On the Tamiami Trail, in the tiny Everglades town of Ochopee, there is a gift shop with a sign that reads Skunk Ape Research Headquarters. Inside you can buy T-shirts, shot glasses and a $4.95 field guide to a seven-foot hairy creature that smells like a wet dog crossed with a skunk. The man behind the counter, Dave Shealy, says he has seen it four times.
What is a skunk ape?
The Skunk Ape is Florida's version of Bigfoot: a tall, upright, ape-like animal said to live in the swamps of the Everglades and Big Cypress. According to Shealy's field guide it stands six to seven feet tall, spends about half its life in trees, and gets its signature smell from time spent in underground alligator holes. The Seminole and Miccosukee people are said to have told stories of a swamp creature for generations; the name "skunk ape" itself dates to the 1960s.
The sightings
A pair of hunters claimed an encounter at their camp in 1957. Reports picked up through the 1960s and 1970s, enough that in 1977 a bill was introduced in the Florida Legislature to protect "anthropoid or humanoid animals." It did not pass. In 1997 a tour bus full of visitors reported a sighting near Ochopee, and two locals, Jan Brock and Vince Doerr, reported separate encounters the same year; Doerr got a photograph.
Then there are the Myakka photos. On December 22, 2000, an unmarked envelope arrived at the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office with two photographs of a large hairy animal on the back deck of a house, and an anonymous letter suggesting it was an escaped orangutan. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman and a Canadian biologist agreed: the animal in the photos is an orangutan. Shealy thinks otherwise.
Dave Shealy
Shealy says his first sighting was in 1974, when he was ten, deer hunting with his older brother in the swamp behind the family property, land that is now part of Big Cypress National Preserve. He reports three more: September 8, 1998; July 2000, when he shot the video that made him famous; and August 2011. The 2000 footage, filmed from hundreds of feet away, shows a dark figure running across the swamp. Shealy estimates its speed at 22 miles per hour and says no person could move that fast through water that deep. Skeptics, including a Smithsonian writer who visited, say it looks like a man in a gorilla suit.
Shealy has never claimed to have proof. What he has is a campground, a gift shop, an airboat and swamp buggy operation, a house full of pythons and talking parrots, and the best roadside attraction on the Trail.
Visiting: The Skunk Ape Research Headquarters is on US 41 (the Tamiami Trail) in Ochopee, roughly an hour east of Naples and about the same west of Miami. It is next door to the smallest post office in the United States, which is worth the two minutes.
Is it real?
No one has ever produced a body, a bone or a clear photograph. Smithsonian Magazine's Joseph Stromberg went looking and came back with the obvious explanation: South Florida has had primate breeding facilities, animals escape, and an orangutan or chimpanzee loose in the swamp would look a lot like a skunk ape to someone who wanted to see one. But the Everglades is 1.5 million acres of sawgrass and cypress that almost nobody walks through, and the thing about a legend like this is that it costs nothing to keep.
See the swamp for yourself
The Ten Thousand Islands, where the Everglades meets the Gulf, is one of the best boating areas in the state. From Marco Island and Naples you can take a Ten Thousand Islands boat tour through the mangrove maze, a dolphin cruise, or a private charter to the outer sandbars. Ochopee is about 40 minutes from Marco by car, so you can do the Skunk Ape HQ in the morning and be on the water by lunch. Keep an eye on the tree line.
Questions people ask
What is the Florida Skunk Ape?
Florida's version of Bigfoot: a tall, upright, ape-like creature reported in the Everglades and Big Cypress swamps since the 1950s, named for its strong smell.
Where is the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters?
In Ochopee, Florida, on US 41 (the Tamiami Trail), about an hour east of Naples. It is a gift shop and campground run by Dave Shealy.
Has the Skunk Ape ever been proven to exist?
No. There is no body, bone or clear photograph. The most famous photos, from Myakka in 2000, are identified by experts as an orangutan.
Did Florida really try to pass a law protecting the Skunk Ape?
A bill to protect 'anthropoid or humanoid animals' was introduced in the Florida Legislature in 1977. It did not pass.
How do I get to the Everglades from Naples or Marco Island?
Ochopee and Big Cypress are about an hour from Naples by car on US 41. Boat tours into the Ten Thousand Islands leave from Marco Island, Goodland and Everglades City.