My own beliefs have evolved with my worldviews. When I was a kid, I believed in all of it (my "Legend of Boggy Creek" period). Then when I was a teen and into my young adulthood, I learned more from my Native American views of Bigfoot as a spirit, on the one hand, and the Fortean-Keelian world on the other. Clark's "Goblin Universe" and Loren Coleman's books that not only included Bigfoot but also Clowns, Gassers, MIB, etc. When I went to University and majored in Anthropology in my twenties, I had a physical anthropology teacher Charlene Smith in the 1980s who believed in the strong possibility of the biological reality of Bigfoot, and I also heard stories from other Native students, and then through cultural anthropology learned more about folklore and phenomenology.
Finally, I came across the shunka warak'in info in my graduate work, and then the mounted "ringdocus" mystery began. Loren Coleman and I corresponded (I was thrilled to be emailing with the guy who wrote all those books I read), and my info was included in Coleman's Cryptozoology book. The internet took off back around then (mid-90s) and soon I found mentions of the shunka warak'in all over the Internet. It had become part of the ouevre of cryptozoology. Soon it was conflated with all kinds of other reports. Culture and urban legends in the making.
At last the mount resurfaced in the museum in Ennis and I got a look at it. From my time in natural history museums, in the woods, owning dogs and coyotes (my uncle had 2 coyotes) and being around wolves in zoos, I knew this animal as something different. Alas, they refused to let me take a tuft of hair for DNA analysis.
Due to all these different experiences and paradigm shifts, I realized that cryptozoology has multiple meanings for many people. And I still enjoy the hell out of it all!
Origin: dark-shadowy-line.blogspot.com
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