I am a 60 year-old professional wildlife biologist who is seriously studying the sasquatch or bigfoot in North America. My interest in this animal began in 1963 when, as a third-year-student in wildlife management at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, I was laughed at for raising the report of an animal described as an "ape-man" for possible discussion.

My field work began in 1975 when our family moved to British Columbia, partly in order for me to begin field work on this species.

In 1988, my wife and I found several sasquatch tracks in good condition in the mountains not far from our home on Vancouver Island. Plaster casts, which we made, from these tracks provided the first tangible evidence I encountered for the existence of the sasquatch.

Wildlife biologists such as myself regularly depend on tracks and other wildlife sign as evidence for the presence of bears, deer, wolves, and other mammals, recognizing that tracks constitute a more reliable and persistent record of the presence of a mammal species in an area than a fleeting glimpse of the animal itself.

Although I now have no doubt regarding the existence of the sasquatch, this was not always the case. However now that I am satisfied that the sasquatch is a real animal, subject to study and examination like any other large ammal, I am much more concerned with addressing ecological questions such as how it overwinters in the colder regions of North America, than with dwelling on the controversy of whether it does or does not exist. I remain aware, however, that many people are not aware of the large volume of information that exists about this species and I understand why others are less ready than I am to treat it as a real animal.

John Bindernagel's autobiography available at www.bigfootbiologist.com/page3.html.