I Hope We Don’t Find Him That Way
I want to believe there is a furry, two-legged creature somewhere in North America that we haven’t identified.
Call him Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, the Ohio Grassman. Add Dogman to the stories people tell around a fire. I know those names do not necessarily describe the same thing. I also know that every time someone says they saw a large shape move through the trees, a little part of me hopes they did.
Now we are back in Florida, and Florida has given that hope a name with an odor attached.
The Skunk Ape is said to be a large, hairy creature living in the state’s wild places. He is reportedly hard to see and considerably easier to smell. That is quite an introduction. If someone told me they’d encountered him in a swamp, I would ask what they saw, how long they saw it, what else was nearby, and whether the smell arrived with the figure or afterward.
Then I would probably ask whether they were all right. I am curious, not heartless.
There are photographs and videos offered as evidence. Florida Skunk Ape enthusiast Dave Shealy, for example, recorded footage in 2000 that you can watch through the Smithsonian’s archive. It shows what he claims to have filmed. It does not give us a specimen, a verified species, or a way to ask the subject to turn around and hold still.
That distinction matters to me. A person can see something without knowing what it was. A camera can record a shape without settling the question either. Florida has black bears, thick vegetation, difficult light, and people fully capable of making trouble for other people. There may also be an answer we haven’t considered. I want to examine the claims without deciding in advance that every witness is foolish or every dark silhouette is a new animal.
Then, because Florida is Florida, the story took a turn through the legislature.
In 1978, lawmakers considered a measure called the Florida Skunk Ape Protection Act. The State Archives preserve the bill file, including amendments, votes, and discussion. It did not pass.
A proposed law is not biological proof. No one opened a file in Tallahassee and thereby established an unknown ape in the Everglades.
But I admire the instinct behind considering protection for a creature whose existence was still disputed.
There is a faction of people who say only a body will prove that an unknown animal exists. I understand why someone wants evidence they can examine. I also hate the thought that our first conclusive look at a creature might come after someone has killed it to win an argument.
If he is out there, he has already managed to live without our recognition. He doesn’t owe us a body because we haven’t figured out how to find him.
I’m aware that wishing is not evidence. I want the photographs examined. I want witnesses asked careful questions. I want tracks, hair, and whatever else turns up handled in ways that might tell us something. And if an ordinary animal explains a sighting, I want to know that, too.
Hope can survive an honest answer. It has to, or it isn’t curiosity anymore.
What I won’t accept is treating an unfamiliar living thing as a target because we’re impatient with uncertainty. We can keep looking. We can also decide how we will behave before we know what we’re looking at.
The Grove Take
I want to believe there is something moving through the North American woods and swamps that we have yet to understand. I cannot tell you the Skunk Ape has been proved. I can tell you that Florida’s proposed protection act makes me think about the cost of being wrong in each direction.
If we mistake a bear for a Skunk Ape, we may tell an embarrassing story.
If we mistake an unknown animal for a chance to collect a body, we cannot undo what happens next.
I hope there’s something out there. I would hate for our first proof to be its death.
Porch Policy
The Skunk Ape is welcome to visit the Grove if he wants to. We can offer him a seat, some distance, and an opportunity to remain exactly as mysterious as he pleases. If he smells as strongly as advertised, we may negotiate where he sits.
The rule about weapons is already settled here. We don’t settle things with firearms in the Grove. The only fire here is GoddessFire.
The protection bill didn’t pass, and his identity remains unconfirmed. Our invitation does not depend on either outcome.
Come sit a spell and tell me what you think people have been seeing in Florida. Tell me what evidence would persuade you. Then tell me how you would go looking for it while giving the creature, if there is one, a chance to walk away.
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