Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University on relict hominoids - Nicola Valley Bigfoot Conference

Introduction Dr Jeff Meldrum and I'm a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University in Pocatello Idaho what brings you all the way out to little old Merit British Columbia well uh Sheldon invited me to come up this is the the second year that he's organized a conference of this sort these have become quite popular and WID spread throughout the states and and growing here in Canada it would seem to and it's uh uh you know it's always just a great opportunity to um network with people to share stories and experiences as an educator for me it's it's an opportunity for academic Outreach one of my goals you know is to make sure not make sure but one of my goals is to uh uh encourage objectivity uh in the investigation of this mystery that it be taken seriously that the evidence be analyzed critically but but scientifically and uh you know it's it's one of the most fascinating Mysteries questions of natural history that we have today um and before we get into the meats and Bones of things um just for a Bio bit of context what's your bread and butter on your day-to-day uh job at Idaho State sure well at Idaho State University I teach human gross anatomy in the Allied Health Professions that we have have and I do research into the evolution of human bipedalism which is simply um trying to understand the adaptations the emergence the timing and pattern of the emergence of the adaptations that we have for walking on two feet and therefore the um the uh correlation with the question of another bipedal primate potentially Sasquatch what an interesting natural experiment comparison and contrast to consider these two upright walking primates how did you get into Sasquatch research well it began long ago when I was a a lad of about 10 years of age Roger Patterson who captured this famous and notorious piece of film footage in Northern California in 1967 had um begun showing it to the public and one of the first first public venues in the States was Spokane Washington where I happened to live so I saw that film when I was about 10 years old sixth grade fascinated by it and uh was very intrigued by the whole phenomenon uh one thing led to another that that interest eventually became rather latent but certainly um uh if not influenced it certainly was U there uh in my interests in uh evolution in Zoology and uh biomechanics eventually and so forth so I ended up here as a as a professor and then the opportunity uh just simply uh came across my path to uh evaluate some photographic evidence and then to actually see some fresh footprints in the ground uh in Southeastern Washington outside of w Walla mhm uh it was an exceptional case of uh of these uh inexplicable otherwise 15inch Footprints and clear in the mud very fresh and being an expert in the anatomy associated with bipedalism especially the feet and knowing tracks of humans modern humans as well as fossil examples of homin and Footprints and nonhuman primates uh I was in a really good position I think to evaluate these and the hook was set and so now now some 28 years later I have well over 300 footprint casts in my laboratory that are attributed not only to Sasquatch but to other potential Relic homono branches of this very bushy family tree that we are we are a part of that we're becoming more aware of the diversity so you know I'm often asked what about the Abominable Snowman the yeti is that the same as Sasquatch no it's not they have distinctive footprints that appear appear to be much more aplike with a Divergent big toe the there's a Russian Almas which may be a relic neander toall population in Southeast Asia there are these little people the diminutive Hobbits uh that go by various names in various countries but they may be Relic australopithecines these are you know persistent branches on this bushy tree that have survived into the present alongside of us so it's science is actually it's quite fascinating I mean it's as with the advantage of of a gray beard meaning lots of years of experience um I I can see how science is finally kind of catching up to this mystery um where we have a context from which to consider the possible existence not only of Sasquatch but of other Relic species around the world um which you know in my mind makes the whole problem opposition to Sasquatch less less enigmatic less inexplicable it's one of several branches that have just um uh avoided recognition by the scientific community and on that note where would you say Academia is with these offshoot Academia humanoid branches it's the the notion that there could be such Relic humanoids is is gaining some traction amongst the scientific Community there there's a long shadow that's cast by the prevailing Paradigm of the ' 50s and 60s that there could be only one bipedal hominin in that Niche you know this uh this kind of ecology concept of one Niche one species well now we know that there are different ways to be a bipedal hominin and that there were multiple species and so uh it wasn't too long ago that the um Most Popular Science magazine in Great Britain had a feature article on what were the top 10 questions facing researchers of human evolution today and I was quite gratified to see number nine read our other homins alive today acknowledging that that this is a real possibility and that we should be looking at it um so the uh uh science is coming around but but as you know as as Thomas who wrote uh scientific revolutions who coined the notion of a paradigm shift noted it sometimes takes a whole generation to pass away in order for a novel concept to take root and I think we're witnessing that the the old idea what was called the single species hypothesis that we were the only ones has passed away but the influence of that generation persists and the upcoming generation that may have more interest more curiosity about this question have to kind of B their times and uh time until The Gatekeepers have literally passed away and cleared the field for a more um uh objective consideration of a fascinating scientific question so to my understanding of what you've just said and a lot of what I've heard leading up How many are there to covering this um a lot of people are saying that these are offshoot branches that just survived um how do you think these first of all how many do you think there are sure well I think that uh given the the scarcity of evidence the infrequency with which people have encounters these are very rare animals and and that fits with uh sort of the concept of a large body primate um the the typical natural history of such a species if we were you know to draw analogy to gorillas or chimps or rangs these are long lived infrequently reproducing slowly developing um uh animals uh the populations of which have very low numbers compared to you know things like ulet hoofed animals or rodents you know and so um just kind of a rule of thumb just to for for the sake of conversation it's been suggested for every 200 black black bear there may be one Sasquatch so in here in BC there's about 110,000 black bear so you know do the math it would be uh you know 1,100 to 550 thereabouts if you span 100 to 200 black bear so um not that many I mean BC offers the if the population of black bear is in the indication of the potential habitat for another large omnivore then it it has lots and lots of uh potential potential across the entire United States again if you look at the or United States and Canada across North America if you look at the population numbers of bear there's probably a couple of thousand Sasquatch distributed across the entire continent so you know most encounters with Sasquatch happen purely by chance which makes it very challenging then for someone like me who intentionally hopes to go out in the field and collect information collect data the chances are really low and I have to rely on and that's another reason for coming to these type of events I rely on the citizen science uh the citizen scientists the amateurs the the avocational Bigfoot enthusiasts who go out and may collect data may find or or even indirectly bump into people uh interview Witnesses and collect that information and make it available and um how do you think these offshoots how do you think they survived for so long yeah well um you know all How do they survive species are adapted to their particular Niche so when we look at a bushy tree yes there's there is extinction along the way but there are branches that persist because they are adapted to the habitat in which they live in when I look one of the things I'll talk about u in some of my presentations is uh you know what is the evidence that we have that the creature described as Sasquatch is well adapted to its habitat and when we go through things like uh you know social structure diet Locomotion Etc we find that there's a creature that that is absolutely reasonable and logical and coherent in its expressed adaptations both anatomy and beh and described behavior for a large body primate adapted to life in a temperate forest and so given their Rarity given their solidarity given their reclusiveness you know the avoiding human contact UM for the most part I mean obviously there's some contact but as I said it's usually serendipitous but an intelligent animal may also be rather curious and so a campsite a cabin human activities May draw it in whether it's the sights or the sounds or the smells of cooking food and that may lead to encounters and contacts but otherwise the encounters are very very rare and infrequent have you had any yourself I caught a glimpse of something was actually here in Canada I was in Alberta at the invitation of an investigator uh in that Province and we were up on the Rockies to the west of Calgary and uh something had we we had been finding sign in the form of footprints we heard some vocalization something approached Camp one night we would usually routinely stay up very late in hopes of uh attracting something to our campfire something did something making audible vocalizations that were kind of whistling kind of birdlike but then with accompanied by the sound of crashing br and breaking branches that uh suggested a bull moose rather than a bird and then I caught a glimpse something that broke from the Shadows went across the road that we were we were camped at the end of the road at a burned uh uh Terminus of the road and uh it broke from the Shadows across the road to the forest line on the other side I I wouldn't have seen it had I not had night vision to uh detect it in the Darkness uh it it was uh uh you know marginal um and I don't mean to equivocate overly equivocate but I I would prefer to have a much better visual encounter one of those eye to eye contacts with it but but yeah I think I did catch a glimpse of something we we found sign we found tracks that it apparently had left as it receded or retreated from our camp site uh and uh yeah I found footprints in the field sometimes in remote places on at least half a dozen occasions heard multiple um um vocalizations had things coming to camp and rifle through backpacks and whatnot uh had one walk right alongside my tent under the cover of the fog and see the fingers press through the through the rainfly um so I'm convinced it's not a matter of belief it's I'm convinced by the evidence and the experiences that I've had first of all what's the what the Terminology proper terminology for these like Sasquatch Yeti right well the in the states the the term that caught on in the public mind was Bigfoot basically just a description of these large foot Impressions Footprints um in Canada Sasquatch has been more popular a term that was coined by JW Burns who was a a teacher and a writer on uh uh with the chahalis Indians uh First Nations and um there are numerous other terms through history you know back east in the South booger Mountain devil um you know other various uh uh W terms to that kind of can the monstrosity of it meaning in the old term the Marvel The Singularity the unusual anomalous nature of the creature um then there are other terms worldwide you mentioned Yeti Yeti is a is a native term that describes a species in the Himalayas that I don't think he's equivalent to sasquash another one of these Relic exactly well like you said right like um the they're obviously different because of their foot size so but if you were to make a catch all term for just these Global larger hairy well the ter exactly the term the term that I apply is a term which I've resurrected that was first that was first coined by a Russian cultural Anthropologist who was fascinated by the the notion of wild men and he called them Relic hominoids so Relic with a t is the term that was is pref referred in biological usage that describes a population or species that was once more EXT uh extensive more wide spread that is now very restricted in distribution and numbers hominoid means human shaped or homono is also the short hand for a member of the super family homonoia you know waxing a little technical here but the point being that um that in a more precise tax IC or classification sense it's a member of the family of primates that includes us and the and the Apes the tailess monkeys so it certainly would Nest within that whether it's more humanlike or more apik that remains to be determined uh what do you think the future of relet hominoid uh research will be both in Academia and uh The future enthusiasts well uh you know it's always it's a little always little dodgy as I have um the prospect of retirement looming on the horizon you know you're always looking for who are the contenders in the field The Pretenders to replace me in in my more open engagement with this topic I have uh I do interact I mean it's not like I'm a singular uh personality uh I interact with lots of academics and professionals often behind the scenes few of them are are as open about their interests but uh I think this is gaining traction that uh young academics are curious they're interested they're not indoctrinated by the Dogma that there can be only one homin species on the on the planet at a time they they recognize the growing homin fossil record and its diversity the growing AP fossil record you know we now recognize more than 60 species of extinct ape that uh once lived on this planet so even our Apes of today the the gorillas The Chimps the orangs are themselves relied hominoids in that they were want once much more widespread and greater in numbers and are tremendously reduced and uh and if not endangered like the mountain gorilla um so I think U I think think that it will uh more and more be recognized that this is a very legitimate question of uh of anthropology and and U you know it's just a matter of time I think until uh some physical remains are U discovered or uh as is more likely the case um DNA analysis will eventually reveal a novel sequence or a novel chromosomal rearrangement that uh that uh attests to the existence of an as yet unrecognized primate species do you think we'll see uh any breakthroughs or solid like this The Sentry there's something actually going on here within uh the Sentry oh definitely I think I think there there there are two significant lines of research that are just on the cusp of kind of taking us to the next level you know beyond the boot leather the the trail cameras the thermal imagers and so forth and one of those is um environmental DNA that allows us to collect DNA samples uh with the net cast much more broadly in a given geographical area as we look at the traces of DNA that are left by all of the occupants of a region uh the other is the advances in in uh aerial survey techniques using using drones and using um not only um more penetrating thermal imaging I don't think that there's going to be military grade thermal images which can penetrate the canopy made available to the public in my lifetime I think that's a ways off but improvements are being made in Liar for example that is that are capable uh that is a method that is capable of penetrating the canopy and the resolution is improving to the point that it won't be too long before we can take we can fly over take images and pick out individual bear or deer or elk or a squirrel on a tree branch and so maybe also a Sasquatch so more extensive aerial survey May provide the way the means by which to identify U an unknown species I Timeframe mean there's no way to know but if you had to do a time frame guess when do you think uh we'd be seeing this how many years from well the technicians at at companies that that uh uh use lar have told me that within just a matter of years will'll be able to resolve individual animals under the forest canopy with light our flyover so I think I'm hoping that will be soon so are we Future talking 5 years you think we'll we'll see more confirmation of a squad well that's potential yeah if we you know once the technolog is available you have to have the investigators and the the skilled professionals to apply that and the you know the financing necessary to support those people in the field over extended periods of time again we're looking for the moving needle in a Hast stack so um it's it'll be it'll still remain a challenge I mean even if science were to acknowledge tomorrow but okay you're right based on this evidence we acknowledge that Sasquatch exists it's not suddenly then going to become easy to study these animals in the field because they are the they exhibit the characteristics of those species that have been notoriously difficult to study that is that they're solitary they're far ranging they're generalized in their diet you know they're they're very rare and diverse or dispersed throughout their their environment so it's a challenge to uh be able to find them let alone make system itic observations of them is there anything that you would Can it exist like to say to uh colleagues if you will that uh are very adamant that no this cannot be a thing well I think we're we're now to the point where you cannot say it's impossible you know they they don't exist you you there that's just not a defensible position anymore there's no reason that there couldn't be such things existing in now we have a scientific context that accommodates the prospect of the existence of other Relic hominoid species so then it boils down to the probability the question of what are the odds what's the CH what are the chances that such a thing exists right under our nose basically uh and we've not acknowledged it and and you know there's there are reasons why that has been the case but I think there are there are no good reasons for scientists for the scientific Community to Simply uh ignore this to sit on their hands so to speak until a specimen a physical specimen you know there's a there's a well-known um ideological skeptic who's notorious for saying show me the body the science starts once you have a body that's the most unscientific inang statement anyone can make the science starts when you ask a question and how you proceed to address that question and so that's what we're doing we're we're at that stage of Discovery where we are categor uh categorizing and cataloging the evidence that is really suggestive and you know often times Skeptics have this favorite piece of missing evidence that they harp on you know well why don't you have this why haven't you how can you not have this well my response is well you know the fact that it it's that we don't have that is why we're still looking but how can you ignore all of this for me it's the footprint evidence that's my expertise and maybe that gives me a better appreciation of the impact and the weight of that evidence um but you know I would respond how can then you explain this remarkably consistent footprint record we have that that attests to a creature that is um remarkably adapted as a large bodied Aid to walk on two legs and navigate the terrain of this rugged mountainous forest in which they reportedly live so um I'd just say not only to have an open mind but but be curious have a have a spirit of exploration for me that's what science is all about it's not uh is to ask the questions that are at the edge of our understanding and uh you know being too skeptical being too conservative can thwart can um um you know prevent our discovery of of novel novel um phenomenon running at the end here um is there anything that you would like to add no I think that can always put a plug from my book I didn't bring any books to sell here across the border but uh if people are really interested I have written a book and Sasquatch Legend meet science and it can it can be obtained through Amazon for example but it's a good um starting point for someone who's curious and interested it's also profusely Illustrated I'm a very visual learner and teacher and uh it's the um the anatomy the anatomist in me I guess comes out it's a very descriptive uh book of of the evidence and with lots of visual depictions good place to start tell me a bit about your book is there anything that we didn't cover uh in this About the book conversation that's in there that's noteworthy well the book um as it suggests fast watch Legend meets science it it U is not just my perspective but the book was actually born of a documentary that was of the same title in which the um producer sort of broke the mold which to that point had been you'd have someone that proposes you know a provocative piece of evidence or presents only to have someone uh on armchair skeptic snipe it you know take shots at it and it was kind of a tired formula so he said let's let the evidence speak for itself and we'll bring in those experts disinterested or otherwise to comment on that evidence and so it has the voices of quite a Litany of of experts in fingerprints in hair analysis in in vocalization uh in all sorts of You Know Myself talking about the footprint evidence and so on so uh the book is largely my own personal Odyssey with that evidence but it it is echoed all along the way by the uh insights of these various U both academic and otherwise professional experts um looking weighing the evidence and when you know when you've gone through it it's like you know how do you account for all of this it it it provides a very compelling case that there's something that's leading footprints that shedding hair that's voiding scat that's vocalizing that's being witnessed by by so sober um often very experienced outdoorsmen or professionals um it's hard and and that is firmly rooted within the indigenous traditions of the region um hard to just brush it aside is oh it's just a bunch of stories you know there's a lot more to it than just stories and uh my final question for you I like to end all of my interviews with this question what's a fun fact about Fun fact yourself doesn't have to be related to Squatch or anthropology it can be if you want just any fun fact about yourself let's see fun fact I'm terrible with these kinds of questions I'm kind of um so uh here's a fun fact I was interviewed by Dan akroy when he was uh about to launch a new uh documentary series and I showed up in a black black mock t-shirt turtleneck t-shirt and they didn't like that so I ended up wearing one of Dan acro's dress shirts while he interviewed me it turns out he being Canadian had done some of his work in the Northwest Territories I guess on a surveying crew and had heard many stories and the and the the some of the First Nations people he encountered said you'd be careful out there in the bush you know or the Hayman that's going to get you and so he's always been fascinated by the prospect of Sasquatch and so um I really got the red carpet treatment as his guest uh being interviewed by him and uh had a great great time unfortunately um his his show didn't uh wasn't picked up by the networks and I think his interests have gone lots of different D directions that we've never reconnected since that time but I it was in his nice pale blue button- down shirt for the interview and then it was funny because then he shows up in a black T-shirt and a black uh leather vest and I'm going how come he gets to wear black and I don't get to wear black it's always the people that having done that this question probably at least twice a week for the past 6 months it's always the people that are like I'm terrible with fun facts that give the best fun facts oh was that a good one that was good I I enjoyed that and