Dave Shealy's Skunk Ape Research in the News, May is Skunk Ape mating Season.

Every May like clockwork, Dave Shealy gets in the news.
Is it because of mating season?

"I am the expert; the state and county expert on the Florida Skunk Ape, and have been for years." -- Dave Shealy

After blogging about Bigfoot news, you start to see patterns. The Kemerovo Yeti pops up in November and Skunk-Ape mating season begins in in May. This year Dave Shealy does not mention the Skunk Ape May mating season and usually we hear from him through Wireless Flash - FlashNews. But it is May and we did hear from Dave.

Legend of the Skunk Ape has ties to the Suncoast

Reported by: Josh Taylor 

Last Update: 5/14 11:40 pm

For years, there have been rumors and reported sightings of an unknown mysterious creature lurking in the woods and wetlands of Florida. The legend only grew with photos sent to our local sheriff's office more than a decade ago.

Most people know the names Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti. But in Florida, the human-like hair-covered creature has also been called the Skunk Ape. The National Parks Service says it is only a myth. However, sightings date all the way back to Native Americans.

Today the legend is fiction for most and fact for a few. And down the Tamiami Trail, deep into the Florida Everglades, is a man who says there is even more proof.

"I am the expert; the state and county expert on the Florida Skunk Ape, and have been for years." Dave Shealy runs what's he calls the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee. It doubles as a roadside attraction where you can check out snakes, buy a t-shirt, and hear one whopper of a tale. "In July 2000, I took these photographs. We have between 7 and 9 of these things that live in the Big Cypress Preserve."

Shealy says the foul-smelling man-beast is real. In addition to the time he capture "it" on video, he says he's had two other encounters and hears new stories all the time. "There is just no reason to believe they are not real. The photos are pretty clear actually."

There are also some photos taken on the Suncoast that Shealy says may back up his story. In the year 2000, two snapshots were sent anonymously to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office. The person writing the note saying the animal came back numerous nights and they thought it was an escaped orangutan. "Honestly it looks like an orangutan. They actually have clear layovers and set on top it looks like an orangutan."

Shealy believes it could be the creature he's been studying. "The ones I have seen have much shorter hair than what is in the photos. I believe that the photos are real."

What are the odds of an actual ape-like creature living in the Everglades or anywhere in Florida? Very high; there are some living in Wauchula.

"The Center For Great Apes is a sanctuary for orangutans and chimps." Patti Ragan runs the center, which is not open to the public. It’s home to 35 great apes, including one named Bubbles once owned by famed musician Michael Jackson. "The temperature actually in Florida is conducive; this is a tropical climate, which is why the sanctuary is located here."

Shealy believes the creature has been raised in Florida for generations with plenty of ways to survive. "Pretty much everything you see here is edible. The Everglades is a virtual smorgasbord."

It is true though that monkeys are becoming more familiar to Florida. In Central Florida near Silver Springs, a group of Rhesus monkeys have spread to what some say is more than 200. "A group of them got loose. They had a community already. They started to reproduce, now it is a huge community I believe along that river," says Ragan.

Her opinion of the Myakka photos? "I look at that as a costume."

Ragan says there are more real problems for apes -- like the harvesting of palm oil overseas -- facing these very real creatures. "There are so many orangutans and chimpanzees and other great apes that are in the wild being slaughtered right now. Not in the wild in Florida. Not some mythology that is running around in the Everglades."

As for Dave and the Skunk Ape, the legend will likely live on -- even if the Skunk Ape doesn't...or does it? "It has really been a long time since somebody asked me if it's a guy in a gorilla suit. In the beginning, there were a lot of doubters, but these animals are real."

There is a group called the Big Foot Field Researchers Organization. They actually have local people who look into sightings across the nation. Their website has a few stories from our region.

You can also find information on the Center For Great Apes in Wauchula. All of those very real animals are there because they were abused or could no longer be cared for.

You can even find Dave Shealy's research on the Skunk Ape at www.skunkape.info.

Copyright 2012 Southern Broadcast Corp of Sarasota All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SRC: MySunCoast.Com

Sasquatch and Suds, New Venue!

Toby Johnson has a new venue for Sasquatch and Suds

Tomorrow night, Tuesday May 15, at 7pm Toby Johnson of the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium will host witness Kirk Fredrickson.

Kirk is an author and teacher and has a unique perspective on the Sasquatch phenomena. A perspective that only he can tell. Kirk does not do many presentations and rarely shares his personal encounters.

If your near Portland, Oregon you will want to check out Kirk's presentation. 

Toby will also have casts from the London Trackwway and tickets for the October 13th Oregon Sasquatch Symposium.

The Space Room Lounge is a perfect venue with black light glow in the dark murals and the best Long Island Iced teas! Space Room Lounge can be found in SE Portland, 4800 SE Hawthorne Blvd to be exact.

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10k Reward for Bigfoot--So Passé

Harry is yawning because we've seen this before

"I will pay anyone $10,000 who brings me any scientifically certifiable remains of a previously unknown contemporary ape or human species" -- Norman P. Carlson

Norman P. Carlson has written a letter at Post Journal offering $10,000 for proof of Bigfoot. Mr. Carlson that is small potatoes! We respectfully decline your offer when the Fayetteville Freethinkers are offering a house. The Kemerovo government is offering $1M rubles (30k US dollars). Even Todd Standing is offering 2 Million for Bigfoot body parts. 

People who offer rewards for Bigfoot fall into two categories; skeptics trying to prove a point and promoters trying to make a name. Mr. Carlson falls into the former category. Either way, most of us in the Bigfoot community consider rewards for proof passé. It is not novel and not an incentive that drives us. You can read Norman's full proposal below.

Where Is The Evidence Of Bigfoot’s Existence?

May 14, 2012

The Post-Journal

To the Readers' Forum:

The Big Foot conference was a huge success, I'm told. Hundreds of people came from all over. People had a good time. People spent money. People made money. People got to tell each other, "We know something those haughty scientists and rationality freaks don't."

My guess is that, like the ghost hunting craze, it was a harmless but useless do-it-yourself Disneylike fantasy fest. No bones. No DNA. No scats. No convincing pictures despite all the automatic game cameras inexpensively available today. No real tracks. Not even a hair. Just eye witness accounts, the worst possible kind of evidence but to the people there, extremely convincing. Ask a psychologist, a cognitive scientist, a lawyer, an artist, or a cop about eye witness evidence.

I'll bet there was little or no talk of what the big apes find to eat, where they find shelter, and even less of minimum sustainable breeding populations, necessary contiguous range, habitat destruction, and genetic bottlenecks.

I will pay anyone $10,000 who brings me any scientifically certifiable remains of a previously unknown contemporary ape or human species - you don't even have to prove it is local, much though I would prefer - if you will agree to pay me $10 each year you don't. And to sweeten the deal, I will even name a star after your mother for an additional $25, less than half what that vendor on the radio who does the same thing charges. I have just as much authority and legitimacy to do that as he does.

A Big Foot who resembles a man so strikingly would have to have a skeleton, including a skull, which resembles human examples. Police and hunters have a fairly good record of finding human murder victims' skeletons and skulls that are left in the woods. If there are Big Foots locally, certainly a breeding population would suffer a considerably larger number of deaths per unit time than the number of murder victims disposed of locally in the woods. So why doesn't anybody find their skulls? Maybe they bury their dead, one woman suggested to me. Oh, come to think of it, I maybe saw one at a farm auction last year bidding on a shovel. And maybe that guy I thought was a Neanderthal in my junior high study hall.

Norman P. Carlson

SRC: The Post Journal