(Scientist) John Mionczynski
John Mionczynski is a wildlife biologist. He has more than thirty years of field experience as a government researcher, wildlife consultant, and instructor. Mionczynski worked for years with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team and has conducted research regarding factors contributing to the dwindling numbers of bighorn sheep in the U.S. and Canadian Rockies. He has extensive knowledge of ethnobotany (see The Sheep Eaters II) and has taught related courses for credit at the Teton Science Schools, the National Outdoor Leadership School, and several colleges.
In 1972, while at a base camp for a government sponsored bighorn sheep study, a large upright figure, larger than the local bears and exhibiting a human-like hand with a distinctive thumb, collapsed Mionczynski’s tent. The creature, which Mionczynski heard breathing at a rate of six breaths per minute, threw pine cones at him as he spent the rest of the night at his campfire. Since then, he has followed up on similar sightings and experiences and has become familiar with American Indian knowledge of the sasquatch.
Mionczynski has been working with Jeff Meldrum for the past several years on the grant-funded “North American Ape Project” regarding the availability of potential foods in the Rockies for a species of large omnivorous ape.
