Thursday, October 13, 2016

The Ultimate Hunt - The Search for Bigfoot by Peter Byrne


Perhaps the reason why millions of people now find the Bigfoot legend so fascinating could be that it is, in this day and age, one of the last great unsolved and unexplained mysteries of this shrinking  world of ours.

The following excerpt is from the book, "The Search for Bigfoot: Monster, Myth or Man?" by Peter Byrne.

People find excitement in reading about it, in hearing about it and of course in talking about it with other people who have had some experience with the phenomenon, who perhaps have seen a footprint or even, in some cases, have seen one of the giant primates. But if people find this vicarious association with the phenomenon exciting, how much greater the thrill if they could actually take part in the searches that are presently being conducted in the Pacific Northwest, actually go into the mountains and personally hunt the elusive giants? I am fortunate in being one of the few people who has hunted for the mysterious giant hominids of America's Northwest and to date the only man alive who has made a profession out of this extraordinary search and who, through the support of many dedicated associates and sponsors, continues that profession on a full time basis for twelve months of every year. People have asked me, what is it that keeps you going, now, after four years, in a search that may go on for another decade? What spurs you on, keeps you Out in the wild lonely mountains and binds you to a life in the backwoods of America's Pacific Northwest? What is the driving force that propels you relentlessly forward in a search that is not just for a needle in a haystack but for a moving needle that obviously does not want to be found?

The answer is difficult to put into words. Perhaps, with me, the reason is a simple one. Professionally and emotionally I am a hunter. Most of my life—some twenty years—has been spent as a professional big game hunter. I have hunted big game in both Africa and Asia, with a gun and, in recent years, after I gave up shooting, with a camera. (My professional hunting career ceased in 1968). And to me, the title that I give to the search for the Bigfoot is one that I feel sums up its meaning most adequately. I call it the Ultimate Hunt—a hunt that is so difficult and so demanding that none but the most tenacious of men—or, as some of my friends put it, the craziest of men—would dare to follow it. The quarry in this hunt—the trophy, if one wishes to call it that—is nothing more than the rarest of all game, a possibly highly intelligent, highly mobile, totally nomadic, partially nocturnal creature with a habitat that measures more than 100,000 square miles and that embraces some of the most difficult and dangerous country in the world.

For sheer diversity there is nothing to equal the different types of terrain that this enormous area encompasses. The jungles of Assam, where I once hunted tiger and leopard, are dense and thick. But they are nothing compared to the near impenetrable scrub of the coast of British Columbia. The mountains of Kenya and the uplands of Mount Kilimanjaro have high rugged terrain where a lone hunter must watch the weather—as well as the mountain buffalo, rhino and elephant—if he is going to survive. But every year the highlands of Oregon and Washington, the central Cascades from 4000 feet upwards, claim victims, people who get lost and die of exposure and whose bodies are sometimes never found. The Nepal and Sikkim Himalaya is a huge area of predominantly mountain terrain, and we well realized its size when we—I and my companions of the Yeti expeditions—hunted the elusive snowmen there in the forties and fifties. But in size it cannot be compared to the habitat of the Bigfoot. The coast country of British Columbia alone could contain all of the Nepal Himalaya and the Sikkim and Bhutan ranges also.

The Ultimate Hunt, now, unlike my safaris of previous years, it is a hunt with a camera and not a rifle. But though it may seem like an impossible dream, to me it is the ultimate challenge and one to which I am now totally dedicated. Every time that the phone rings at the Bigfoot Information Center in The Dalles, Oregon, there is the excitement of knowing that this could be the call that will lead my partners and me to the quarry. Every time a new sighting is made and we race to the scene, there is the thrill of knowing that this time we may get there quickly enough to track and find one of the giant primates while it is still in the area. Every forest road that we drive, every mountain that we climb, every forest that we penetrate, may have our impossible dream waiting on the other side of it, the ultimate prize of the true hunter and one to which I certainly intend devoting many more years of my life.

Peter Byrne


You can read more buy purchasing the book, "The Search for Bigfoot: Monster, Myth or Man?" by Peter Byrne here.





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