In the Open: Monster Hunting Shows About Nothing

By Jim Freeman

If you are any sort of outdoorsman at all, you’ve probably daydreamed about having your own hunting or fishing show. Wouldn’t that be great, getting to do what you love, and inviting the world to come along and enjoy your hunts and fishing trips as well?

Now imagine an outdoor show where you didn’t actually have to kill or catch anything, or for that matter, even see anything, or find any sign. Wouldn’t that be a racket? With the cost of out-of-state licenses, you’d save a fortune!

That’s what I think about the assorted Bigfoot and monster hunting shows, which are fairly commonplace on assorted channels otherwise dedicated to “history” or “education.” You know the ones, with the “experts” who look like they probably still live in their parents’ basements, armed with jury-rigged equipment and night-vision cameras. If some of these people actually did chase a Bigfoot I might recommend having 911 already punched in with the helicopter ambulance on standby.

“Seinfeld” was described as a show about nothing; the real shows about nothing are the monster hunting shows.

A common scenario goes like this: the crew descends on some backwater community and hosts a meeting in some public location where they identify people who have apparently encountered the local monster population (ironically they look like the same people we see on TV describing the tornado that recently ravaged the nearby mobile home park); armed with this information the crew goes out (at night of course) where we see them stumbling through the woods until they get enough camera footage to complete the episode – every twig snapping or odd sound is considered evidence of the creatures’ existence.

What don’t you see? A Bigfoot or actual monster, of course. In fact, I will be so bold as to venture that you will never see a Bigfoot or actual monster captured by one of these crews. How can I make such a statement? It’s too easy, because there aren’t any. I say again, there are no bigfoots.

With the proliferation of trail cameras and the number of highways crisscrossing our nation, if there were monsters out there it is a sure bet that at least one of them would have found itself plastered across the front of some soccer mom’s van by now. But how many times has this happened? Not once. Not. One. Single. Time. Nor have any been captured in crystal-clear five-megapixel glory.

Every fall a literal army of deer hunters deploys into the woods and meadows, how many of these people have killed a monster or bigfoot? You got it, not one. It’s a sure bet that an unprotected species like sasquatch, were it actually present, would have made that long, final trip out of the woods lashed to the back of a four-wheeler. Guess what? It hasn’t happened. Not ever.

When I was a young lad, my family spent a few years living in Louisiana in a small city near New Orleans. Development was already getting its foot in the door but at that point there was literally nothing but a solid expanse of pine woods, bayous and swamps (intersected by the occasional road and highway) inhabited by countless wild boars, alligators and mosquitoes from the edge of our backyard to Honey Island Swamp along Pearl River.

Naturally our backyard camping experiences all involved discussions about the Honey Island Swamp Monster, with the result being that about the half of the time our campouts ended on the living room floor, which was littered with kids who had half scared themselves out of their wits. This was called big fun.

Sadly there are real monsters out there, but the problem is that they look, talk and act like us. When you are a kid, you don’t have to think about those things very much, imaginary monsters are much more fun. Of course, a horde of these imaginary little monsters will be taking to the streets and sidewalks looking for candy in about a week, so please watch out for them.

Camping out along the edge of the woods and swamps, with only the campfire for illumination, and vivid imaginations transforming every night sound into unspeakable horrors, it can still be fun to pretend that there are things out there that defy reality.

It’s also not a bad gig if you can make a living at it.

Jim Freeman is wildlife specialist for the Meigs Soil and Water Conservation District. He can be contacted weekdays at 740-992-4282 or at [email protected]