#skunk ape headquarters

[suzannetownsend]

Apes in the Glades: a divisive Florida mystery

OCHOPEE – The drone of cicadas, the flat river of grass and gators lurking by the roadside, only their eyes visible above the black water: this is the Florida Everglades. It is a region that has long been imbued with fascinating history both haunting and beautiful, from being the location of marijuana smuggling routes (or as the locals call it, square grouper) and a hiding spot for killers on the run. But deep in the swamp lurks another source of intrigue: the skunk ape. 

Also known as Florida’s Bigfoot, the hairy biped has been a lifelong pursuit of Ochopee, Florida local David Shealy. He describes the skunk ape as being between six and seven feet tall, covered in hair and incredibly smelly. Since spotting the creature near his home at the northern end of Everglades National Park at age 10, Shealy has made it his life’s work to find this elusive character. He has reported other sightings since then, once in 1998 and most famously in 2001 when he recorded video footage of the creature trudging through the swamp, which is available on YouTube. 

Shealy is the founder of the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee. It’s one of several of Tamiami Trail’s roadside attractions (including the world’s smallest post office) and includes a campground, collection of live pythons and alligators, a gift shop and plans to expand. The building also houses Shealy’s two casts of skunk ape tracks. In 2000 he even applied for a grant from the Collier County Tourism Development Council, which was denied. 

Sightings of skunk apes have been reported since the 1950s and ‘60s. One discrepancy, however, is that the native Seminole and Miccosukee tribes have a legend of the skunk ape in their culture, too. For clarity, the tribes are separate politically but not culturally, according to the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Tara Backhouse, the collections manager at the Seminole Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum said in an email that, “there’s definitely not anything written down, and I don’t believe it’s a real Seminole legend in any way.” Shealy says something different: “That’s not the case at all and I grew up here with the Indians.” Indeed, Shealy's property is not far from the Miccosukee reservation. He recounted a story that Miccosukee tribal member Michael Frank told him about a time during the Seminole Wars. “At that time an Indian scout left the village and went into the Everglades, and he returned with a story that he had seen a group of men that were very large and covered with hair.” Shealy says there are as many as nine skunk apes in the Everglades. According to him they smell because they spend time in alligator holes, and they make a low bassy cooing growl. When he performs the skunk ape call, it sounds a lot like an alligator bellow. Shealy has a response for that, too. “I have big alligators that roar every time the garbage truck comes in so I know gators really good and it's not a gator.” 

So did Shealy make it all up? Some locals think so. The picture that many residents of the nearby Everglades City paint is that Shealy simply wanted to make more money. Some call him a fraud, some call him a scientific researcher. When I met him, though, the first thing I understood about David Shealy is that he is a storyteller. He has many tales of encounters with Florida's bigfoot, some his and some from other people, but all of them captivating. He spoke of a time when he collected a hair sample from one encounter but the next day two unidentified federal agents, “The men in black” as Shealy calls them, who came to his home and confiscated the sample, never to be heard from again. In another story a woman named Mary Billie was chopping down palm fronds for a chickee hut. As she was hacking at the fronds one fell away and she was face to face with the skunk ape. 

Despite the chorus of skunk ape deniers, there are others who support Shealy’s work. Brad Bertelli is the author of The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Files, which is a work of fiction based on real reports of encounters with the cryptid. Included in the book is a real clipping from an 1874 newspaper that reads, “Key West has a ghost covered with hair and about the size of a horse.” Bertelli says, “It reads to me like a typical skunk ape or bigfoot sighting.” And one of the earliest reports of such. Another story that inspired his book is a family on Key Largo who witnessed a smelly hairy creature on their property, which frightened them so much they moved out of the Keys entirely. 

Both skunk ape aficionados have responses for the nonbelievers. Shealy says, “It’s not a good attitude to have because what they are doing is possibly putting a threatened or endangered species at risk and that they really need to do their research, possibly go out on their own. Just discounting it is doing an injustice to our native wildlife.” For Bertelli, “A lot of it has to do with not being willing to engage with something that is unknown. There are things out there bigger than ourselves. You have to keep an open mind.”

Fact or fiction, stories like these captivate people’s imaginations, and have for a long time. Like Bertelli says, “When you look back these bigfoot creatures have been sighted on six of the seven continents. When we go back hundreds and hundreds of years, every culture has their story about them.” So keep an open mind, and keep an eye out next time you’re in the Everglades. 

[indigo-a-creeping]

I visited the Skunk Ape Headquarters!

[cryptozoologygirls]

Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee, FL

[generationexorcist]

Skunk Ape Research Headquarters

DAVE SHEALY IS THE JANE Goodall of the Florida Everglades. Shealy has spent his entire life studying a smelly hominid cryptid known as the Skunk Ape, and has established the official Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee, Florida. Here, Shealy conducts studies, investigates reports on sightings, and brings awareness to the elusive creature of the Everglades.

Shealy is aware that the Skunk Ape – like its alleged distant relative, Big Foot – is considered by many to be a figment of imagination…

Atlas Obscura

[statecryptids]

SKUNK APE- FLORIDA

The vast Everglades covering southern Florida are, for the most part, open wilds. Yes, there are cities on its edges and a few rough roads cutting through it, but the majority of the “Sea of Grass” is undeveloped, natural sawgrass marsh, palmetto brush, and hardwood hammocks filled with alligators, gars, black bears, wading birds, and perhaps a few undiscovered primates.

For decades folks have been sighting hairy bipeds wandering the Glades. These creatures are commonly called Skunk Apes due to their distinctively pungent odor. They are said to have black to reddish-brown fur and may sometimes have a greenish tinge due to algae growth.

Tales of skunk apes allegedly go back to pre-colonial Native legends- though as is often the case, the existence of these “legends” is suspect and might just be an invention of modern folks to add some historical weight to their sightings.  Regardless, sightings of the creature really took off in the early 1960s around the time that sightings of Bigfoot were becoming more common in the Pacific Northwest. One of the first major encounters with skunk apes occurred around 1966 when several gorilla-like creatures invaded the community of Holopaw, forcing open garage doors and frightening people.

Interest in skunk apes grew greatly throughout the 1970s, to the point that a bill making it a misdemeanor to harm or harass the creatures was drafted by State Representative Paul Nuckolls in 1977. The bill never made it to committee, sadly.

In 2000, several night-time photographs of a hairy, ape-like beast were sent to the Sarasota County Sherriff’s Office. An anonymous letter included with the photos described the creature as an “orangutan”, but many folks came to the conclusion that the being was a skunk ape. Skeptics, however, claim that the creature may be merely a person in a suit.

If skunk apes are real, it’s possible they are part of the group of southern “swamp apes” which are lighter, smaller- and smellier- than their sasquatch cousins. Swamp apes are also often reported to have only three toes on their feet and three fingers on their hands, though alleged casts of skunk ape footprints show them with four toes. As their name suggests, swamp apes are typically found near wetlands as opposed to the drier old-growth forests that bigfeet seem to prefer.

Folks wanting to learn more about Florida’s mystery primates should check out the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, run by Dave Shealy and located in Ochopee along the Tamiami Trail right in the middle of the Everglades.

SOURCES

The website of Dave Shealy's Official Skunk Ape Headquarters

An article from Smithsonian Magazine about the Skunk Ape

An article from The Orlando Sentinel about the Holopaw Gorilla

A Cryptomundo article about the Skunk Ape

A Twitter thread from Darren Naish about the 2000 Skunk Ape photo

The Field Guide to North American Monsters by W. Haden Blackman

[fakecriswell]

The future of Bigfoot

GREETINGS, MY FRIENDS. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are!

Let us begin the week with a look at the singular denizen of the Pacific Northwest, the skunk ape, also known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Polybius, and the Ape-Man!

I predict that in the 2030s the police department of a major town in Oregon will stun the world by providing evidence of the existence of Bigfoot! They will show a disturbing creature at a press conference, claiming that this is a genuine example of the hallowed cryptid that has plagued mankind for decades!

Unfortunately it will turn out that the creature is actually of more recent origin! A certain pharmaceutical company headquartered on the West Coast will shamefacedly admit that the creature is actually the result of a series of biological test subjects that they created in the lab!

While this will obviously not convince true believers that Bigfoot does not exist, the state police department will consider the whole case closed, and thereafter refuse to investigate any reports of Bigfoot-like creatures!

And this, my friends, will be the rather unsatisfying end to the mystery of Bigfoot! Get ready to be disappointed in your incredible future!

[burgerbeast]

Skunk Ape Research Headquarters

On my yearly trip home from Marco Island, my wife Marcela & I checked out what the deal is with the Skunk Ape Headquarters in Ochopee, Florida.

On my yearly summer drive to Marco Island, I saw this giant panther and wondered, What the Hell?

The Giant Panther that caught my eye

This year on the trip back to Miami, I stopped in with my wife Marcela. We needed to check out what exactly the deal is with the Skunk Ape Headquarters in Ochopee, Florida. You walk into what amounts to a gift shop selling t-shirts, magnets (alright, I’m a…

[singularfortean]

We'll go ahead and add this to our list of possible road trip destinations.

[fyeahgothicromance]

Has anyone heard anything from or about Dave Shealy and the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters? It's only about 30 miles from Naples, Fl and basically in the middle of the Everglades.

[dreamketchers]

@monkeygrl18 Official headquarters of skunk ape research. #skunkaperesearchcenter #ochopee #realflorida #traillakescampground #skunkape #swamocabagman #stinkape #floridabigfoot #myakkaape #swampsquatch #myakkaskunkape (at Skunk Ape Research Center) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs1L0xkHHPu/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ik68garuxs0n

[bingitoff]

For a fandom as OBSESSED WITH CRYPTIDS as this one is, I am HONESTLY SHOCKED that no one has written about CERTAIN PEOPLE going on a road trip from Developmental to visit the SKUNK APE RESEARCH HEADQUARTERS, which is SURROUNDED BY ALLIGATORS and also almost right next door to THE SMALLEST POST OFFICE (the skunk ape is basically Florida Bigfoot)

[savvyherb]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A short walk from police headquarters in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, a cluster of bustling shops are openly selling packaging and hardware that can be used to produce counterfeit marijuana vapes that have infected California’s cannabis market.

Bootleggers eager to profit off unsuspecting consumers are mimicking popular, legal vape brands, pairing replica packaging churned out in Chinese factories with untested, possibly dangerous cannabis oil produced in the state’s vast underground market.

The result: Authentic-looking vape cartridges sold by unlicensed dispensaries and delivery services, along with rogue websites.

The deceptive rip-offs on the street could be linked to an emerging public health crisis. Hundreds of people across the U.S. have been sickened, mainly by vaping cannabis oil. Seven deaths have been reported, the latest on Monday in California’s Tulare County.

Public health officials aren’t sure what’s causing the breathing issues, vomiting and other symptoms, but in California they say most patients reported purchasing vapes from pop-up shops or other illegal sellers that are a pipeline for counterfeit products.

The problem has gotten so pervasive that a major legal brand, Kingpen, is investing millions of dollars to redesign its packaging and product security, The Associated Press has learned.

The distributor for another major brand, Heavy Hitters, devotes a section of its website to report phonies and has hired a former federal prosecutor, Priya Sopori, to help the company deal with counterfeiting.

“The danger presented by counterfeit products is just a natural result of not having the money, the resources or the people power to enforce licensing,” Sopori said. “Someone is buying this packaging, buying these cartridges and filling them with whatever. It’s being sold as our brand.”

___

VAPES: A HEALTHIER OPTION?

As marijuana has gone mainstream, versions of e-cigarettes that vaporize high-inducing cannabis oil are one of the hottest-selling items, popular for those who don’t want the smoke that comes from lighting up a joint. In addition to quickly delivering a high, there’s a perception not supported by science that vaping is a healthier alternative to smoking.

In California’s legal market, the world’s largest, the state requires cannabis oil to be tested before being placed on the shelf for sale. For example, safety checks are made for the presence of 66 pesticides, mercury, lead and other heavy metals, and 21 solvents that could be used in the extraction process, when oil is pulled from cannabis.

But it can be hard for consumers to tell whether a product they’re buying is made by a legitimate company. The phony packaging is convincing to the untrained eye, some even carrying bogus labels that appear to carry state-required test results. Most consumers probably wouldn’t know the difference — until they vape it. The taste and THC level could be significantly different from the authentic product.

To add to the confusion, consumers can have trouble distinguishing legal dispensaries from unlicensed shops, which in Los Angeles sometimes operate in the same neighborhoods and appear indistinguishable.

“My biggest fear of counterfeiting is people are getting an unsafe product, and illegal product, and think it’s coming from our company, a legal company,” says Bryce Berryessa, a board member of the California Cannabis Manufacturers Association whose company, Skunk Feather, produces concentrates and vape cartridges.

In another warning of consumer risk related to vaping, an Associated Press investigation Monday found that some operators are substituting illegal synthetic marijuana in vapes marketed as natural CBD, a chemical in cannabis that doesn’t cause a high and promises mainly unproven health claims.

___

A SOPHISTICATED EFFORT

In storefronts along Los Angeles’ Boyd Street, a narrow commercial strip that has become a de facto bazaar for all things cannabis, there are displays of fake packaging and ready-to-fill vape cartridges for sale for popular brands including Heavy Hitters and Kingpen.

At one shop, the knock-off Heavy Hitter packages were selling for $225 for 100 empty cartridges and boxes; the Kingpen sets sell for $200. Counterfeit packaging and vape cartridges can also be easily found with a few mouse clicks on Alibaba, China’s largest online commerce company, and other websites. Once purchased, a counterfeiter would add cannabis oil that is widely available in the illicit market — one recent online ad was selling oil for $6 a gram when purchased by the liter.

It’s not clear who’s behind all the different sales, and California law enforcement agencies have been overmatched by the widespread illegal market. In LA, the police department’s chief focus is shuttering an estimated 200 illegal dispensaries across the city, not pursuing the source of fake vapes that might be for sale inside them, Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Josh Rubenstein said.

The state Department of Public Health, which regulates vape companies and other cannabis manufacturers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thus far, the state’s illegal market has been operating largely unchecked, providing a ready market for fakes.

One recent study estimated that consumers are spending roughly $3 in the state’s underground pot economy for every $1 in the legal one. Last week, state regulators raided two unlicensed shops selling bogus marijuana vapes in Southern California, seizing nearly $3 million in products. And in Wisconsin, authorities uncovered a 10-man operation that manufactured thousands of counterfeit vaping cartridges every day for almost two years loaded with oil containing THC, the high-producing ingredient in marijuana.

A likely link between copycat vapes and the stores that sell them was illustrated on Aug. 28. An illegal shop padlocked by police in Los Angeles had a display case prominently displaying Kingpen vapes. The company said it had no relationship with the shop, which was selling vapes at bargain-basement prices, meaning they were almost certainly fakes.

Kingpen has taken matters into its own hands, suing Chinese companies that produce fake packaging, sending scores of cease-and-desist letters to businesses that sell them and filing complaints with the state, only to see nothing change.

“There is no feedback. There is no action,” said Danny Corral, Kingpen manufacturer Loudpack’s vice president of sales.

Others have gone so far as to hire private investigators to locate illicit suppliers but find dead ends. That’s led many in the industry to believe the counterfeit operations are an organized, sophisticated practice.

“We have every reason to believe that the same criminal gangs and cartels that dominate the global pharmaceutical counterfeit drug trade will similarly wrestle control of California’s cannabis counterfeit drug trade,” says a report compiled by Mammoth Distribution and submitted to state regulators. The company distributes Heavy Hitters.

___

TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS

With counterfeits leaching into California’s illegal vape market, the threat for licensed companies is not just millions in lost revenue. They worry their highly valued brands could be forever tainted if people get a mouthful of foul-tasting vapor, or even become sick, from a bogus product carrying their name.

To fight off rampant counterfeiting, the parent company of Kingpen is preparing to shelve millions of dollars in packaging and hardware, then spend millions more launching a redesigned product.

Loudpack is partnering with a technology company and this month plans to roll out an anti-counterfeiting program that will allow customers to verify the authenticity of Kingpen products purchased from licensed dispensaries in the state.

The rectangular paper box will be gone, replaced with a square, metal container. The company’s logo remains, a rendering of a bearded, bloodshot-eyed king, but his face is partially obscured, like he is peering around a corner. There is also a unique code so consumers can validate the product.

In a statement, the company said it hopes the makeover will give consumers “peace of mind in knowing that any Kingpen product purchased legally is in fact authentic.”

___

Blood is a member of AP’s marijuana beat team. Follow the AP’s complete marijuana coverage: https://apnews.com/Marijuana

The post appeared first on Savvy Herb Mobile Cannabis Platform.

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[indigo-a-creeping]

Got two cryptid-related road trips I’m thinking about - the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV is in September, and that would take up a few days (probably less than a week).

And then there’s the Skunk Ape Headquarters down in the Everglades, which is only about 4.5 hours from me, so I could do a loop of the peninsula in two days, making other stops for interesting things and swinging by that fruit stand with the amazing milkshakes south of Miami while I’m nearby... Our other bigger cryptid is the Wampus Cat, but I don’t know of any museums or special sites for that.

There’s also a psychic/spiritualist community only about 2 hours away that I’m planning to visit as a day trip some time - I might see if I can find a friend to go with me for that, because left to my own devices I will drive through and keep going, peering out of my car like a hermit crab.

[aarontaos]

Me 'n bae <3 #beautyandthebeast #skunkape #wtfisthis (at Skunk Ape Headquarters)

[jasondensmore]

at Skunk Ape Headquarters

[indigo-a-creeping]

Taxidermy pig head in the Skunk Ape Headquarters.