Its been nearly nine months and therefs been no reappearance of the Myakka Skunk Ape. At least no official reports.

This past February newspapers throughout the Southeast caused a supernatural frenzy when they ran stories about the appearance of a smelly ape nearly seven feet tall in a backyard east of I-75 in Sarasota. Some writers quickly dismissed the idea of Floridafs answer to Bigfoot. Others used the opportunity to tell a few jokes, and some suggested, mockingly, organizing a search (i.e. hunting) party to find the animal that resembles an orangutan.

One local man has done just that.
The search

David Barkasy is on the prowl. Barkasy was one of the first people to see the photographs of the ape last fall after they were mailed anonymously to the Sarasota County Sherifffs Office. Since then, his curiosity has been in overdrive.

"Itfs the possibility of finding something new," Barkasy says of his search for the skunk ape. "I donft know if therefs something out there, but the more I hear, the more interested I get."

Barkasy, owner of reptile wholesaler Silver City Serpentarium in Sarasota, has made more than 30 nighttime trips to the forest east of the interstate hoping to find this legendary creature that was first reported in Lakeland in 1947. Barkasy and friends strung apples (a favored food of the ape according to some reports) with fishing line between trees and sat in the dark waiting for something to happen. Some nights nothing. A few nights they were chased out of the woods by something in the bushes.

"We would sit back and make bird calls, and a few times youfd smell something like dead animals and then we heard palmettos breaking. It couldfve been a bear or coyote, but who knows?" Barkasy, a former mechanical engineer, says.

On his last expedition Barkasy was told to leave the forest by a state ranger. It turns out the land he was on is owned by Southwest Florida Water Management District and managed by the Myakka State Park. For the men to be there after hours, they need special permission from Swiftmud, which Barkasy hasnft obtained yet, but says he intends to do in order to install motion cameras in the area.

"I want to know what was out there chasing us out of the woods. Therefs not too many animals thatfll stalk you."

Loren Coleman, a cryptozoologist (hunter of hidden animals) who has studied the Myakka case, fully believes what was photographed is not a costume or a fake, or even an escaped zoo animal. (Yet as pointed out by the Japanese primate specialists in May of 2006, the subject expresses NO muscle, body, arm or leg definition typical of apes; Mr. Coleman has been wrong before, especially with the "nape" track he allegedly cast back in the '60's.) Hefs bent on finding the photographer, so he can figure out where the citing took place and examine it.

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