Aloha From New Member

[Jason C.]

Aloha Friends,

I just signed up as new member and I wanted to take the time to introduce myself to the group.

My name is Jason Cain and I am moving back to the Pacific Northwest after many years of absense.

My family is from Coquitlam, BC and Lake Tahoe, CA so I had heard of Sasquatch/Bigfoot while growing up. But in 1998 I took the next step -- I decided to investigate a report for myself after seeing a sensationalized report on the TV.

The result of that was: having the crap scared out of me. You can read about that here...

BFRO Report #596

I have been in law enforcement since 1993 (Honolulu and Atlanta), but I am leaving the profession. I started my own company a couple years ago -- and the money I make now allows me the freedom to follow more of my passions. Hence I joined this fine group. =)

I will be living down in Whatcom County, WA (near Baker) but I plan on investigating reports in WA and helping where I can in southern BC.

My strengths?

• Investigating
  
• Proper evidence collection
  
• DOCUMENTATION and report writing
  
• Bushcraft
  

I also would like to fund research and expeditions within the next few years. There are some quality researchers out there that just need the money (and equipment) to work on the problem fulltime.

I hope to talk to you folks soon!

Aloha,

Jason

[Deleted]

Welcome, Jason.

Thank-you for sharing your exciting possible Sasquatch/Bigfoot encounter with all of us here on the forum. I believe the following link to BFRO report #596 might be yours:
www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=596

You mentioned seeing "two ravens" in your report, is that correct?
Could you please explain how far away and what those two ravens were doing when you noticed them?

The reason I ask, is that it has been mentioned in several credible reports that ravens may circle over Sasquatch.

I'm sure you will have some fun and perhaps be able to gather some valuable information and tips from the forum members that may help in your research.

On most weekends one or more of the West Coast Sasquatch Research members can generally be found searching for evidence of Sasquatch in the areas around Harrison Lake. Since you won't be too far away, I'm sure you would be welcome to join in on the hunt and the fun.

Looking forward to your participation on the forum and perhaps in the field.

Bushman

[Jason C.]

Aloha Bushman,

I believe the following link to BFRO report #596 might be yours...

Yes that is it. Sorry, my syntax was wrong on the URL. I fixed my other post too.

You mentioned seeing two ravens in your report, is that correct? Could you please explain how far away and what those two ravens were doing when you noticed them?

Sure.

As I recall the ravens were about 10-15 yards away and were only in the area for a brief time. About 1 minute at the most. They were sitting on a branch and appeared to be interested in what I was doing. The impression I got from their behaviour was that they were looking for scraps of food.

It was so weird because the area was completely devoid of ANY wildlife. I have been everywhere from the jungles of the Philippines to the swamps of northern Florida, and never have I experienced such silence.

The spring was the only water source in the area, without travelling a few miles trough heavy brush, down a steep mountain side to the Trinity River. And there were tons of scat and animal tracks around the spring (I was looking for footprints) -- yet not one animal was observed.

The reason I ask, is that it has been mentioned in several credible reports that ravens may circle over Sasquatch.

Interesting. I had never heard of that before.

On most weekends one or more of the West Coast Sasquatch Research members can generally be found searching for evidence of Sasquatch in the areas around Harrison Lake. Since you won't be too far away, I'm sure you would be welcome to join in on the hunt and the fun.

I would love that.

I want to learn. I want to learn from this group specifically because of the extensive field experience.

And related to my report...

Here is the media report that pulled me into the area.

In some ways, I wish I had seen my night visitor. In others I am glad that I didn't -- because I am sure I would have been firing stuff of in my shorts! ;D

Dr. Farenbach had requested the hair, but I didn't want the thing destroyed for analysis. A hair means nothing (in the overall body of evidence) no matter what the results are...

I agree with the late Dr Krantz, that it is going to take either a carcass or a capture to prove its existence to the world. Although I do NOT support shooting one.

Aloha,

Jason

[lookoutman7]

This gets more interesting by the day, doesn't it!

Coquitlam - that's where the Westcoast Grill is...
the famous 'Mr. Mike' burgers.

Jason - you're going to be right in the center of a
wonderful area...good luck to you all. I had a chance
to meet a few of the group at WestCoast Sasquatch -
there's some good heads there.


lookoutman.

[Jason C.]

Aloha Lookoutman,

Jason - you're going to be right in the center of a wonderful area...good luck to you all. I had a chance
to meet a few of the group at WestCoast Sasquatch -
there's some good heads there.

Thanks for the welcome!

Yes, I am going to be living right smack in the thick of Sasquatch country...

I am really going to focus on my own backyard around Mount Baker. With regular jaunts up to BC to learn -- and to help when needed.

I look forward to learning from this group. They are some solid investigators that have many "boot miles".

Aloha,

Jason

[Deleted]

Hi Jason,

The part you mentioned about seeing the ravens during your possible Bigfoot encounter caught my eye immediately. Although I searched four hard-drives on two computers, I could not find the two reports (one from Alaska and one from the Yukon) where hunters had specifically mentioned hearing and seeing ravens circling and possibly harassing something near their location in the bush shortly before a Sasquatch appeared on the scene.

My own eye-opening experiences with ravens began many years ago while hunting moose in northern British Columbia with an extremely woods-wise Native Indian.

Although I wasn't aware of it, this skilled Indian showed me how the ravens would always watch for the slightest movement below them while flying over and once the bird had you spotted, would broadcast your presence to every other creature that happened to be nearby in the forest. However, if you remained perfectly still or tucked in under the cover of the tree canopy, the ravens would often miss you and continue on in the journey without sounding a noisy alarm to other creatures of an intruder.

While I'm out hunting, fishing, researching, hiking or simply in the woods enjoying nature, I try and remain on alert and aware of my surroundings at all times. I'm always looking, listening and smelling for anything out of the ordinary that would indicate other animals or birds might be in the general vicinity. While ravens have often given my presence away by spotting me and making a noisy fuss, they have also helped me put meat on the table by pointing me in the general direction of big-game animals they happened to be picking on.

Here are a few examples of just how intelligent ravens can be:

Wilmers, who now holds a post-doctoral researcher appointment at Pennsylvania State University, noted that some scavengers have adapted their behavior to take advantage of the wolves' idiosyncrasy. "Ravens have adopted a foraging strategy by following the wolves when they are on a hunt," said Wilmers. "When wolves chase down their prey through wide open spaces over long distances, it's as good as a dinner bell. Ravens and other scavengers know that a meal is coming."
Source: www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/21_wolvesclimate.shtm

About 90% of the wolves diet consists of elk and the elk herd continues to increase despite the wolves presence. "The Yellowstone ecosystem also is unique in that it has 6 major carnivores, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and humans. There are only 1 or two other locations in North America with that array of predators," he said.
A new study dubbed "food for the masses" which focuses on how wolf kills affect other wild life in the park, "Indeed, I wonder what a raven did in the winter before the wolf showed up" Smith told the laughing crowd. "Ravens are following wolves around to kill sites and the longest it takes a raven to find a kill is about 30 seconds."
Source: www.yellowstone-bearman.com/babbitt.html

Food Fight: Wolves Pack Up to Out-eat Ravens

New research on the wolves of Isle Royale may shed light on a mystery that has long puzzled biologists: Why do some predators band together to hunt? "Most species of predators live solitary lives," says John Vucetich, a research assistant professor of wildlife ecology at Michigan Technological University. "Biologists have always wanted to know why the few exceptions live in groups." In his observations of wolves and ravens, Vucetich may have found the answer: Predators that hunt in groups lose far less meat to scavangers. Earlier, scientists had guessed that wolves hunting in a large pack would bring down more food per wolf, so each individual would get more to eat. However, studies showed that wasn’t the case. "According to their calculations, wolves in big packs got less food," Vucetich said. "It didn’t make sense." So Vucetich examined the methodology and discovered a problem. Scientists had calculated the amount of food available based on the weight of the prey killed, not on the amount that the wolves actually ate. "Then I thought, ’OK, what you kill isn’t relevant; it’s what you consume,’" he said. "What happens after the kill? Suddenly, scavengers are really important." For wolves, ravens are the really important scavengers. "You never see wolves without ravens nearby," Vucetich said. "They are ubiquitous at kills." On Isle Royale National Park, located in Lake Superior, five to 15 ravens are found on the carcasses of moose killed by wolves. And on the mainland, the numbers can be far higher: About 100 ravens were once counted around the carcasses of a few wolf-killed deer. "So we asked the questions: How much can a raven take per day? It can eat and stash about two pounds. How much can a wolf eat? Up to 18 pounds in a few hours," Vucetich said. "We put the pieces together, and we found that in bigger packs, both the pack and the individuals actually get more food, not less." Ravens are intelligent, fast and agile. It’s useless for wolves to waste energy chasing them away from a carcass because the ravens come right back, so they don’t. Instead, wolves simply out-eat the ravens, and thus the advantage of a large pack becomes clear. Based on his discovery, Vucetich thinks any predator that hunts large prey has to have some strategy to deal with scavengers. They can make their kills in dense cover, like tigers, or haul the carcass off to a secluded spot, like leopards. Lions usually hunt in groups, which helps when a gang of hyenas shows up. Solitary hunters can find themselves at a loss when confronted with unexpected scavengers. "A colleague of mine saw a mountain lion kill an elk in the open," Vucetich said. Mountain lions usually hide their large prey after a kill, and their behavior hasn’t adapted to deal with scavanging ravens. "Ravens found the kill, and the mountain lion went nuts trying to chase them away.” "The moral of the story is, if you’re eating something big, you have to have a way to deal with scavengers." Vucetich’s work is supported by the National Science Foundation, Isle Royale National Park and Earthwatch. His article, “Raven Scavenging Favours Group Foraging in Wolves,” has been published in the June 2004 edition of the journal Animal Behaviour and is posted online at dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.06.018 The co-authors are Rolf Peterson, of Michigan Technological University, and Thomas Waite, of Ohio State University.
Weitere Informationen: www.mtu.edu
Source: www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/bericht-32629.html

Further up the road, Leonard kept looking over to the ridge above us on the right.

"What are you looking at?" I asked.

He pointed to the circling ravens up on the ridge.

"Ravens often follow, if not even harass a large predator in the woods."

"Just by watching the position of the ravens, I can tell something has been flanking us this whole time."

As we hiked on, I kept and eye on the ravens, as we moved, they circled parallel to us up on the ridge. It seemed to make sense. Interesting anyway.

We stopped at a clearing, below the ridge, to see if this thing would follow out into the open. No dice. The ravens stayed circling at the edge of the clearing. Leonard was pretty sure it was a bear.
Source: www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?s=9089f94cc7525133031f569902aef01b&showtopic=12954

Every northerner knows ravens are smart. In the early beliefs of Scandinavians, ravens perched on the shoulders of the chief of gods, whispering wisdom gained on far-seeing flights. Native Alaskans told of Raven who brought light to humankind, clever Raven who could fool chiefs and spirits, wise raven who liberated infant humankind from its imprisoning shell.
In contemporary conversations, we swap smart-raven stories, how they snitched windshield wiper blades in North Pole, how they slid on their tail feathers down snow chutes above Dutch Harbor, how they figured out which fast-food places offered the best pickings in Southeast. Everyone has raven stories. Everyone knows they're smart.
But try to prove that.
The problem is that virtually brainless behavior can look intelligent. Consider honeybees, for example. They live within complex social structures; they construct geometrically precise and functionally effective homes; they even communicate important information to one another, such as directions and distances to food sources. It's impressive, but it's instinct, not intellect, in action. A thoughtful bee has yet to be born.
Raven expert Bernd Heinrich decided to see if the birds could show one kind of creative thought process: insight. Insight involves the ability to envision one's actions and their consequences. An insightful creature runs a mental movie, so to speak, visualizing a problem and its solution. It's looking inside to see what will happen before it moves a muscle.
In his account in the October 1993 issue of Natural History, Heinrich cites a famous example of nonhuman insight. An experimenter hung bananas high up in a room containing six chimpanzees and a large wooden crate. Five of the chimpanzees jumped up and down, futilely trying to reach the food. One chimpanzee hung back, watching the others until they calmed down. Then he shoved the crate under the bananas, jumped atop it, and snatched the fruit. That was an insightful ape. No one showed him how; he figured it out.
Heinrich devised an experiment to set ravens a problem that only creative thinking could solve. At his New England home, Heinrich has a large, outdoor aviary housing some tame crows and ravens. The aviary holds trees and one long horizontal perch. From the perch, the scientist hung a piece of string 25 inches long. Tied to the dangling end of the string was a chunk of meat.
The chunk was too small for the birds to sit on while they pecked at it. The only way they could get to eat some of it was by hauling it up to the perch, but they had never had any experience with string. They had to figure it out.
Presented with this puzzle, Heinrich's five tame ravens apparently studied the situation. They immediately examined the meat, then left it alone for nearly six hours, except for occasional glances. Then one raven flew to the perch, landed directly above the meat, and reached down to grab the string. He pulled up a loop, then stepped on it to hold it fast, and reached down to pull up another loop. The bird continued the pull-step-pull behavior until it had the meat up on the perch. Heinrich shooed it away before it could eat, but the bird did not hold onto the meat. It had not only figured out how to get the meat, it had also recognized that the meat was fastened and would not fly away when the bird did.
By the end of the experiment, three of the ravens had figured out how to get the meat. None tried to fly away with it. (The crows never did decipher the puzzle, and when given attached meat they would fly off, only to receive a sharp jerk when they hit the end of the string.)
Is that scientific proof? It's at least strong evidence that ravens really are intelligent.
Source: www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF11/1153.html
====================
Corvids are also famous for their frivolity, exhibiting the most complex play of all birds. They have been known to lie on their backs and juggle objects between their bill and feet, or, hotdogging for their cronies, hang up- side down by one foot from phone lines. Most of us have seen ravens enjoying themselves at the expense of others, harassing hawks and eagles just for fun. And it has yet to be shown (in biological terms, anyway) how they benefit by occasionally flying upside down. David Quammen, in an amusing essay entitled “Has Success Spoiled the Crow?”, speculates that corvids are bored underachievers, possessing so much excess brain capacity that a fairly small part of each day is actually spent making a living. Their penchant for recreation and mischief, then, is simply a manifestation of having so much free time.

Most corvids are monogamous, and mated pairs typically stay together for life, which can be twenty years or more. Thus, some Colorado River ravens probably have careers of petty terrorism stretching back to the 1970s. So when you find your lifejacket soaked by a raven-punctured silver winebag, or that sack of thawing porkchopsicles pecked full of holes, look at it this way: at least they don’t have hands. All we can do is fight raven delinquency by securing anything they could possibly shred or carry off.

And face the hard facts: they operate in pairs (often very experienced), and they’re consciously trying to outwit us, probably just for the fun of it.
Source: www.gcrg.org/bqr/7-2/ravens.htm

========================================

Additionally, ravens may have the innate ability to cogitate object numbers--count in a sense. German ethnologist, Otto Koehler, tested this theory by presenting a raven with a group of objects, ranging from two to six in composition. Beside the group of objects were a set of five boxes, each labeled by black dots, two to six. The raven's lob was to match the number of objects with the number of black dots on the lid of the box, whereupon a food reward would be relinquished. Apparently, in trial after trial, the raven successfully accomplished the counting task.
Moreover, crow and raven intelligence is evident by their seemingly mastery and manipulative powers over other creatures in their domain. They often let others do the work for them. Ravens will call wolves and coyotes to prospective food sources so they can open up the carcass, making the meat accessible to the birds. And often, they will wait for birds with specialized foraging skills to make a catch (e.g. blue heron and crane), then cunningly, utilizing cooperative tactics, seize the catch for themselves. A British authority, Sylvia Bruce Wilmore, says they are just "quicker on the uptake" than most animals including the well-thought-of mammals that humans associate intelligence to. Apparently Ms. Wilmore has many animals about her home including a tame cow, which she claims dominates the other animals. Well, the crow possibly sensing this, has reportedly picked up the cow's leash to parade him around the home turf!
========================================
Article: news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1209_041209_crows_apes.html
========================================
Article2: www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/ravens/ravens2.html


We took a 45-minute ride, parked and walked the last 700 yards to the hide. The
blinds are super nice; insulated about 8x10’ with propane stoves. It’s harder than the
d**kens to sit in there all day, but Fred and I visited very quietly off and on and kept
things interesting. TONS of ravens working the bait. About 5:10 p.m. 2 ravens in the
timber beyond the bait lit out making a really different sound, All day long they had been

Page 2
squawking, like a bunch of old ladies at a laundromat. This was different. I used my
8x30 Swarovski Binocs to see movement – an ear flick about 20 feet inside the timber.
Watching, I saw it materialize into a dark gray wolf, which turned and walked to the left.

Source: 66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:cVIRsjkFwwAJ:www.bredesonoutfitting.com/Stu%2520Turner%25202002%2520Wolf%2520Hunt.pdf+Ravens+assisting+hunters&hl=en

Be especially careful to avoid areas with several noisy crows, ravens, magpies or jays. These birds often indicate the presence of a carcass that may also have attracted a bear

Bushman

[Jason C]

Aloha Bushman,

Great post!

The part you mentioned about seeing the ravens during your possible Bigfoot encounter caught my eye immediately. Although I searched four hard-drives on two computers, I could not find the two reports...

I know what you mean. That drives me nuts, when I can't find something, because I know that I read it.

I have a near photographic memory when I read something. Which is a great ability when you are a cop, and trying to pull a rabbit out of your butt in order to "solve a problem" (ie. arrest a dirt bag).

The funny thing is -- I can't remember a name, quote or joke to save my life.

...(one from Alaska and one from the Yukon) where hunters had specifically mentioned hearing and seeing ravens circling and possibly harassing something near their location in the bush shortly before a Sasquatch appeared on the scene.

THAT makes perfect sense.

I hope you find those reports! Those would be awesome to read.

However, if you remained perfectly still or tucked in under the cover of the tree canopy, the ravens would often miss you and continue on in the journey without sounding a noisy alarm to other creatures of an intruder.

Great tip. And probably something passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years.

I read with interest your Bigfoot Forums reference. Ironic that it should be mentioned there too huh, in such a recent report.

I can't read the posts in that forum. It drives me nuts. I don't like all the "Monday morning quarterbacking" and the tone of many of the posts.

Who the heck would post their story in such a negative atmosphere?

And could you clue me in on this...

What is with all the BFRO controversy?

People are leaving the organization.

I am not trying to open up a can of worms. I am just clueless as to what is going on.

Also: Does this message board have a "notify" feature so I know when people post?

Aloha,

Jason

[Deleted]

Hi Jason,

I know what you mean. That drives me nuts, when I can't find something, because I know that I read it.

I have a near photographic memory when I read something. Which is a great ability when you are a cop, and trying to pull a rabbit out of your butt in order to "solve a problem" (ie. arrest a dirt bag).

The funny thing is -- I can't remember a name, quote or joke to save my life.

I know exactly what you mean about having trouble remembering certain things...I think my problem remembering things might have something to do with getting old.

THAT makes perfect sense.

I hope you find those reports! Those would be awesome to read.

I've spent more than a few hours in the past few days searching through some of my favorite haunts because I thought I might have run across those old reports mentioning ravens in the "Track Records" over at the International Bigfoot Society or the BFRO site, but no luck yet. I may have also read about the raven in one of the Sasquatch-related books I have in my collection or picked up at the library.

I can't read the posts in that forum. It drives me nuts. I don't like all the "Monday morning quarterbacking" and the tone of many of the posts.

Who the heck would post their story in such a negative atmosphere?

There seems to be the odd site where arguing is the favorite pastime of some members...Since I don't like that kind of stuff, I simply avoid posting at these places.

What is with all the BFRO controversy?

People are leaving the organization.

I am not trying to open up a can of worms. I am just clueless as to what is going on.

I don't think I'd be too far wrong in saying that the recent problems at the BFRO have their roots in a certain person's greed and the desire for money.

Also: Does this message board have a "notify" feature so I know when people post?

No, as far as I can see this board doesn't have a notify feature. I think it's also sadly lacking in many features when compared to features on other message boards.

Bushman

[Deleted]

I spent a few more hours searching with a wide array of different terms on Google, but as of yet could not find those old reports.
I did, however, run across a some interesting reading on the raven's amazing intelligence and its relationship with other predatory animals that I'll include below:

"The Forest Court"
The symbiotic relationship between grizzly and ravens is a natural and important part of the ecology of both species. Often the ravens will lead a bear to carrion or the bear will make the discovery and ravens naturally follow along.
It is not uncommon to see a grizzly laying down feeding with ravens picking off the same piece of salvage. A grizzly will sometimes become annoyed and rise up to swat at the birds who will flutter up and avoid the bear until he settles down again.
During all this it is quite common to see at least one lookout raven circling high over the area acting as sentry.
Source: www3.telus.net/wildernesscaptive/paintings2.html


========================================
A Glimpse into the World of Ravens

Intelligent, Opportunistic, and Strong

In the upcoming Super Bowl XXXV, the Baltimore Ravens will clash with the New York Giants. Will the Ravens football team be as crafty and smart as their namesake birds? Ravens, being huge dominating birds, can certainly be compared with this sports team. Both the team and the birds are cunning in their approach, turning seemingly setbacks into assets. In the distant past, the huge black and shaggy birds were revered and even worshiped by many cultures - will this team be loved or scorned by its fans after the game? Will the Giants win the Superbowl? Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!" In the Birding Forum, JR Inghram has shared many personal accounts about Ravens as well as in emails to me. With his permission, read about these very intelligent and fascinating birds!


Related Resources
• Raven Information• Raven Photos• Raven Clipart


"Ravens are held in high regard by many around the world. In the United States, they have been categorized as crows and therefore most people view them as such. It is part of the dumbing down of America." Ravens and music: "If they put enough bass in their music, it will draw in Corvids for sure. There is nothing that arouses the curiosity of a raven any more than a boom box." "There is a very good reason that they [ravens] are black and absorb light. Many of their natural predators are nocturnal and see in the infrared spectrum depending on light reflected back from their perspective prey." When you see a raven dropping a piece of meat on the road bed in the spring time and guarding it until roosting time, check out the shoulders and see if it is a coyote crossing. Many a coyote has been ironed out on the asphalt because they stalled out in traffic to try to pick up a tasty tidbit glued to the road bed. Coyotes are creatures of habit. They will use the same road crossings daily while making the rounds. Ravens are a roadside attraction for sure. "Ravens can be found in many stories that are older than written history. In the past they have been salvation to explorers by leading them to land. To many cultures, ravens were messengers of their god, gods and even viewed as gods." "The ravens came in to feed this morning and did so faster than normal and then the majority of them headed out into the sagebrush to cache and chow down. They did so in record time like a well trained team. A few minutes after they left a road grader showed up, grading our road. The sound of the blade cutting into the hard ground and hitting large rocks put them on alert before the grader was even within 1 mile of the feeding area. They could sense the raw power being transferred to the ground by the heavy piece of equipment and had no illusions as to what a creature that powerful could do as a predator. They are amazing." "You can not imprint a raven completely. Regardless of how you get them. A friend of mine raised some from the egg and even so, they took mates and moved back out into the wild." "Have you ever seen a raven try to comfort a small child in tears? They do it with children that they consider family members. Few people have witnessed this behavior. I have seen it more than once while raising our girls. That is a complex emotion if ever there was. How is it that a bird can recognize the emotional needs of a human and react accordingly? The raven's smaller cousin, the crow, is fairly intelligent as we gauge intelligence. However when compared to the Corvus Corax, even crows must take a seat far in the back." "On many occasions, probably 4 or 5 times a year, I get to watch my ravens hunt with the local details. It's one of the most ingenious things I have ever seen. "The ravens do not always set up the strategies the same way. However, during each hunt they locate the redtail's victim and distract the intended animal of prey by air and by ground. "The last hunt I witnessed was in late March or early April of this year. I heard the ravens outside of my house and went out to see what they were up to, Upon going outside I saw four adult pairs from two adjoining nesting territories. They were circling at what appeared to be approximately 400 feet for one pair and 500-600 feet for the other pair. At first I thought they were just enjoying the day's updrafts and visiting. "I watched them for almost 40 seconds, and then I heard a lone raven at ground level below the circling birds. I went back in the house and grabbed my spotting scope and returned to the yard. With the scope I spotted a raven on the ground below the circling pairs. The bird on the ground was standing 8 to 10 feet away from a mature, breeding age cottontail rabbit. Then I heard another raven croaking in the distance. "I followed my ear with my eye and spotted a redtail heading towards the ravens that were distracting the rabbit. The redtail was about ¾ of a mile out when I spotted him and probably at an altitude of 900 to 1200 feet . The redtail had already set its wings and locked on to its target area. "There was a lone raven flying closely ahead of the redtail and no more than 100 feet below it. The ravens had found one dumb bunny and held it in one location for many minutes while a single raven flew out over the sagebrush, locating and irritating a redtail until the redtail's utmost thought was to nail the raven. The raven then led the hawk on a straight descending line to the rabbit and raven on the ground. "The hawk and the raven coming in together were about 200 to 275 yards away from the rabbit when the raven leading the hawk broke away from the redtail. All the ravens went silent except for the one next to the rabbit on the ground. The Raven on the ground jumped into the air at almost the same time that the redtail rolled over and went into a dive. "The raven on the ground squawked, jumped, and flew directly over the rabbit at a height of about 6 to 8 feet. As the raven flew over the rabbit, it obscured the hawk from the rabbit's view. When the raven was out of the way, the rabbit saw the hawk. However it was too late to flee and it froze. "After the redtail had made the kill, the ravens all landed and ran off the hawk and had a little 'hare of the dog'. They also fed on immature rabbits that left the burrow later that evening at the same location. "The next time that you see what looks like a redtail trying to capture a raven in flight, look again and listen for the sounds of other ravens nearby. If you are lucky enough to have a spotting scope you may witness one of the most fascinating and intriguing spectacles involving the intelligence of the ravens. They utilize illusion for profit. Truly amazing. Truly magical."

Source: birding.about.com/library/weekly/blravensuper.htm

Bushman

[Jason C]

Aloha Bushman,

I don't think I'd be too far wrong in saying that the recent problems at the BFRO have their roots in a certain person's greed and the desire for money.

That is too bad.

AND it is bad business. It is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Aloha,

Jason

[Deleted]

Jason said:

Aloha Bushman,

I don't think I'd be too far wrong in saying that the recent problems at the BFRO have their roots in a certain person's greed and the desire for money.

That is too bad.

AND it is bad business. It is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Aloha,

Jason

Hi Jason,

I think you will have a much better idea of what is presently going on with the BFRO if you read the following page:
www.bfro.net/NEWS/roundup/exped_faq.asp#gift

Bushman

[Jason C]

Holy Crap!

Charging people $460 to attend an expedition?

Sad. Very sad.

[Gerry]

Welcome Jason!
It is for people like yourself that WCS was created. The intent was to find like minded people who are out there doing their research and to build a community! Welcome!

[Jason C.]

Thanks Cherokee!

Sorry, I missed your welcome. I haven't been by in a while.

Jason

admin said:

Welcome Jason!
It is for people like yourself that WCS was created. The intent was to find like minded people who are out there doing their research and to build a community! Welcome!

[Deleted]

I ran across the following information on page 67-68 in Thom Powell’s book “The Locals.” Although the chapter is dealing with the possibility of sasquatch emitting infrasound as a form of intimidation, there was a brief mention of the possibility of ravens being in the close proximity of sasquatch that I thought some of you might find interesting:

I recently worked as a teacher on a summer assignment with the U.S. Forest Service on a remote wildlife camera project. I was teaching a wildlife biologist how to deploy the remote camera units. We were using baited camera sets to document fisher, marten, and wolverine activity in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Ann (not her real name) related a story to me one day during our lunch break that she confessed to be the most bewildering experience she has ever experienced in the woods. She offered the usual caveats to the effect that she had seen bear, cougar, and other potentially menacing creatures in the wild while she was alone and in the process of doing the surveys that are part of her job. None of those encounters left her feeling ill at ease. As soon as she said that much, I knew this was going to be good.

On this particular day she was doing a survey for some species or another in the upper reaches of Oregon’s Clackamas River drainage. Ann entered a fairly nondescript patch of woods where she began to find large piles of feces, which she assumed to be bear. The feces, or scat, were very conspicuously placed, some being left squarely in the middle of the dirt road she was traveling.

Then it began to happen. With every step into the woods Ann began to feel a bit more ill at ease. Admirably, she persevered in the face of some sort of vague adversity. But things got worse. The hair was soon standing up on the nape of her neck, and the feelings of foreboding got so intense that she was virtually in tears. About that time, a flock of ravens squawked then flew from a specific place in the woods.

It doesn’t take an experienced professional field biologist to know what that means: that there was a presence in that particular stand of trees to which the birds were reacting. She could not see what it was, but now she knew where it was and that there certainly was something there that disturbed the birds.

By this time, the feelings of foreboding had changed to terror, and all she was sure of is that she absolutely HAD to do an “about face” and leave the area. It was nothing she had ever experienced before or since. Ann asked what I thought it was, and I told her that I did not know for sure, but that it fit the pattern of a sasquatch encounter to a tee.

Bushman