John Bindernagel

John Albert Bindernagel (December 22, 1941 – January 17, 2018) was a wildlife biologist who sought evidence for Sasquatch since 1963.[1][2]

John Albert Bindernagel
BornDecember 22, 1941
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
DiedJanuary 17, 2018(2018-01-17) (aged 76)
British Columbia, Canada
NationalityCanadian
OccupationWildlife biologist
Years active1963-2018
Known forWildlife biology
Notable workResearch on North American wildlife and Bigfoot

Biography

Bindernagel was born in Kitchener, Ontario, attended the University of Guelph,[3] and received a PhD in Biology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[4] He moved to British Columbia in 1975[5] largely because the region was a hot spot for Bigfoot sightings.[3] Over the years, he collected casts of tracks that he believed belonged to Bigfoot. He also claimed to have heard the creature near Comox Lake in 1992, comparing its whooping sound to that of a chimpanzee.[6] Bindernagel believed that the Bigfoot phenomena should receive more attention from serious scientists, but remarked, "The evidence doesn't get scrutinized objectively. We can't bring the evidence to our colleagues because it's perceived as taboo."[7]

He published a book in 1998 entitled North America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch.[8] His second book, The Discovery of the Sasquatch: Reconciling Culture, History and Science in the Discovery Process, was published in 2010.[9]

Bindernagel was a curator with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) until his death.[10] Bindernagel died on January 17, 2018, at the age of 76. His cause of death was determined as cancer.[11]

Reception

Bindernagel's claim that the sasquatch is a real wildlife species was not accepted by the scientific community. His book, North America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch was reviewed by James Lazell and Jeannine Caldbeck in the Northwestern Naturalist journal.[12] They took issue with Bindernagel's claim that many of the witness reports of the sasquatch cannot be hoaxes because this would be expensive and require a great amount of effort and time.[12] Lazell and Caldbeck concluded:

We make the point that hoaxing is vastly less expensive in energy, time and effort than actually being a real sasquatch. Any viable population of a huge ape extending, as Bindernagel claims, from the Pacific Northwest to Florida and New England, would necessarily consume such enormous resources as to be a real nuisance, make a major and unmistakable ecological impact, and be a frequent provider of road and hunter kills. Hoaxing cannot be dismissed.[12]

Joshua Blu Buhs criticized Bindernagel's The Discovery of the Sasquatch for failing to prove its thesis that bigfoot exists. He wrote that Bindernagel cherry-picked his data and ignored a whole body of evidence that contradicts the idea that bigfoot is an ape-like creature.[13]

Selected publications
  • North America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch (1998, ISBN 0-9682887-0-7)
  • The Discovery of the Sasquatch: Reconciling Culture, History and Science in the Discovery Process (2010)

References
  1. Bell, Brian. Insight Guide Pacific Northwest. Insight Guides. p. 157. ISBN 1-58573-150-1.
  2. Meldrum, Jeff (4 September 2007). Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. Forge Books. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-7653-1217-4.
  3. Bram Eisenthal. "Tracking a tall tale". The Globe and Mail. April 1, 2006. Retrieved on February 20, 2009.
  4. Mary Van de Kamp Nohl. "Pine Lake's Bigfoot Archived 2010-12-29 at the Wayback Machine". Milwaukee Magazine. May 1, 2003. Retrieved on February 20, 2009.
  5. "Do Sasquatch really exist? On Vancouver island?" The Mount Washington Marmot. Summer 2002. p. 4. Retrieved on February 20, 2009.
  6. "Biologist believes he has found sasquatch lurking in Canada". Houston Chronicle. January 23, 1994. Retrieved from ProQuest on February 20, 2009.
  7. "Fuzzy films on web hurt our cause Archived 2011-10-06 at the Wayback Machine". CanWest News Service. Montreal Gazette. March 24, 2007. Retrieved on February 20, 2009.
  8. Michael Taylor. "Screams in the night". San Francisco Chronicle. January 24, 1999. Retrieved on February 20, 1999.
  9. Bindernagel, John (2016). "North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch". Dr. John Bindernagel Homepage. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.
  10. "North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch". Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.
  11. "Renowned B.C.-based Sasquatch researcher dies from cancer". CTV News.
  12. Lazell, James; Caldbeck, Jeannine (2001). "Reviewed Work: North America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch. A Wildlife Biologist Looks at the Continent's Most Misunderstood Large Mammal by J. A. Bindernagel". Northwestern Naturalist. 82 (1): 36. doi:10.2307/3536647. JSTOR 3536647.
  13. Buhs, Joshua Blu (2012). "Reviewed Work: The Discovery of the Sasquatch: Reconciling Culture, History, and Science in the Discovery Process by John A. Bindernagel, Leila Hadj‐Chikh". Isis. 103 (1): 208–209. doi:10.1086/666446.
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