I’m not convinced it isnt just a photo of a gorilla taken in a zoo. The backstory is weird too… guy claims to have not seen the creature. The angle of the photo is really odd for a hiker to have taken casually.
I’m thinking the unpublished reports are the “I saw a black shadow 300 yards away that might have been a bigfoot” type. I’m sure a lot aren’t worth or worthy of publishing. But, technically, they are still reports and BFRO uses them as a total.
The replica or second version used a Don Post Studios rubber mask. I forget which one. I think, perhaps, it was the Hunchback. The replica iceman turned up a year or two ago.