Yetis, Bigfoot, and other undiscovered things

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (click me! for the article) was talking
about how the Russian government, is searching for the Yeti (probably not the
guy to the right). They go on and talk about these fields of biology that do
not exist and how they use what they think as fact to distinguish what is other
fact. They even have a series on the Animal Planet called Big Foot Hunters. But
I am not here to argue the legitimacy of how they base fact off of facts they cannot prove on something that may or may not exist. But rather, talk about how something this big has the chance at existing.

How can something that is 7 feet tall (supposedly) that leaves a 23 men’s shoe size (supposedly) on the ground not have been found by
researchers. Especially in a terrain that is not massive like or extremely hard
to reach, like the depths of the ocean.
The other wild part about the scenario: that Russia is not the only place that believes in something describe as a Yeti. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Abominable Snowman are all acceptable names for the creature seen in Russia, Nepal, and in the Americas. Now how can this happen?

It is actually not that hard to understand. There are less than 2 million species that
have been identified and recorded by taxidermist. They believe that there are
many organisms left, anywhere from 10 million to 100 million left. At a rate of 15 thousand species being documented each year, it may take a while to even think that they have
identified half. Most of these undiscovered species are fish, fungi, insects, and microbes, which may hold new medicinal compounds, or defenses to diseases that many people suffer from every day.

The other problem is the amount of area in the world that is
underdeveloped or hard and expensive to reach currently. In underdeveloped areas
there is not going to be biologist in every community, looking at every species
that the people may encounter and use in everyday life. This causes many
species to go undetected for a long time but is already known by many native
people. Also in the deep reaches of the ocean, many species of fish and different microbes go undiscovered just because of location. Not many biologists can spend that much to stay down long enough to study a species in its natural habitat. As most know, much more is known about
the surface of the moon than the depths of the ocean.

There is much more to be discovered in the universe, including biology. Biologists are tasked with a very difficult task of documenting all the species in the world. There are limitations to where and how fast they can work and discover these species. But no matter what, it is
pretty awesome that we still are finding new organisms, whether they be six
inches long, wet, and slimy, or seven feet tall and hairy.