After a local college went Bigfoot hunting, a state senator introduced a bill nobody would have ever thought necessary

In October, an investigative reporter at KRQE in New Mexico uncovered a University of New Mexico-Gallup expedition that sought to discover Bigfoot. While that sounds strange, even stranger is the fact that the wilderness adventure was funded by taxpayers. That expedition let to a bill by a state senator that decried that tax dollars cannot be spent on “looking for or catching a fictitious creature.” The bill defines a “fictitious creature” as “bigfoot, sasquatch, yeti, abominable snowman, pokemon, leprechauns or bogeyman.”

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When KRQE first broke the story, the president of the university told the outlet that he didn’t know about the expedition “until [reporters] contacted [the university].” The station interviewed Dr. Christopher Dyer, who told them, “I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard it. I’ve had a rock thrown at me one night I think.” Professor Dyer held an on-campus conference in February of 2016 entitled, “Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior,” and following the conference, Dyer went hunting for the elusive creature. Taxpayers footed the bill for hotels, meals and mileage — a reported $7,458. State Senator George Munoz, who introduced the bill, said, “It’s sad that we have to do this […] and now we have to draft bills to stop [it].”

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