I have spent most of my adult life as a hunter, fisherman, naturalist, and biology teacher. I am familiar with mammals both behaviorally and anatomically from rigorous study and practical field experience.
I have always felt that the Patterson film is indisputable evidence of a "bigfoot" type of hominid in North America. Watching the film carefully, one can see ripples in the skin/fur and underlying muscles that can only be from an actual creature, not a human in an animal suit. Others have measured points of articulation on the creature and found that it would be impossible for the creature in the film to be a human. The natural gait and coordinated movements of the creature are equally compelling, not the least of which is the ability of the creature to negotiate terrain scattered with large logs, some of which it must nimbly step over, even while looking at a backward angle.
There have certainly been many hoaxes concerning bigfoot, which have served to confuse further the scanty evidence of this elusive creature. However, there are a truckload of very compelling eyewitness accounts from too many trustworthy sources to all be merely hoaxes. There are numerous areas where tracks have been investigated and reported as undoubtedly genuine by the most educated and experienced professionals.
It is not at all inconceivable that a dozen or so small and relatively separate populations of a large hominid, feeding either exclusively on plant vegetation much as gorillas do, or feeding on a mixed diet of opportunity including vegetable and animal matter more like chimpanzees, could exist in the less densely populated areas of the North American continent. We know nothing as yet about the social structure such a population might have, except that individuals would at times be traveling alone during daylight hours, according to most of the eyewitness reports. Such small populations of possibly a dozen or less individuals ranging over hundreds of square miles of wilderness could easily remain hidden from human discovery, especially if they were nocturnal, individually dispersed for much of the year, nomadic in nature, and highly intelligent.
Thousands of large mammals die in the wilderness every year with no human ever seeing or knowing about their remains. It is not unthinkable that a handful of large hominids could meet a similar end each year without discovery, especially considering the apparently reclusive nature of this creature.
The scientific community is often slow and reluctant to embrace new species and populations, especially of organisms that have not been known to exist previously. This is as it should be; science requires compelling and verifiable evidence to reach conclusions. There are many examples of organism populations (some of large mammals) existing for years in remote areas of the world in the total ignorance of science, until an individual organism was either killed or captured. Until a bigfoot is captured alive or found dead and can be physically verified by science, there will always be a debate about this creature.
