Would YOU kill Bigfoot?

Image found here.

If you hang on to the end, I will have a special announcement.

Well, I'm back.

Hope you will pardon the absence. I've been taking time off to handle a few other things and to relax. Pursuing the latter, a mind-pop prompted me to find and watch an old movie from my childhood, The Curse of Bigfoot. You can find that movie here, but the less said about it the better. I also found old episodes of In Search Of on YouTube. As I've said before, that show, hosted by Leonard Nimoy, exerted a profound effect on me. With but interviews, Nimoy's narration, location footage, and really creepy music, In Search Of helped jump start my lifelong interest in strange mysteries and the paranormal, first as a childhood believer and now as a writer who is fascinated by the generation of these narratives, for they are indeed a form of writing, just as I am doing now with this post. I found a cheap set of In Search Of on Amazon and might have to indulge myself. But I digress...

One episode has kept me thinking for weeks because of the questions it posed. It had to do with Bigfoot. Also known as "sasquatch", this is of course the legendary bipedal creature of the North American wilds, said to be a cross between human and ape. I am about 90% convinced no such thing exists. I leave that 10% open because a) I don't know everything and b) my Grandpa once told me of friends of his who saw Bigfoot during a wave of sightings in Ohio and my Grandpa was among the most trustworthy people I've ever known. If you check the database on the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization's website, you'll see that Ohio remains something of a hotbed of sightings.

But that's mostly the extent of the evidence for Bigfoot's existence: sightings, albeit hundreds of them. There are also casts of footprints, photographs and videos of varying veracity, and stories from Native American lore. Apart from all of that, there is no tangible evidence upon which to rest a case for the mysterious creature. So if indeed Bigfoot exists, how do you get conclusive evidence?

Simple. You get a specimen for examination. Alive, preferably. Dead, just as good.

Dr. Grover Krantz was a biological anthropologist.

He was something of an anomaly in academics as he openly professed his belief that Bigfoot exists. At the same time however, he knew that pictures, particularly in the digital age, will never be enough to form conclusive evidence. Only a body or a piece of a body will be accepted.

Peter Byrne takes an opposing view.

 

Byrne was a big game hunter who converted to conservationism. He became fascinated with the idea of Bigfoot after encountering tales and footprints of its cousin, the Yeti, while in Nepal. Byrne believes that shooting a Bigfoot, even if the action at last proves its existence, is unethical. An aspect of his reasoning is that the animals, if indeed they exist, are quite rare and what if we shoot one and it is the last one left?

Krantz shrugged off that philosophy with a sort of Libertarian, "that's the free market" reasoning.
"Species go extinct all the time and there's nothing we can do about it. If it's the last one left, then so what? It makes no difference if they aren't proven."

Another counterpoint is that Bigfoot, if it exists, would perhaps be a close relative to humans. Might killing one constitute murder? How can murder be committed in the name of scientific pursuit? A Native American woman interviewed for the In Search Of episode, expressed disdain for those who call Bigfoot an "animal." She, and according to her, her tribe, view Bigfoot and a fellow human, basically 'living his best life" out in the woods and the mountains. It is not up to us to determine whether or not he exists, therefore we have no moral grounds upon which to act.

So what's the answer? Is killing a living thing in order to prove its existence right or wrong?

Yes, I sense the philosophical absurdity in the question, but I still find it intellectually stimulating.

Immanuel Kant formulated a philosophical concept called "the categorical imperative." This is meant as a tool by which people may decide their actions. In a categorical imperative, there is an action which must be undertaken and it is justified by the end itself. It would seem the highest imperative of all would be the preservation of life. Obviously humans have all matter of exceptions to this, not the least of which is killing to eat, but it would seem in this case that taking a life in order to prove a point is not ethical. Kant himself opposed cruelty to animals. He believed that such actions ultimately lead to a deadening of one's sense of compassion and that cannot help but find its way into interactions with fellow human beings. Thus, kindness to animals is an imperative.

There is another way to look at this however. Say a Bigfoot is killed, the body analyzed and found to indeed be a close relative of humanity, and thus proven to science. If that happens, we could take legislative action (presuming it would not fall victim to the current hack and slash of environmental deregulation) to protect and preserve the remaining members of the species. This might be, from a utilitarian standpoint, a case of "doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people." Or sasquatches. As the aforementioned Leonard Nimoy once said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

What's the solution? I don't know. I lean towards a "no kill" approach as that tends to be my nature these days. The writer in me also feels ambivalence towards proving Bigfoot's existence. For if the creature would be dragged from the shadows, it would lose its mystery and then ultimately its narrative appeal for me.

Let me repeat that this is essentially an academic discussion. I don't believe there is such a creature so it's a waste of time to try to go kill something that doesn't exist.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

I am very happy to report that I am working once more with my old writing partner, George DeRosa. We will soon be releasing a brief novelette about a reality TV show that is hunting Bigfoot. Drama, suspense, action, hilarity, and stupidity will ensue. It will be called The Randy Bigfoot and more details to come.

As an addendum, writer Margaret Atwood once wrote a poem about Bigfoot. 

As another addendum, here is the full In Search Of episode I referenced:




Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets