SKUNK APE
Southern Florida swamp. Myakka prints, December 2000, from an unsigned letter. Eckerd lab looks at them. Dave Shealy of Ochopee has tape the same year. Smithsonian later hosts the footage as an object. No body.
082°16'00 W
1. Public Record
Southern Florida swamp. A tall, foul-smelling biped in the Big Cypress and the Myakka. Seminole and settler talk long before the cameras. Dave Shealy of Ochopee makes a living on the name and, in 2000, a piece of shaky footage the Smithsonian will later host as an object, not as a verdict.
December 2000. An unsigned letter lands at the Sarasota Sheriff: two photographs, a woman who says the thing came to her backyard near Myakka, yellow canines, forehead lines, nails. God bless. I prefer to remain anonymous. David Barkasy tracks the prints to an Eckerd lab at Fruitville and Tuttle. Loren Coleman enlarges the head. The debate becomes orangutan, costume, or the animal the swamp has been accused of keeping.
No body. No type. A smell that is the whole local joke and the only consistent field note.
God bless. I prefer to remain anonymous.
2. Date of Incident
Folk reports across the twentieth century. Myakka photographs printed December 2000. Shealy footage the same year.
3. Location
Myakka and Big Cypress, Florida. Approximate 27°15 N 082°16 W.
4. Official Narrative
Sheriff files a letter and two prints. Official narrative is a wildlife complaint without a specimen. Parks have not added an ape.
5. Witness Layer
The anonymous letter-writer. Barkasy. Coleman. Shealy. Swamp workers who talk about the smell first.
Photographs taken last fall were printed in December 2000 at the Eckerd photo lab.
This is not to say the Myakka photographs are of an orangutan.
6. Recovery Logistics
Two colour prints in a sheriff envelope. Shealy tape. No hide.
7. Assessment
A swamp-and-print file. Keep the Eckerd receipt so the pictures have a shop, not a miracle. Keep the smell as the oldest claim. An orangutan in Sarasota County is a problem of its own. Do not write Shealy as the discoverer. Do not write the letter as a specimen.
8. Materials & Remains
Sheriff prints. Coleman enlargements. Shealy footage. No bone.
9. Key Personnel
Anonymous letter : December 2000.
David Barkasy : The lab trail.
Dave Shealy : The local keeper of the name.
Loren Coleman : The enlargements.
10. Aftermath
Tour boards sell the ape. The prints still circulate without a photographer stepping forward. The swamp does not produce a third photograph with a name on it.
11. Current Archive Status
Status: Myakka prints 2000. Shealy tape. No body. Letter unsigned.
Confidence: High that two prints reached the sheriff in December 2000 and were processed at a named lab. Low that the subject is a new ape. Low that the letter-writer will be identified.
Filing note
A backyard in Myakka, two prints, a blessing instead of a name, an Eckerd counter, a man in Ochopee who never needed a museum, a smell that outlasts every still.
I prefer to remain anonymous. The only signature on the best pictures in the file.