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By Hal McKenzie
Gorillas have Diane Fossey, chimpanzees have Jane Goodall, and that elusive primate known as bigfoot or sasquatch has Mary Green of Algood, Tenn. Green, who proudly bills herself the "Tennessee Bigfoot Lady," is author of the book 50 years with Bigfoot: Tennessee Chronicles of Coexistence.
According to the book, deep in the mountains of east Tennessee the Carter family has been giving food and shelter to bigfoot since about 1947. It started when farmer Robert Carter Sr. found and took in an injured male juvenile, keeping him in his barn until the young one's parents, making loud calls, trashed the building to get him out.
Over the years that young bigfoot, whom Carter called "his fox" so as not to alarm his relatives and neighbors, kept up a relationship with Carter and his family which continues today after Carter's death in 1996. Physical evidence of the bigfoots' presence includes hair samples, scat, footprints and an eviscerated calf, photos of which are posted on Green's website.
Green says she obtained DNA samples that are now being processed. In a recent e-mail to this writer, she writes, "we are still continuing with the DNA testing and have some preliminary results in. We will not have the complete results for a few months yet for as you well know, it takes a lot of expense, time, and expertise to do this type of testing with controls. After the full results are completed there will be a scientific paper presented on the results."
Carter's granddaughter, Janice Carter Coy, has continued the family tradition of feeding the creatures, "but the bigfoot there have not been seen as frequently lately due to the summer season. Janice fed them every day last winter and they continued to come up to eat what she put out for them up until late spring 2003. Now there is an abundant food supply so there is no need for them to come in until late fall again for supplemental food. I'm certain the bigfoot survive without this, but those on the farm have been habituated to feedings and humans," she said.
Neighbors also continue to report sightings, which Coy is collecting. "The young female believed to be the daughter of the old male Fox has a young one now," believed to be 3-4 months old. "She has run a close neighbor, a young man with a chain saw, away when he attempted to cut wood on his property. She came running from out of the woods and chased him away," she wrote.
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