll overrun the forest and start encroaching on inhabited areas.
"Already, these creatures have started to become pests in some rural parts of the state, raiding garbage bins, farmers' cornfields and vegetable gardens."
The season is set to begin June 15 and run to September 15, with hunting limited to the hours of 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. The maximum number of kills per season is three for each hunter.
And trigger-happy hunters can't wait to step up the challenge, eager to bag their first Bigfoot and take home an impressive trophy to show off to pals.
"To hunt an animal most people have never seen and some don't even believe in would be an incredible experience," enthuses 38-year Sam Custler of Knoxville, who plans to take his two teenage sons on a Bigfoot hunt.
"You're talking about a critter that's smarter than a bear and probably even a gorilla.
"It'll take a lot of skill and patience to track it down.
"A Bigfoot head mounted over our fireplace and a Bigfoot rug on the floor of our den would be something our whole family would take pride in."
According to cryptozoologists, who study creatures whose existence has not been substantiated, it is estimated that in the 1930s there were only 45 Bigfoots throughout North America, and they were probably one of the most endangered species in the world.
But in the late '70s, for reasons unknown, the crea- tures began breeding like jackrabbits, particularly in Tennessee's Blue Ridge Mountains.
"Hikers in the backwoods would often come across Bigfoot couples going at it like teenagers on a lover's lane," notes a leading researcher.
Thanks to the Bigfoot baby boom, experts believe the creatures' population has soared to 960 in Tennessee alone -- and it's still growing fast.
And officials are claiming that's what turned Bigfoot from a rare natural treasure into a nuisance.
So, quietly informing hunters through private organizations, authorities have spread the word that a decades-long, unspoken ban on shooting the lumbering, 7-foot-plus man-beasts has been lifted.
Despite efforts to keep the hunting secret, animal-rights activists have gotten wind of the program and are crying foul.
"We oppose all hunting, but the mass slaughter of a gentle and intelligent creature like Bigfoot is obscene," says a spokesperson for the Southeastern Association for the Preservation of Wildlife.
-- By MIKE FOSTER
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/suspects/suspects.cfm?instanceid=57740
