The yeti, or abominable snowman of legend, does not exist, Chinese conservation officials have concluded after nearly two decades of research in the country's mountainous regions.
"A number of systematic scientific expeditions have found that all reported sightings of the (yeti) were actually other wild animals," forestry and wildlife conservation director Mr Zhang Jianlong told the official Xinhua news agency.
Mr Zhang's pronouncement was the first official word ending a debate on the existence of the yeti, or bigfoot, Xinhua said.
"I just don't believe the story, and many scientists agree with me," Mr Zhang said, adding that most bigfoot researchers lacked specialist scientific training.
"Encouraging some mass capture of `bigfoot' will severely hurt other wildlife and scientifically will come to nothing," he said.
His views were backed up by a colleague at the State Administration of Forestry, Mr Liu Yongfan, who said that local conservation officials had failed to discover traces of the creature during many years of regular field patrols in the Shennongjia region of central Hubei province.
Tales of a half man, half ape-like creature have centred around Shennongjia, a mountainous area of more than 3,000 square kilometres (1,200 square miles) covered by primitive forests.
China has organised a succession of official expeditions into the valleys of Shennongjia beginning in the early 1980s, and some officials have taken local villagers' yeti sightings seriously.
In 1984 the government set up a committee for research into strange and rare creatures under the State Science and Technology Commission to take a hard look at the evidence - 40 centimetre (17.6 inch) footprints, clumps of red hair and droppings.
Most stories describe the creature as around two metres tall, with ape-like facial features and a body covered with red hair. It has no tail and usually leaves large footprints in the fields, they say.
But the government appears to have drawn a blank in its research and relegated bigfoot stories to the realm of fantasy.
"There are no basic primate foods such as berries or broad-leaf trees in the mountains of Shennongjia, where most bigfoot enthusiasts believe the mysterious creature lives," said Shennongjia reserve official Yan Xun.
"The conditions in Shennongjia are unsuited for sustaining the life of any primate, including the so-called bigfoot."