Bearsare fault for a lot of things that are n’t their fault : They ’ve been implicate formoonlightingas the Himalayan Yeti . Visitors at a Chinese menagerie criminate a sun bear of actually beinga human in a bear suit . Grizzly bears’seasonal weightiness gainis displayed for public judgment . Now , astudypublished earlier this class in theJournal of Zoologysuggests humanity are mistaking American mordant bear ( Ursus americanus ) forBigfoot .
Its author , data scientistFloe Foxon — who is fond of title cryptozoological studies with rhyming phrases ( “ The Loch Ness Monster : If It ’s existent , Could It Be an Eel ? , ” “ If Not a Fake , What ’s in the Lake?”)—hypothesized that the more bootleg bears there are in a give area , the more likely it is that the great unwashed will reportcryptidsightings . In other words , if Bigfoot is there , it could be a bear .
Previous discipline have found a connexion between allegedBigfoot encountersand disgraceful bear populations in the Pacific Northwest , long believed to besasquatches ’ born home ground . In an expand analysis , Foxon compared the most late selective information for bear populations in37 U.S. statesand seven Canadian province with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization’sdatasetof alleged sighting , adjust for human populations and lifelike area , to model the correlation for all of the U.S. and Canada .
The study found that sasquatch report were “ statistically significantly ” associated with pitch-dark bear populations . For every 1000 bears in an surface area , Foxon found a 4 per centum step-up in the number of Bigfoot sighting . Across North America , each Bigfoot report was relate with about 5000 black bears .
“ Based on statistical considerations , it is likely that many suppositious sasquatch are really misidentified known form , ” Foxon concluded in the study .
It ’s intelligible that the great unwashed mistake the native carnivore for the fictitious hominid . Both bear and Bigfoot are thought to stand about6 feet tall(if the bear is upright on its hind legs ) , be covered indark hairor pelt , and live intemperate forests . And they ’re not the only pair of oftentimes fox brute out there . Here ’s how to differentiatewallabies and kangaroo , leopards and jaguars , rats and mouse , andmore .
