Dave Shealy
Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, 40904 Tamiami Trail East, Ochopee, www.skunkape.info
For at least a century, the imaginations of redneck children throughout South Florida have been haunted by the skunk ape, an elusive creature that is said to stand more than 7 feet tall, emit an odor resembling sulfur and rotten eggs, possess a scream that can make grown men weep and hide out in alligator caves in the Everglades. Scientists, skeptics and people who don't breathe through their mouths doubt its existence, as the only evidence anyone has put forth is some anatomically incorrect footprint casts and grainy photographs of what appear to be your drunk uncle wandering through a swamp in a gorilla suit. Dave Shealy stands outside this camp of nonbelievers. In fact, he can often be found standing near a pot of lima beans in the Big Cypress National Preserve, attempting to lure one of the seven or so skunk apes he believes lurk in this area. (The creatures just love lima beans, he says.) The 40-something Shealy is the world's self-appointed expert on the Everglades' Sasquatch, having founded both the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters and the semi-annual Skunk Ape Festival. He once convinced Collier County to fund a skunk-ape hunting expedition (a gesture that the County Commission later rescinded) and has even defended his obsession on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. "I don't have a choice to believe," Shealy told The Miami Herald this year, "because I've seen [the Skunk Ape] three times."
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