The Skunk Ape Cometh By Loren Coleman

Two remarkable new photographs of what maybe a Florida Skunk Ape have been discovered through an interesting chain of events by Sarasota resident and animal welfare specialist David Barkasy. The details behind the circumstances of the photographs are intriguingly innocent. In early autumn 2000, an elderly couple living near I-75 in Sarasota County, Florida, began to exerience routine visits from an apelike animal. On one of these visits, the wife took two relatively clear photographs of the animal. The couple did not know what the animal was, but since her husband said it looked like an orangutan, they called it an orangutan. The location of these events was near I-75, most likely east of Sarasota, which includes the Myakka River and Myakka State Park. The woman describes the events leading up to the photographs being taken: "For two nights prior, it had been taking apples that my daughter brought down from up north off our back porch. These picture were taken on the third night it had raided my apples." She went out into her backyard after deep "woomp" noise were heard. She aimed her camera at the hedgerow at the back of her property, and was startled to see what her flash revealed. "I didn't even see it as I took the first picture because it was so dark. As soon as the flash went off for the second time it stood up and started to move. I then heard the orangutan walk off into the woods." She noticed that its "awful smell" lasted long  after it left her yard. Reflecting on what had occuued, she said that the anthropoid "sounded much further away" than "it turned out to be." She thinkis she was about ten feet away from it, and it looked like it was crouching, then standing. She notes it is hard to know how big it was, but she would "judge it as being about six and a half to seven feet tall in a kneeling position. As soon as I realized how close it was, I got back to the house" The women photographer remarks: "It only came back one more night after that and took some apples that my husband left out in order to get a better look at it. We left out four apples. I cut two of them in half. The orangutan only took the whole apples. We didn't see it take them. We waited up but eventually had to go to bed. "They then placed a dog in their backyard, and the animal did not return."