Sasquatch and the law

The most repeated fact about Bigfoot and the law is that killing one in Skamania County, Washington, is a felony carrying a $10,000 fine and five years in prison. That was the ordinance for fifteen years. It has not been since 1984, when the county repealed that part of it and said in the repealing document's own recitals that the 1969 board "may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority" it had DEBUNKED. The felony still turns up in current writing. KUOW's 2022 explainer has the two ordinances the wrong way around, giving the 1969 law the $1,000 and one-year penalty and the 1984 amendment the $10,000 felony, which reverses what both documents say.

Skamania County, Ordinance No. 69-01

The Board of County Commissioners adopted Ordinance No. 69-01 on April 1, 1969 DOCUMENTED. It recites "evidence to indicate the possible existence in Skamania County of a nocturnal primate mammal variously described as an ape-like creature or a sub-species of Homo Sapiens," notes that publicity had produced "an influx of scientific investigators as well as casual hunters, many armed with lethal weapons," and then gets to the actual worry:

WHEREAS, the absence of specific laws covering the taking of specimens encourages laxity in the use of firearms and other deadly devices and poses a clear and present threat to the safety and well-being of persons living or traveling within the boundaries of Skamania County as well as to the creatures themselves

The operative clause makes "any premeditated, willful and wanton slaying of any such creature" a felony "punishable by a fine not to exceed Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00) and/or imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed Five (5) years," followed by an emergency clause making it effective immediately.

Quote that carefully. The 1969 document contains typographical errors and the published transcriptions do not agree on them CONTESTED. Joan Ilacqua's 2014 transcription gives "willful and wanton" and marks "Homo Sapian [sic]." Erik Henriksen's 2003 Portland Mercury account gives "wilful [sic] and wonton [sic]." The Sasquatch Information Society's transcription writes the fine as "$10,000" without cents. Nobody quoting this ordinance, including this page, has read the county's file copy. Skamania County's own web server returns HTTP 403 to automated requests, so the text here rests on three transcriptions that agree on substance and differ on spelling.

The purpose is not mysterious. Sightings had drawn armed strangers into a county that is roughly 90 percent forested and about 80 percent Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The ordinance protects a hypothetical animal in its wording and hikers, campers and anyone else at the far end of a rifle in its effect.

The April 1 date has dogged it since the week it passed. The ordinance was published in the Skamania County Pioneer on April 4 and April 11, 1969. Enough readers took it for a prank that the publisher had the item notarized on April 12 and printed the ordinance again alongside an Affidavit of Publication DOCUMENTED. Commission chair Conrad Lundy Jr. is quoted as saying "This is not an April Fool's Day joke. There is reason to believe such an animal exists." That quotation has a chain worth stating: it runs from the Skamania County Pioneer through Robert Michael Pyle's Where Bigfoot Walks (1995) at page 278 to Ilacqua, and Henriksen quotes it independently in 2003, also crediting the Pioneer. Ilacqua records that Lundy and prosecuting attorney Robert K. Leick signed the ordinance.

Who thought of it is not settled. Ilacqua reports that the idea was attributed to Skamania County Pioneer editor and publisher Roy Craft, "although whether he meant the law as a joke or serious is unknown," and she does not say who made the attribution ALLEGED. The commissioners' public seriousness is on the record. Craft's intent is not, and nobody should claim otherwise.

Why the felony did not survive

In 1984 the commissioners went back to it. Ordinance No. 1984-2 (indexed as "1984-02" by Courthouse Libraries BC) partially repealed and amended 69-01. Its recitals say why: the 1969 ordinance "deemed the slaying of such creature to be a felony (punishable by 5 years in prison) and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that Board of County Commissioners" DOCUMENTED.

Current state law is consistent with that worry. RCW 36.32.120(7) lets county commissioners make police and sanitary regulations not in conflict with state law, and provides that a violation "shall constitute a misdemeanor or a civil violation subject to a monetary penalty," adding that "the punishment for any criminal ordinance shall be the same as the punishment provided in state law for the same crime and no act that is a state crime may be made a civil violation" DOCUMENTED. Whether that subsection read the same way in 1969 is not something this page has checked, so the strong version of the claim, that a Washington county never had the power, is left alone. What can be said is that the county itself concluded in 1984 that the felony was a reach, that Ilacqua attributes the realization to Leick, and that the replacement scheme is more elaborate rather than less.

Section 1 declares "The Sasquatch, Yeti, Bigfoot, or Giant Hairy Ape" to be "endangered species of Skamania County" and creates "a Sasquatch Refuge, the boundaries of which shall be co-extensive with the boundaries of Skamania County." Skamania County covers about 1,684 square miles, so the refuge is on the order of a million acres. It is the whole county.

Section 3 is the strangest sentence in either document. In a prosecution, the fact that a defendant is suffering from "insane delusions, diminished capacity, or that the act was the product of a diseased mind, shall not be a defense."

When the amendment took effect is unresolved CONTESTED. The transcription ends "REVIEWED this 2nd day of April, 1984, and set for a public hearing on the 16th day of April, 1984, at 10:30 o'clock A.M.," and carries its own emergency clause making it effective immediately on passage. Courthouse Libraries BC states that it went into effect on April 2, 1984. Those are reconcilable only if April 2 was both the review and the operative date, with the April 16 hearing following. Ilacqua's footnotes are consistent with early April action, citing a Globe and Mail story of April 5, 1984 and an Indian Country Today story of April 25, 1984 in which Skamania residents describe their own encounters. The county's file copy would settle it. It is not reachable.

The coroner clause

Section 4 is the part worth taking seriously as law. Ilacqua and the Sasquatch Information Society transcription agree on its first sentence:

Should the Skamania County Coroner determine any victim/creature to have been humanoid the Prosecuting Attorney shall persue [sic] the case under existing laws pertaining to homicide.

The transcription continues that if the coroner finds the victim to be an anthropoid, an ape-like creature, the prosecutor proceeds under the ordinance instead. The misspelling is in the original.

Strip away the subject matter and this is competent drafting. It concedes that the county cannot answer the classification question in advance, assigns it to the officer who already holds statutory authority over human remains, and provides two tracks. A killer charged under the ordinance faces a year in jail. A killer whose victim the coroner calls humanoid faces the homicide statutes, and the misdemeanor ceiling stops mattering. That is the whole legal puzzle in one paragraph, reached in 1984.

Whatcom County, Resolution No. 92-043

Whatcom County, on the Canadian border, declared itself a refuge by resolution. Ilacqua quotes it:

WHEREAS, legend, purported recent finding and spoor suggest that Bigfoot may exist and WHEREAS, if such a creature exists, it is inadequately protected and in danger of death or injury NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Whatcom County Council that, Whatcom County is hereby declared a Sasquatch protection and refuge area, and all citizens are asked to recognize said status.

Note "are asked." This is a resolution, not an ordinance. No offense, no penalty, nothing to charge. It is county sentiment, which is what resolutions are for.

The year is genuinely muddled CONTESTED. Courthouse Libraries BC and KUOW both put it in 1992, which fits the number. Ilacqua calls it a 1991 measure while citing the same number 92-043, and her sources are from June 1991: a Seattle Times story of June 13, 1991 headlined "PROTECTION SOUGHT FOR BIGFOOT, LOOK-ALIKES," and Susan Paynter's Seattle Post-Intelligencer column of June 17, 1991. A resolution sought in June 1991 and numbered in the 1992 series is the economical reading, and the Times headline says "sought," but Whatcom County's document viewer requires an interactive browser session and its own copy has not been read here.

Ilacqua reports that the resolution was requested by Al Magnussen, vice president of the Mt. Baker Chamber of Commerce, in connection with a Bigfoot festival at Maple Falls whose first year was 1991 ALLEGED. That rests on Paynter's single column, cited at second hand. Nothing further should be built on it.

A caution about the source this section leans on. Ilacqua's paper is a graduate conference paper, not a peer-reviewed article, and it places Skamania County "in southeastern Washington state, just south of Mount Rainier." Skamania County is in southwestern Washington, on the Columbia. It remains the only published transcription of the Whatcom resolution found here, and it is also not infallible.

Oklahoma, 2021

Representative Justin Humphrey filed House Bill 1648 in the 1st Session of the 58th Oklahoma Legislature. The operative text is two sentences: "The Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission shall promulgate rules establishing a big foot hunting season. The Commission shall set annual season dates and create any necessary specific hunting licenses and fees." It would have been codified as Section 5-603 of Title 29, effective November 1, 2021. The legislative record is short: first reading February 1, 2021, second reading and referral to Rules February 2, and no action after that DOCUMENTED.

Read the bill and one thing is immediately clear. There is no bounty in it. No dollar figure appears anywhere in the text DOCUMENTED. Every reward figure attached to this story lives outside the legislation.

Those figures moved. Southwest Ledger reported on January 28, 2021 that Humphrey "wants a $25,000 bounty set up for the capture of a living Bigfoot," and quoted his reason: "I'm trying to help our district, bring revenue to our district." He also told the paper he was not himself persuaded: "I'm like those boys over in Missouri, 'show-me.'" By March 22, 2021, KSTU in Salt Lake City was reporting a $2.1 million bounty, conditioned on the creature being "captured alive and unharmed, and no laws can be broken during its capture," and citing KOKH for a claim that "Bigfoot tracking permits will soon be sold at certain businesses." By May 26, 2021, in a floor presentation at the Oklahoma Capitol, Humphrey said "We're gonna offer $3 million, we raised the bounty today, $3 million for a live capture of unharmed Bigfoot," and added "It's not hunt by the way, we don't hunt Bigfoot, nobody wants to harm Bigfoot, we want to do a live humane capture" ALLEGED.

Newsweek, reporting the $3 million figure on May 27, 2021, attributed the money to an unnamed man in the state who had partnered with Humphrey. No account found here names the funder, states the terms, or shows the money escrowed. The bounty is a set of press reports about an announcement, and should be treated as exactly that.

What wildlife agencies say when asked

Two state agencies have been put on the record, and both answers are more interesting than a denial.

Micah Holmes of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, asked about HB 1648, told Southwest Ledger: "At the Department of Wildlife we based things off of science and data." He added, "We don't recognize Bigfoot as a species in our state" DOCUMENTED.

Texas went the other way. In 2012 an unnamed Oregon man wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking whether killing a Sasquatch there would be legal. L. David Sinclair of the department, as StateImpact Texas put it, "sent back a letter, thoroughly citing various sections of the Parks and Wildlife code." He told StateImpact: "If Bigfoot did exist, and wasn't human, then it would [be legal]. Bigfoot would be a non-protected wild animal." He quoted the rule: "A non-protected nongame animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means, at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit." Asked about the attention the letter got, he said "the agency doesn't want to get into whether or not there's Bigfoot" DOCUMENTED.

That last clause is the agency posture entire. Sinclair did not say Bigfoot exists. He answered a conditional question about classification, which is the only question a wildlife regulator is competent to answer.

What would actually happen

Take Washington and follow the statutes. RCW 77.08.010(74) defines "wildlife" as "all species of the animal kingdom whose members exist in Washington in a wild state," including mammals, and excluding feral domestic mammals and old world rats and mice. An unknown large mammal in the Cascades would be wildlife the moment it was shown to exist. No listing is needed for that definition to reach it.

Protection is a separate question. Under RCW 77.12.020(3), "All wild birds not otherwise classified are protected wildlife." There is no parallel default for mammals; the commission designates protected and endangered species one at a time. WAC 220-200-100 is the resulting list, species by species, common name and scientific name, from the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) to the yellow-pine chipmunk (Tamias amoenus). An animal with no scientific name cannot appear on it. Federal law is built the same way: Endangered Species Act protections attach to species listed by regulation, and nothing undescribed is listed.

So the shooter's exposure turns almost entirely on classification after the fact. If a medical examiner called the remains an ape, the case would be a wildlife matter, which in most of the country means very little. If the remains were called human, RCW 9A.32.010 applies with no special ordinance required: "Homicide is the killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or omission of another." Skamania County saw the fork in 1984 and wrote it into Section 4.

Postcards, not licenses

The Skamania County Chamber of Commerce takes the honest route with visitors. It hands out a Bigfoot postcard with the ordinance printed on it, states the penalty as "one year of jail time and/or a $1000 fine," which matches the 1984 gross misdemeanor rather than the 1969 felony, and tells people they are "encouraged to 'shoot' Bigfoot with a camera in Skamania County."

This page set out to document a jurisdiction that had to formally disclaim a novelty Bigfoot hunting permit, and could not verify one instance from a primary source, so no such claim is made here. What is documented is smaller and better: a Texas wildlife official answering a letter with statutory citations in 2012, and an Oklahoma agency in 2021 explaining that it does not recognize the animal a bill was directing it to license.

What is not established here

Ilacqua reports that, on her research, no one has ever been arrested for shooting a Sasquatch in Skamania County, and offers the obvious explanation, a shortage of Sasquatch to shoot ALLEGED. That is one researcher's negative finding in 2014, not a certified search of county records, and it is stated here at that strength. The Whatcom resolution creates no offense, so there is nothing there to break.

None of this is evidence that anything is out there. It is evidence that armed strangers in the woods were a real problem in 1969, that a county prosecutor in 1984 thought carefully about a hypothetical and wrote a sensible fork into it, and that the penalty everyone repeats was repealed forty-two years ago.

Three things this entry wanted and could not get: Skamania County's file copies of both ordinances, Whatcom County's copy of Resolution No. 92-043, and a 1971 UPI wire story about a Cleveland expedition writing to a Washington state agency for advice on shooting a Sasquatch. The first two sit behind a 403 and an interactive-session viewer. The third survives only on a site whose TLS handshake no longer completes, so it has been dropped rather than repeated on faith.

Sources

• Skamania County, Washington, Ordinance No. 69-01, adopted April 1, 1969. Transcription published by the Sasquatch Information Society, accessed September 2026. Source for the whereas clauses, the $10,000 and five-year felony provision, the emergency clause, and the absence of any signature block in the transcription. https://bigfootinfo.org/skamania-county-ordinance/
• Skamania County, Washington, Ordinance No. 1984-2. Transcription published by the Sasquatch Information Society, accessed September 2026. Source for the jurisdictional-authority recital, Section 1 (endangered species and Sasquatch Refuge co-extensive with the county), Section 2 (gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor penalties), Section 3 (insanity defense unavailable), Section 4 (coroner clause), the emergency clause, and the closing "REVIEWED this 2nd day of April, 1984" line setting an April 16 hearing. https://bigfootinfo.org/skamania-ordinance-part-ii/
• Joan Ilacqua, "Sasquatch and the Law: The Implications of Bigfoot Preservation Laws in Washington State," Graduate History Conference paper, University of Massachusetts Boston, March 29, 2014, eight pages. Source for the Lundy quotation and its chain through Pyle (1995) at 278, the Lundy and Leick signatures, the Roy Craft attribution, Leick's realization about jurisdictional authority, the transcription of the 1969 whereas and operative clauses, the quotation of Section 4, the full text of Whatcom County Resolution No. 92-043, Al Magnussen's request, the June 1991 Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer citations, the Globe and Mail (April 5, 1984) and Indian Country Today (April 25, 1984) citations, and the no-arrest finding. Landing page: https://scholarworks.umb.edu/ghc/2014/panel2/3/ Full text (the publisher's own PDF link returns 403; this mirror serves it): https://core.ac.uk/download/229336929.pdf
• Courthouse Libraries BC, "Is it illegal to kill a Sasquatch in BC?", legal knowledge base, last revised May 9, 2024, accessed September 2026. Source for the April 4 and April 11, 1969 publication dates, the April 12, 1969 notarization and Affidavit of Publication, the "Ordinance No. 1984-02" numbering with an April 2, 1984 effective date, and Whatcom County Resolution No. 92-043 taking effect in June 1992. This page states no penalty figures. https://www.courthouselibrary.ca/how-we-can-help/our-legal-knowledge-base/it-illegal-kill-sasquatch-bc
• Erik Henriksen, "I Hunt the Giant Man-Ape," Portland Mercury, September 11, 2003, accessed September 2026. Independent quotation of the Lundy statement credited to the Skamania County Pioneer, and a transcription of the 1969 operative clause reading "wilful [sic] and wonton [sic]." https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2003/09/11/28196/i-hunt-the-giant-man-ape
• Dyer Oxley, "Did you know?: Why you shouldn't mess with Bigfoot in Washington state," KUOW, published December 8, 2022, accessed September 2026. Source for dating the Whatcom resolution to 1992, and for the reversal of the 1969 and 1984 penalties described at the top of this entry. https://www.kuow.org/stories/did-you-know-why-you-shouldn-t-mess-with-bigfoot-in-washington-state
• Oklahoma Legislature, HB 1648, 1st Session of the 58th Legislature (2021): bill information page and the "as introduced" PDF, accessed September 2026. Source for the author, the full operative text, codification at Section 5-603 of Title 29, the November 1, 2021 effective date, the absence of any dollar figure, and the action history (first reading February 1, 2021; second reading and referral to Rules February 2, 2021; nothing after). https://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HB1648&Session=2100 and https://www.oklegislature.gov/cf_pdf/2021-22%20int/hb/HB1648%20int.pdf
• Andrew W. Griffin, "Lawmaker thinks Bigfoot-hunting bill will be monster tourism draw," Southwest Ledger, January 28, 2021, accessed September 2026. Source for the $25,000 bounty Humphrey wanted set up, his tourism rationale and the "show-me" quotation, and Micah Holmes's statement for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. https://www.southwestledger.news/news/lawmaker-thinks-bigfoot-hunting-bill-will-be-monster-tourism-draw
• Jeff Tavss, "$2.1 million bounty offered for capture of Bigfoot," KSTU / FOX 13 Salt Lake City, March 22, 2021, accessed September 2026. Source for the $2.1 million figure, the alive-and-unharmed condition, and the tracking-permit claim credited to KOKH. https://www.fox13now.com/news/national-news/2-1-million-bounty-offered-for-capture-of-bigfoot
• James Crump, "Bigfoot Bounty of $3 Million Announced by Oklahoma Lawmaker," Newsweek, May 27, 2021, accessed September 2026. Source for the $3 million figure, Humphrey's floor quotations of May 26, 2021, the unnamed private funder, and the note that the original proposal was $25,000 and the bill did not pass. https://www.newsweek.com/bigfoot-bounty-jim-humphrey-oklahoma-1595313
• Terrence Henry, "Is It Legal to Kill Bigfoot in Texas?", StateImpact Texas, May 10, 2012, accessed September 2026. Source for the unnamed Oregon correspondent, Sinclair's written reply citing the Parks and Wildlife code, the non-protected nongame animal rule, and "the agency doesn't want to get into whether or not there's Bigfoot." https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/05/10/is-it-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas/
• Revised Code of Washington, accessed September 2026 via the Washington State Legislature: RCW 36.32.120(7) (county ordinance violations limited to misdemeanors or civil penalties, with punishment matched to state law), RCW 77.08.010(74) (definition of "wildlife"), RCW 77.12.020(3) (wild birds not otherwise classified are protected) with 77.12.020(5) and (6) on protected and endangered designation, and RCW 9A.32.010 (homicide defined). https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.32.120
• Washington Administrative Code 220-200-100, "Wildlife classified as protected shall not be hunted or fished," accessed September 2026. Source for the species-by-species structure of the protected list, including sea otter (Enhydra lutris) and yellow-pine chipmunk (Tamias amoenus). https://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=220-200-100
• Skamania County Chamber of Commerce, "Sasquatch Sightings," accessed September 2026. Source for the ordinance postcard at the visitor center, the stated penalty of one year and/or $1,000, and the "shoot Bigfoot with a camera" language. https://skamania.org/experience-skamania/sasquatch-sightings-2/
• Wikipedia, "Skamania County, Washington," accessed September 2026. Source for the county's area (1,684 square miles total, 1,656 land), 90 percent forest cover and 80 percent Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and the twice-published notice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skamania_County,_Washington
• Sought and not obtained: Skamania County's own PDF copies of both ordinances (the county web server returns HTTP 403 to automated requests), Whatcom County's copy of Resolution No. 92-043 (its document viewer requires an interactive browser session), and the Bigfoot Encounters transcriptions of the 1969 ordinance and of a 1971 UPI wire story, whose host no longer completes a TLS handshake. Claims that rested only on the last of these have been removed from this entry.