Malaysia's wildlife department said yesterday it would investigate claims that "Bigfoot" man-like beasts are roaming the jungles of southern Johor state, an official said yesterday.

Newspapers have this week aired stories of sightings of the legendary creatures, and photographs of a giant footprint left near a jungle swamp.

The director of the wildlife department's Biodiversity Conservation Division, Siti Hawa Yatim, said they would examine the prints, which reportedly measure up to 45 centimetres.

"We are going to check first if the case is a true one," Siti Hawa said.

She said officials would interview people living around the Kota Tinggi area, where workers last month reported seeing two huge creatures and a youngster, and may set up cameras in jungle areas to try to capture images of any beasts.

"If we cannot work out from the evidence what it is and we can see the footprint is still there, and there's the possibility of something other than animals, then maybe we would put camera traps," she said.

"If there's a possibility of it really being the Bigfoot, then I think we should do it," she said, although venturing a guess the creatures were actually large sun bears.

Johor is home to large tracts of jungle, including its famed Endau-Rompin National Park, and unconfirmed sightings of large creatures surface periodically.

An advisor to the Johor branch of the Malaysian Nature Society, Vincent Chow, has been lobbying the government to look into the claims and said an investigation could spur global interest.

"We are sitting on a wonderful opportunity by way of the Bigfoot research to spur ecotourism in Johor, taking the cue of Loch Ness in Scotland," Chow was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Chow took the photographs of the footprint and estimated the beast was three metres tall, based on a broken tree branch found hanging over the site.

Brown hair reeking of body odour has also been retrieved around the area, he said.

Source: China Daily