QUOTE
Shealy sighting
Skunk ape expert spotted by Travel Channel, and yet his prospects grow dim
By ELIZABETH WENDT-KELLAR, ehwendt@naplesnews.com
September 22, 2005
It's a pleasant September morning in the Everglades, and David Shealy — best known as Southwest Florida's self-appointed skunk ape expert — is sitting on a bench outside his Ochopee campground gift shop.
Today, Shealy's not wearing his trademark black hat, the one with the gator-tooth band. His dark wraparound sunglasses are gone, too. And no snakebite-proof boots.
He's sipping a cup of coffee and smoking a Marlboro Light, looking very, very ordinary, hardly the man of his always colorful and occasionally dangerous reputation. As he makes polite conversation with a stranger — a Jehovah's Witness who has stopped by the campground — Shealy seems relaxed and happy, like everything is a cool breeze in summer.
But that's not how he feels, he says later.
He has been having a hard time, he explains. His outlook on the future has grown increasingly bleak, and his pockets are increasingly bare. If things continue this way, he says, he's going to have to sell one of the four-toed skunk ape foot castings he has, which he hates to do. The castings command $1,500 from skunk ape enthusiasts, Shealy says, and he has an ever-increasing stack of bills to pay. His electric bill at the campground alone is $1,300 a month.
After the Jehovah's Witness has gone, Shealy admits he has never been a man of much religious faith, but says he has even less now.
"(I) go from praying every day to praying every now and then," he says. "Praying to pay the bills to praying the bills don't come."
His reasons are complicated and date back for decades. Shealy — eccentric or crazy, charmer or charlatan, expert or hoaxer, depending on who you believe — has never been on stellar terms with the government.
Like so many Everglades men of a certain era, he once spent time in an Alabama prison for running drugs. His complaints that Big Cypress National Preserve's free campgrounds are ruining his family business have been an often-heard refrain, too. While campaigning for skunk ape expedition money, county officials have felt worried enough by Shealy's presence to have a plainclothes sheriff's deputy follow him around.
But Shealy's getting older now. He'll be 42 this month.
He sits on his back porch, looking out over his quiet campground and a small pond where an alligator is taking a lazy swim. He talks about how many years he may have left to live — maybe 15, he says. He doesn't sound dangerous or disturbed now, only a little worn-out.
"I've just lived a real hard life," he says.
It has been more than 30 years since Shealy and his brother, Jack, say they first spotted the skunk ape, Florida's own foul-smelling version of Bigfoot, while out in the woods. It has been eight years since Vince Doerr, then the fire chief of Ochopee, snapped a blurry photo of what was said to be a skunk ape, sparking a flurry of local skunk ape excitement.
And it has been six years since Shealy, the name now often associated with Southwest Florida's most pungent primate puzzle, was granted, then un-granted, a $44,000 tourist-tax-dollar grant to research the skunk ape.
That kind of reversal of fortune might lead someone else to pack up their snakebite boots and move on. But not Shealy.
He's fond of describing how deep his roots go in Collier County — back to the 1800s and deep enough to strike oil, he often says. And there's another self-description he has given himself over the years, too: the "undisputed best promoter" in all of Collier.
It's hard to deny Shealy has earned that title, even while all the other labels assigned to him are open to personal perspective. A stinky, seven-foot primate no one can ever take a decent photo of doesn't have the same star power as Paris Hilton, but Shealy has kept the age-old swamp story from fading into obscurity. Over the years, Shealy has been interviewed in countless newspapers and on television programs, ranging from the credible to the comedic to the positively far-out.
Sometimes, he's portrayed as a serious eyewitness, but more often it seems he has been picked to appear because of his Skunk-Ape size personality. Alternately shod in his snakebite boots or barefoot, alternately funny and self-deprecating or dark and intense, he captivates imaginations as easily as the skunk ape he pursues.
In 2005, Shealy kept the skunk ape profile especially high. Privately, he may sound world-weary, but none of it's showing publicly.
In April, Shealy's life story and quest for the skunk ape captured the front page of the Miami Herald. That same month, Marco Island filmmaker Nate Martin released "The Ochoppee (sic) skunk ape," a lighthearted documentary about Shealy's world; the film was shown locally and is available to buy. In June, Shealy hosted the third annual Everglades Skunk Ape Festival at his campground, complete with live music and a screening of the film. On Oct. 1, Shealy will hold the third annual Skunktoberfest at the campground, too.
This month, Shealy was back to making television appearances, welcoming a film crew from the Travel Channel's program "Weird Travels" to his home.
He took the crew out into the Everglades and introduced them to skunk ape eyewitnesses. From a spookily-lit chair in his neat-as-a-pin home — a house that is part Everglades hunt lodge, part primate reliquary — he told the cameras about the first time he saw the skunk ape.
But not before having a little fun with them first: "You ain't gonna ask me about the missing bodies?" he inquired softly.
It was a true Shealy moment. There was a split-second silence from the crew before they all laughed — as if they were weighing the possible implications of what he had said, as if they had looked around the room, seen the ape figurines and Shealy's bright blue eyes and the animals mounted on the walls and maybe, just maybe, wondered at his words.
Minutes later, Shealy was telling a fantastic vignette about how to bait for a skunk ape using lima beans, reportedly a skunk ape's favorite food.
Through it all, he made a soft sell about the Everglades. He talked about how many fish there are in the River of Grass, and how many interesting plants — attractive to a roving skunk ape, but perhaps attractive to tourists, too.
He invited non-believers to come on down to the Everglades and inspect the area for themselves — another subtle but deliberate tourism pitch, he said later.
"I've always done that," he said.
The next day, Shealy stands in his gift shop — hot and dark and not as Shealy wants it to be; he wants to make changes here, he says, but can't afford to — and talks more about what he believes Everglades tourists want. They don't want elegance and refinement, he says; they want Old Florida and the true Everglades, and that's what he gives them. That's what he believes the Everglades still is, or still should be.
"They want to go somewhere different, somewhere mysterious, somewhere unusual," he says. "And the Everglades is all those things, with or without the skunk ape."
As for Shealy, what does he want?
Well, he would still like that $44,000 tourist-tax-dollar grant for skunk ape research. He may be getting ready to do something about it, too: He recently sent a copy of his skunk ape documentary to the Collier County Commissioners, and he's getting increasingly angry about the way he says small businesses like his are being treated in the Everglades and Big Cypress preserve.
But he insists none of his skunk ape efforts have been about money. If he was doing it for money, he says, he would have given up long ago.
Shealy might be losing faith in God, but not in the skunk ape.
"I feel very strongly that it's just my purpose, that it's what I have to do," he says. "It's not an obsession. But it seems like it's the way my life's come together."
Skunk ape expert spotted by Travel Channel, and yet his prospects grow dim
By ELIZABETH WENDT-KELLAR, ehwendt@naplesnews.com
September 22, 2005
It's a pleasant September morning in the Everglades, and David Shealy — best known as Southwest Florida's self-appointed skunk ape expert — is sitting on a bench outside his Ochopee campground gift shop.
Today, Shealy's not wearing his trademark black hat, the one with the gator-tooth band. His dark wraparound sunglasses are gone, too. And no snakebite-proof boots.
He's sipping a cup of coffee and smoking a Marlboro Light, looking very, very ordinary, hardly the man of his always colorful and occasionally dangerous reputation. As he makes polite conversation with a stranger — a Jehovah's Witness who has stopped by the campground — Shealy seems relaxed and happy, like everything is a cool breeze in summer.
But that's not how he feels, he says later.
He has been having a hard time, he explains. His outlook on the future has grown increasingly bleak, and his pockets are increasingly bare. If things continue this way, he says, he's going to have to sell one of the four-toed skunk ape foot castings he has, which he hates to do. The castings command $1,500 from skunk ape enthusiasts, Shealy says, and he has an ever-increasing stack of bills to pay. His electric bill at the campground alone is $1,300 a month.
After the Jehovah's Witness has gone, Shealy admits he has never been a man of much religious faith, but says he has even less now.
"(I) go from praying every day to praying every now and then," he says. "Praying to pay the bills to praying the bills don't come."
His reasons are complicated and date back for decades. Shealy — eccentric or crazy, charmer or charlatan, expert or hoaxer, depending on who you believe — has never been on stellar terms with the government.
Like so many Everglades men of a certain era, he once spent time in an Alabama prison for running drugs. His complaints that Big Cypress National Preserve's free campgrounds are ruining his family business have been an often-heard refrain, too. While campaigning for skunk ape expedition money, county officials have felt worried enough by Shealy's presence to have a plainclothes sheriff's deputy follow him around.
But Shealy's getting older now. He'll be 42 this month.
He sits on his back porch, looking out over his quiet campground and a small pond where an alligator is taking a lazy swim. He talks about how many years he may have left to live — maybe 15, he says. He doesn't sound dangerous or disturbed now, only a little worn-out.
"I've just lived a real hard life," he says.
It has been more than 30 years since Shealy and his brother, Jack, say they first spotted the skunk ape, Florida's own foul-smelling version of Bigfoot, while out in the woods. It has been eight years since Vince Doerr, then the fire chief of Ochopee, snapped a blurry photo of what was said to be a skunk ape, sparking a flurry of local skunk ape excitement.
And it has been six years since Shealy, the name now often associated with Southwest Florida's most pungent primate puzzle, was granted, then un-granted, a $44,000 tourist-tax-dollar grant to research the skunk ape.
That kind of reversal of fortune might lead someone else to pack up their snakebite boots and move on. But not Shealy.
He's fond of describing how deep his roots go in Collier County — back to the 1800s and deep enough to strike oil, he often says. And there's another self-description he has given himself over the years, too: the "undisputed best promoter" in all of Collier.
It's hard to deny Shealy has earned that title, even while all the other labels assigned to him are open to personal perspective. A stinky, seven-foot primate no one can ever take a decent photo of doesn't have the same star power as Paris Hilton, but Shealy has kept the age-old swamp story from fading into obscurity. Over the years, Shealy has been interviewed in countless newspapers and on television programs, ranging from the credible to the comedic to the positively far-out.
Sometimes, he's portrayed as a serious eyewitness, but more often it seems he has been picked to appear because of his Skunk-Ape size personality. Alternately shod in his snakebite boots or barefoot, alternately funny and self-deprecating or dark and intense, he captivates imaginations as easily as the skunk ape he pursues.
In 2005, Shealy kept the skunk ape profile especially high. Privately, he may sound world-weary, but none of it's showing publicly.
In April, Shealy's life story and quest for the skunk ape captured the front page of the Miami Herald. That same month, Marco Island filmmaker Nate Martin released "The Ochoppee (sic) skunk ape," a lighthearted documentary about Shealy's world; the film was shown locally and is available to buy. In June, Shealy hosted the third annual Everglades Skunk Ape Festival at his campground, complete with live music and a screening of the film. On Oct. 1, Shealy will hold the third annual Skunktoberfest at the campground, too.
This month, Shealy was back to making television appearances, welcoming a film crew from the Travel Channel's program "Weird Travels" to his home.
He took the crew out into the Everglades and introduced them to skunk ape eyewitnesses. From a spookily-lit chair in his neat-as-a-pin home — a house that is part Everglades hunt lodge, part primate reliquary — he told the cameras about the first time he saw the skunk ape.
But not before having a little fun with them first: "You ain't gonna ask me about the missing bodies?" he inquired softly.
It was a true Shealy moment. There was a split-second silence from the crew before they all laughed — as if they were weighing the possible implications of what he had said, as if they had looked around the room, seen the ape figurines and Shealy's bright blue eyes and the animals mounted on the walls and maybe, just maybe, wondered at his words.
Minutes later, Shealy was telling a fantastic vignette about how to bait for a skunk ape using lima beans, reportedly a skunk ape's favorite food.
Through it all, he made a soft sell about the Everglades. He talked about how many fish there are in the River of Grass, and how many interesting plants — attractive to a roving skunk ape, but perhaps attractive to tourists, too.
He invited non-believers to come on down to the Everglades and inspect the area for themselves — another subtle but deliberate tourism pitch, he said later.
"I've always done that," he said.
The next day, Shealy stands in his gift shop — hot and dark and not as Shealy wants it to be; he wants to make changes here, he says, but can't afford to — and talks more about what he believes Everglades tourists want. They don't want elegance and refinement, he says; they want Old Florida and the true Everglades, and that's what he gives them. That's what he believes the Everglades still is, or still should be.
"They want to go somewhere different, somewhere mysterious, somewhere unusual," he says. "And the Everglades is all those things, with or without the skunk ape."
As for Shealy, what does he want?
Well, he would still like that $44,000 tourist-tax-dollar grant for skunk ape research. He may be getting ready to do something about it, too: He recently sent a copy of his skunk ape documentary to the Collier County Commissioners, and he's getting increasingly angry about the way he says small businesses like his are being treated in the Everglades and Big Cypress preserve.
But he insists none of his skunk ape efforts have been about money. If he was doing it for money, he says, he would have given up long ago.
Shealy might be losing faith in God, but not in the skunk ape.
"I feel very strongly that it's just my purpose, that it's what I have to do," he says. "It's not an obsession. But it seems like it's the way my life's come together."