I asked Gemini (excellent for research) a series of specific prompts to determine the Minimum Viable Population for a large bipedal hominid and requested it to use only published scientific journals and for it to be analyzed from the following lenses:
- Territory needs
- Resource competition
- Habitat size to include temperate rainforest core, low density boreal buffer
- Human density of less than 0.1 person per SQKM (to include the Yukon and Northern BC)
- Carrying capacity with extant predators
- Nutritional feasibility
The answer was a minimum of 5,000 sexually mature individuals (with between 7,500 ~ 10,000 in total)
This is also keeping in mind the detection paradox (detection avoidance, technological visibility and anthropogenic imprint).
I kept this all within the boundaries of known large predator dimensions so as to ensure some measure of scalability. But one thing that struck me is that IF the Sasquatch has even rudimentary food storage and preservation skills, it would significantly increase its viability AND remain virtually undetected.
What does everyone think?
Strangers: Read the rules and respect them and other users. Any content removal or further moderator action is established by these terms as well as Reddit ToS.
This subreddit is specifically for the discussion of an anomalous phenomena from the perspective it may exist. Open minded skepticism is welcomed, closed minded debunking is not. Be aware of how skepticism is expressed toward others as there is little tolerance for ad hominem (attacking the person, not the claim), mindless antagonism or dishonest argument toward the subject, the sub, or its community.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
AI is predictive text. It hallucinates and is not reliable. You’d be better off asking a magic 8 ball.
That’s understanding AI in its most basic form, hallucinations are not that hard to mitigate, not with a latest models and not with the safeguards available now on enterprise versions. The reality of using any type of reasoning model is not blind trust but careful and deliberate control of what data sources you use and careful prompt engineering. All of what is my day job. Granted it takes effort and a deeper understanding of the model capabilities but it is not impossible. It’s a great tool to augment (not replace) human intelligence
I like what you’ve done here. This is better theorizing than a lot of the woo woo things people decide to chase. I still think that 10,000 of something gets seen. Even spread out so far, and especially if it has to travel to find mates.
I’ve lived my entire life in the Pacific Northwest between Idaho and Alaska and I think of the animals here that we consider exceptionally rare. Wolverines for example are incredibly rare sights with as few as 300 animals between Oregon Idaho and Washington, and yet, they get seen and photographed.
As a good rule of thumb, AI answers to quantative questions are no more accurate than dice rolling, that's just not how AIs work. You can find plenty of populations of a few hundred animals doing fine (e.g., sable island ponies)
I live in Central WA. Our street boarders a nature preserve and the end of the street it's full forrest. We've walked 15 feet off the road and you cannot see any one of us. My daughter was even in a red jacket.
What people don't understand is that you could be yards away from an 8 ft creature in the woods and not be able to see it. They are quiet. They are stealth. They mimick the breeze with movements of branches and fronds to trick your eye.
It's quite incredible once you understand what they're capable of.
The 5000 mark matches what I have researched over the years and also similar responses from known lifetimers. However 5000 was general consider the high point and unlikely.
Really good stuff. Thank you.
I’ve seen a wolverine. I’ve never seen a Sasquatch.
I want to hear your wolverine sighting story!
Road crossing in a mountain pass. Couldn’t figure out what I was seeing. Checked in after with a local wildlife biologist who studies them and confirmed it.
That’s a great point, given I expanded the habitat range across multiple ecosystems right along the Pacific Northwest, all the way down to California and north to include the Yukon and BC, even if we take a population density of even 2 sexually mature adults per 300sqKm would mean a small tribe of 5-10 individuals - parents, children and seniors, which still holds the research to be true.
The initial estimate of 5,000 sexually mature individuals was based on the 1.5m sq mile range is determined to be ecologically sustainable and genetically viable as per all available research on large mammals with high calorific requirements
Also thank you, I’m an analyst by training and I use AI models for some pretty complex problems, so I use the same techniques here. I understand what you’re saying about rare animals like the Wolverine but I also believe, higher order thinking animals can make active choice to avoid detection. I also think they are seen by accident but given there is no large scale research or population census conducted with LiDAR terrain mapping or thermal signature processing such as LIDAR BC, it’s almost always someone unprepared to properly document it.
I have been out in the Wilds of British Columbia for decades. I’ve done abundant exploration for minerals. Grass roots exploration encompassing mapping of sizeable study areas can be very remote, technically quiet. No diamond drills turning, no chainsaws buzzing. In all my time in the bush I’ve seen bear, lynx, coyotes, but never a fox or a cougar (mountain lion). The existence of Sasquatch is highly probable with their ability to go undetected. It’s my dream to encounter one, but I’m happy to never see one as well. They’re living creatures who share this Earth with us & I feel they’re equally entitled to live in Peace with nature.
I’ve seen all of the animals you named except for a lynx and a Sasquatch
Using Ai for Bigfoot research has become the even lazier version of being an armchair expert. Y’all just need to get out in the woods, hike deep and fly drones fast into areas.
You misunderstood the question I asked and how AI can help
Most people just don’t understand that’s it perfectly plausible for Bigfoots to be undetected. I’ve hunting for a long time, so I’m outside in nature a lot. I rarely see coyotes, foxes, bobcats. I know they are out there but just don’t see them and there are way more than 10,000 of these critters out there.
https://preview.redd.it/2e8ijz3fsr8g1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e8595e0ba849565b60dbbac232cb0b84971a53be
This is the fox that hung out with me while hunting this year. His name is Fix.
I have coyotes in my neighborhood. Bobcats are most rare.
I have never seen Bigfoot.
I've seen foxes, coyotes, bears, bobcats, eagles, deer, ...on the golf course
You must have a bigger population of these animals around because I just don’t see them. I know they are out there but just don’t see them.
I have 2 gray foxes who den on my roof each winter in AZ. I only see them once or twice a winter and while I've heard their babies, I've never seen one.
On your roof?
Yeah, they make a little nest in the middle part I can't see from the ground. I removed the old one thus fall but they reappeared this month.
How do they get up there?
I have 6 huge trees surrounding the house. I assume they climb those since gray foxes are known for that.
As a tangential point, AI is not necessarily that great at research. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-chatbot-journal-research-fake-citations-1235485484/
Hallucinations are now largely mitigated, but it takes work and you have to be extremely careful with how you use AI platforms (eg how you construct your prompts, and what instructions you give it). You actually have to read the work cited, which I did.
The research makes it obvious that not only ks it absolutely possible for a large hominid to survive in a stable population but with a density of 1 mature individual per 300 square miles, it could easily remain virtually undetectable
We know that mountain lions have large territories of a similar size. They are also extremely skittish, fearing humans, remaining silent and hidden in the forest, and almost never attacking people. Yet imagine how impossible it would be for us to have no undeniable evidence of mountain lions existing.
Bet they get lonely
Wonder if they have a repulsion towards humans. Like some reverse uncanny valley type thing
Anyone who asks Gemini for research lost me.
That’s because you misunderstand what Gemini and other LLMs can do.
They can produce answers that are correct in form.
They cannot produce quantitatively correct answers in the way you're using it here.
No one is saying that the answer is quantitatively correct, it is merely using science based techniques to estimate minimum viable population remaining stable over the long term given the ecological conditions present in the pacific north west
No, it's not. There's no science going into it. That's not how AIs work.
You clearly haven’t kept up to speed with what AI models can do. Also I’ve answered how I’ve used it above so you’re free to read up on it. I know how AI works, I work with it every day.
That you don't understand how AIs work is your problem, not mine. Code yourself a dozen AIs, learn how they work. Don't just read hype from people who don't understand them either.
“Code some AI” lol you have no clue how any of it works, but that’s a you problem. I’m done interacting with you. Have a great day
I'm sorry to burst your bubble. But you really should look into how AIs work before you embarass yourself further.
Really, with sklearn or Tensor flow or whatever, it's not hard to programme some AUs and get first hand experience. LLMs aren't individually practical because you need much bigger training sets, but understanding how it works doesn't require that.
Their perceived rarity is compounded by their heightened intelligence and physical prowess. A being, so aware of their environment, would be hard to be caught off guard. If I had to guess, I'd estimate their population at over 100,000
WAY too high. The ecological impact would be more noticed.
These creatures are FAR more mobile than most think and far fewer in number. They mobility gives the impression that they are all over the place when the reality of the same ones are spotted in very different locations.
Does this account for Bigfoot being omnivorous? Or just a predatory species?
I accounted for an omnivorous diet
There have been hundreds of reported sightings and more that are not reported in the NW, including someone I know who never reported. What surprises me is that a 1000 lb animal would have to kill a tremendous number of deer and elk to support that body mass. Even a 100 lb cougar has to kill around one deer or elk a week to live. I would think hunters would find huge numbers of carcasses but I have never seen a single dead deer or elk in thirty years of hunting here. I have no doubt a smart creature could easily hide here. They have been seen spider crawling on hands and feet to stay low.
Thanks for sharing that info. There have been many sightings in the Pine Barrens of NJ which is over a million acres, very secluded, has tons of deer, small mammals, reptiles, fish,fruit trees, berries etc. Go off trail for 5 minutes and try to find your way out. Perfect habitat. Personally, I think that they are everywhere that a large predator can survive
A key clue is if there is a stable population of large predators. That means the carrying capacity for large predators is close to or at its maximum carrying capacity. So you’d have a relatively set number of brown bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions and Black bears. I would guess that if there was a distinct difference in these numbers, it’s likely there was another large predator making up the difference. So perhaps any area not known for Bigfoot sightings (suggesting they are absent or very low) but other large predator populations are stable, you could surmise that areas where there is a lower total of other large predators may indicate the presence of a sizable population of Sasquatch
THIS POST NEED MORE LIKES.
California condors were down to 27. They caught every single one.
They killed every single grizzle bear in California.
If Bigfoot were still around, which I hope it is but I don’t think it is, we could find it.
I had a go at the same thing (chat GPT) and it said the likelihood of it existing is high, but not in the USA - It seems that the most likely place it could thrive (operating off the basis that it's an evolved form of Gigantopithicus) is the uninhabited areas of Australia and the jungles of India/Bangladesh/Pakistan
In terms of population numbers, the data assessments consistently fall back to the idea that harmful recessive genes would pair up and result in extinction, but this relies on the idea that harmful recessive genes exist within the population and haven't been wiped out over time, which, considering the calibre of evasiveness of this animal, is not as likely as it would be in other species
It's likely they have the following abilities/practises:
Internal water preservation - like a camel - the creature must be biologically equipped to retain large quantities of water for long periods of time - considering that most water in humans is held in fat cells, this explains the size of the creature and WHY it's so big despite not needing to eat that much food
Advanced burial practises - Remains are impossible to come by - but this doesn't mean they don't exist.
Just because a dead person was cremated doesn't mean they never existed.
As grim as it sounds, it's incredibly likely they employ a degree of cannibalism to ensure this ritual - as shocking as it is, this is fairly common in primates, even modern humans E.g the Aghori tribe in India
The creatures must have a kind of advanced burial ritual which results in the complete destruction of remains. This symbolises the existence of a social structure and means that while some might reside in solitary conditions, they are mostly social creatures.
it's likely that the ones we see are wanderers or males searching for mates outside their tribes. Male Elephants do the same thing.
a Sewerage system - again, evidence of advanced society - because droppings are never found, they must have some sort of secret toilet system, basically - it's likely they use some sort of Sulphur pit or naturally occurring corrosive pit to leave their droppings - this implies ritual practise and an awareness of bacterial health, which is surprising for animals generally but not so much for a creature that's avoided human capture for as long as it has.
They don't shed. At all. - It's likely that a lot of their size comes from their ever growing hair - because none of this has ever been found, it's likely that the creature has evolved some way of preventing shedding, this is present in some dogs and cats and not uncommon for animals who rely on stealth to survive
Chatgpt writes some silly things in earnest sometimes and I love it: "...It's likely that a lot of their size comes from their ever growing hair..." 😂
oh that's all me honey 💅💅
Glad you enjoyed the show
I can tell you that it would be impossible in India. The forest cover is not contiguous and human populations are all over even protected forest reserves (barring core zones). Also it’s interesting to understand soil conditions in the areas they are purported to inhabit. High alkaline soil in boreal forests would make short work of any skeletons in even rudimentary burials.
if they can cloak, which some have purported, that would help immensely
So would inter dimensional travel but we aren’t accepting a solution that creates far more questions than answers
who are we?