The Columbian writes “Clark County is the latest among a growing list of counties taking steps to protect Washington’s favorite cryptid, Bigfoot. On Tuesday, the county council passed a resolution designating all of Clark County as a refuge for the large, hairy, humanlike creatures.
According to the resolution, read by council Chair Sue Marshall, “legends, sightings and investigations suggest that a bipedal apelike creature known as Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, may exist in the remote portions of Clark County” and should be protected, if it exists, as “the rareness of sightings indicates an extreme endangered creature.”
Even if Bigfoot isn’t real, the resolution acknowledges the folklore surrounding Bigfoot highlights the need for stewardship of the county’s wild places and natural landscape.
The request to support a resolution came from teacher Becka Jones’ fifth-grade students at Lincoln Elementary School in Hoquiam, who urged the council to take action to protect Bigfoot from hunters and poachers.
“We have noticed that there are fewer and fewer sightings of Bigfoot each year. By this time next year, there could probably be even less sightings if there is no law set in place in Clark County to protect Bigfoot and keep him safe,” the students wrote.
Similar requests from the school were previously sent to Grays Harbor, Mason and Clallam counties, which also adopted resolutions. But they aren’t the first counties to get Bigfoot protections on the books.
Skamania County passed a law in 1969 prohibiting the harming of a Sasquatch after residents saw Bigfoot hunters coming through the area carrying cameras and guns, according to the ordinance. Violations are punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Whatcom County passed a resolution establishing the county as a Bigfoot protection and refuge area in 1992.
Jones and her class joined Tuesday’s meeting remotely to watch the council adopt the resolution. “I want to thank you and your class for bringing this forward and sparking all of our imaginations and wonder and to have an opportunity for hands-on civic involvement,” Marshall said to the students.
Bigfoot enthusiast Ryan Leisinger, an Olympia resident who created the WashingtonBigfoot.com site, helped Lincoln Elementary students draft the resolution. Even though Bigfoot reports come from all across the country, he said Washington has embraced the folklore in a way that cannot be found anywhere else.
“You get off the airplane at (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport), and there’s a trinket of the Space Needle and Bigfoot that you can buy,” he said.
Everywhere you visit, there are various Bigfoot stickers or other mementos. Then, there are the events that draw thousands of visitors, Leisinger said. “I think there’s something about the unknown, about that mysterious piece. Then, people get to fill in their own part of the story, and if it was a sighting by them or a sighting by their family, they have this connection,” he said.
Leisinger said the elusive nature of Bigfoot sightings and the absence of evidence beyond grainy photos only helps draw people into the story.
“I think the lack of some of that information allows the person to be invested in it and have their own part. And that’s a good thing, as long as we’re still having fun and not beating each other up over what we think about those kind of things,” he said.
Charles R
Some fifth grade students notice there are fewer Bigfoot sightings and are being hunted. News to me. State of Washington continues to lead the nation in reports. I am all for protecting the Bigfoots though.