Reading your post and can see we'll likely have no common ground here, so ill just ask you a question.
I bet you and I would likely have lots of common ground.. I don't believe Bigfoot exists, but I do believe an animal could go undetected in U.S. wilderness areas.
Similar to how naturally schools of fish go to the deepest areas of water as water levels decline, I can see large land animals naturally moving to the deepest and most dense areas of the wilderness they're in.
Al Gorithm said:
Why are there no wild natives left in the vas unexplored US? Surely they had the desire and the knowledge to remain elusive. They went extinct over a hundred years ago despite superior numbers and presumably a superior intellect.
I don't know why if Bigfoot exists, why we haven't found one yet? I also don't know why wild natives with superior numbers and presumably superior intellect, became extinct.
The extent of my knowledge about wild natives in the U.S. only comes from reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, so it's obviously lacking..
I did see an article recently that mentioned an explorer who found wild native tribes in New Guinea as recently as 2006 I think...
All I'm saying is, I think it's possible for a very large land mammal, with the ability to be a tiny bit self aware, could elude capture in the vast areas of wilderness in the U.S.
How many people are actually, and seriously, searching for Bigfoot in the U.S.? How many of them have any remote idea of what to look for? 150 to 200? Most of the people out looking for Bigfoot get lost looking for their car in the mall parking lot, or they can't find the way back to their seat at the football stadium...