Skunk Ape Research Headquarters
One man in the Everglades has spent decades tracking Florida's answer to Bigfoot. The gift shop is real. The creature may be.
Dave Shealy has been tracking the Skunk Ape — a large, bipedal, extremely odorous creature reported throughout the Everglades — since he was ten years old. He has photographs, plaster casts, and a research headquarters on US-41 that doubles as a reptile exhibit and gift shop.
The Skunk Ape Research Headquarters is at 40904 Tamiami Trail East in Ochopee, open daily. Free to enter. The reptile exhibit has pythons, alligators, and a tortoise named Methuselah. Dave is usually there and will talk to you about the Skunk Ape for as long as you want.
Whether you believe in the Skunk Ape or not, Dave Shealy is a genuinely compelling person who has dedicated his life to something most people find absurd. The Everglades is large enough and strange enough that the honest answer to 'is there something out there' is: probably not, but also, who knows.
