Great Suffering Sasquatch!

The Bradford Era, a newspaper in Bradford, Pennsylvania, is being chastised by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for publishing pictures of a strange animal captured by an automatic camera. Some people think the picture shows a Sasquatch, state biologists say it is just a bear with a bad case of mange.

It’s a fisher, a bear with mange, a bear that just took a swim, a dog bear; these are some of the suggestions that flooded into The Era on Friday to define what sort of creature was caught in a photo by a stationary tree camera in the Allegheny National Forest.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission also contacted The Era about the photos taken by Elk County man Rick Jacobs’ camera, which had been mounted in September to try to record photos of deer.

“I shared the photos with the bear biologist,” said Jerry Feaser of the Game Commission. “There is no question it is a bear with a severe case of mange.”

He explained the wildlife conservation officers routinely trap and mark bears, and see the condition often.

“When people see something that doesn’t appear normal, they are confused about what they see and mistake it for something else,” Feaser said.

He even went so far as to chastise The Era for reporting the story of a questionable photo which some said may be a juvenile Bigfoot.

“Somebody may mistakenly identify something and the news media helps spread the rumor causing more concern and panic than necessary,” he said.

The true believers in mythical beings will, of course, allege this is a coverup. But the full sequence of pictures indicate that it is just a bear, albeit a very sickly one. Well, unless it was Uncle Guido in his bigfoot suit again. He does this periodically when he's off his meds.