Flightless Bird: Gladesmen

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. The last big thing I learned in therapy was that I do that negative self-talk thing where you just walk around being like, you know, rubbish, no good idiot. And until it was pointed out to me by a therapist, I just had no idea.

Really, you just thought that was normal. Oh yeah, just this horrible little voice in.

The head. Once you clock it, you can start to do something about it. Yes, and I think with therapy, having an outside person that actually knows what they're talking about to tell you these things, for me at least, can be super, super helpful. It seems obvious, right?

That, and they're professionals. Talking to your friends is wonderful, but also sometimes.

Your friends give bad advice. No, they do, because they just kind of want to please you. Yes, that's the thing.

Is probably better, and they do it in a nice way. I love therapy if you're thinking of.

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Bird I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now. Something I love about this place is how many different landscapes you can find here. Sure, New Zealand is pretty great, but something about the vastness of America really gets me going. Whether it's the depths of the Grand Canyon, the lofty heights of the Rocky Mountains, or the great Plains of the Well, the Great Plains.

How aware of Gladesmen were you as a people?

Zero.

Great, I'd learned about them recently and got very excited. They're in the airboats, they're out there in the swampy marshes. I wanted to hang out with one.

I'm really, really excited for this and I'm really happy you went to Florida. It is so American.

Yeah, I really liked it. It was a lot of things though, and obviously just so different to Los Angeles, for example. Very.

Growing up in Georgia, Florida is the place you go on vacation.

Yeah, right.

So my family and I would go every spring break to Orlando.

Theme parks.

Theme parks.

Orlando.

That was my family's thing. I think that's a pretty common immigrant thing.

Yeah, yeah.

So we did that a ton. And then when I got older, college spring break and some high school spring breaks and stuff. Panama City Beach.

So you get loose and wild, that's right, wet and wild, you're drinking, you're partying, oh yeah.

That's left me.

That's left you, okay, but you never sort of went in Miami to the Everglades.

I've been to Miami, my family went to Miami, but no, I didn't get into swamp territory. My most important Florida memory of all time. Oh, wow.

Okay.

Small, elderly town.

Right, very old, okay?

We went there before college to go on a work trip.

Okay.

We set up quote meetings.

Right?

With people in the quote film industry.

Okay.

To learn about the industry, Wow, it was burgeoning.

Yeah, absolutely.

In Ocala.

Okay, so weird. Why Ocala? why there?

Because Callie's grandpa or great grandma, or grandpa or something, knew somebody who worked in the Film Commission of Florida, right? Something like that.

This was going to be your inn.

That's right.

This was going to be your inn.

The key to our success?

And how did the meetings pan out?

One was with this guy who shot with a camera.

Yeah.

Alligators or something? Okay, very Floridian, so that one was.-.

Cool.

Cool and unhelpful, because that was not our-.

You didn't want to get into the Alligator documentary game.

Wasn't our niche.

It wasn't your niche, and then you got to start somewhere, though.

You do, yeah, famously. The meeting we took, the big meeting all leading up to, this woman told me that I could and should play Black.

What an incredible piece of advice to you.

That's right.

And did you just sort of take that on board? I wrote it down, Yes, wow, I took it to heart.

They'll give you a pass.

Other ones not. It's so strange to be around those kind of conversations, I know, and I find it really awkward. Because there's that thing where how offensive someone needs to get before you push back.

What is your line? Did you to any of these people? Or? No? yeah.

One person, I sort of was a bit cheeky because I was like, You know, I'm not from here, right? Do you have beef with me?

And he kind of just his brain sort of did a few little somersaults.

Because he was trying to explain, yeah, like, why I was okay and why these other people weren't. And so I'll push back a bit cheekily.

Yeah.

But I'm bad at pushing back. I'm walking here today to the attic. This woman quite a well to do. She had a dog, quite a big dog, and it did this big shit on the grass.

No.

And I was filled with sort of a rage, it was so disgusting and she just looked quite annoying. Oh, you know, when you think of like.

Entitled.

L.

If you're not going to pick up.

You're disgusting.

Yeah.

Is what I wanted to say.

Wow, I think a lot of people can relate to that, not a lot, everyone can relate to this. How far do people have to take it before you make yourself uncomfortable?

Yeah, completely, and change a situation which is very neutral with you to suddenly you being the one that's giving them shit, yeah.

It's tricky, I almost find it my responsibility, yeah, if we're talking about like, race or something.

Yeah, yeah.

And I would take that, I would just be like, Oh, great, I got a pass, woohoo, and now I'm so allergic to that.

Yeah, and if you're not pushing back, it's like, who's going to push back? who's going to do it? No one's pushing back.

Yeah.

So no, I'm making a sound like Florida that was a cropped up occasionally in Florida. Sure, that kind of it will.

Lovely and great.

But yeah, let's take a trip into the Glades. Yes, the Glades.

I'd landed in Miami the night before and, to be honest, I'm not really sure it was the place for me. I couldn't wait to get out of the city and into some swamp. So I've been driving northwest for about an hour and could already notice the landscape changing. Everything had gotten just so incredibly flat.

Sign my life away.

Yeah, it's basically just a safety waiver. I tell you, just be seated if you get up and jump out, that protects me.

That's fair enough.

What kind of podcast you do?

As I tell Steve about the podcast, I note that he looks magnificent. He's very tanned and has this long, stiff white beard that reminds me of ZZ top. He looks well preserved, coming up on six decades on the water fishing and giving the odd tour. He's thinking about retiring soon.

Life's too short, you know? And the older I get, I realize that, you know, fuck, you need to enjoy yourself.

Waiver signed. We head away from the car park, down towards the water. I think he can sense I'm worried about the wildlife. I meet an alligator, just 8 and 85 year old woman, not too far away from here.

Yeah, I've been seeing a really big alligator the past week.

Oh yeah.

I've seen this morning, maybe he'll be there when we get out there. He's impressive to see. He's one of the bigger alligators I've ever seen out here, and I've been out here for about 45 years.

We approach a small wooden jetty that juts out into an inlet of water surrounded by marshlands. Steve's airboat sits there proudly. It looks almost like a big toy, a giant fan, about a meter and a half wide. Sitting on the back, I clamber up onto the boat, accidentally sitting in the driver's seat.

This side, other side of you, unless you want to drive.

I'll let you drive you, sure.

Steve gets up next to me and takes the controls, which is basically just a big handle. It reminds me of an outboard motor you'd get when you're out fishing in New Zealand.

They're flat on the bottom, so you're going to experience the boat sliding sideways. They're built and made to run over dry ground, so we're going to be going over some grass. It's nothing that's extreme, nothing to worry about. This is what the boats are made for.

When did you learn to drive one of these things?

About when I was about five years old, my dad had me on these things, he had me in his lap right there. As soon as I could reach the throttle, he'd let me go. As long as I stayed out in front of the camp, I was good.

Steve is a Gladesman, a proud Gladesman. Now. I never really try and over-research things on this show because I kind of want to learn in real time. But I had picked up a book about Gladesmen before this trip, simply titled Gladesman in the Foreword. It said this.

Hell, when I was 7 or 8 years old, I was off on my own, you know? Same with, like the fishing. I had a boat before I had a driver's license, so my dad would take me to the boat ramp and just turn me loose.

He's been loose ever since. And as Steve cranks the throttle, or whatever you'd call it on an airboat, his beard gets blasted back in the wind, revealing a giant, toothy grin. Steve loves it out here.

Oh yeah, they're a blast. The shallower the water, the more fun they are. They'll slide faster. They'll actually run about 20 30 miles an hour above speed when it's shallow. Really, really fun.

I agree that this is fun, but in parts of the Everglades, it can be dangerous. Panthers, crocs, snakes, the list goes on.

You never know what you're going to see, so you always want to be keeping your eyes open. Sometimes you'll see a water moccasin, also known as a cottonmouth, which is the most venomous snake we have out here.

With this in mind, he offers some sound advice.

Best thing to do is just don't think about them. I don't look for them, I don't think about them, I just walk through it.

One thing about Gladesmen they know the environment out here, they know the wildlife, and they love it. As we zoom past, he points to a big white bird with an orange beak.

You're going to see a lot of these white birds, like this one here with the curled beak. Those are called the Florida ibis. See hundreds of them out here this time of year, and you see this white bird right here. This is a snowy egret.

He's right, the snowy egret that makes this weird noise.

This is what we call the marsh. There's like three different looks to the Florida Everglades. The farther north you go, you have deep sloughs and all right in here, you have a lot of this. Sawgrass is what we all came through.

In New Zealand, a hammock is something you lie on while you're on holiday. Here in the Everglades, it's a big bunch of trees.

What's the weirdest thing you've seen out here in the Everglades?

Well, I've seen one of these alligators do a complete backflip. I was coming around the corner and it wasn't like the airboat scared him or anything. I just happened to look over and I had a group of people and when I looked over, he was in the trail and he just did a complete backflip. I've been out here all my whole life, I've seen stuff that I think is normal and everybody tells me I'm crazy.

We come to a stop and he points to a blue bird pecking around in the long grass. It's a bit smaller than a chicken with beautiful blue feathers.

See this bird behind us, it's called a purple galanome. I named her Billie G.

You mean, you trained her?

She gets on the boat. I've had this bird riding on my shoulder now, you know how loud these things are, right? You just came down on it. Can you imagine having a wild bird like that on your shoulder?

Come on, Billie, Steve keeps calling Billie Jean's name, and, sure enough, Billie Jean wanders over to him.

These birds are called a purple galanome and they can live up to 22 years. They're not really good flyers, they can fly like the distance across this pond, but you only find them around these lily pads.

Yeah, right.

And the male and the female are identical, and once they breed, they'll stay together for life.

I like Billie Jean a bad flyer, he's appropriate for this podcast.

He's being a little shy. Come on, Billie.

Come on.

Here he comes.

And just like that, Billie Jean hops up onto our boat.

He's been getting a little aggressive, he's starting to bite me a little bit.

Ow.

He's gotten mean.

It turns out we've stopped in the middle of a sort of large, open pool. Apparently it's the deepest part of this particular part of the Everglades. I can see some fish darting around under us. This whole place is teeming with life, Steve says. They're Oscars and Mayan sicklings, which he's developed a unique way to catch.

You just stick your thumb in the water and wiggle it around, and they'll come up and bite your thumb, it's true.

Yeah, you gave it up.

Yeah, because they have poison on their pectoral fins, the bottom fins. We have over 350-something different species of freshwater fish, mostly all these that you're seeing here are like Mayan, sicklings and Tilapia and Oscars.

Then, as we're looking in the water at the cute but slightly poisonous fish, there's a big bubble of water about 10 meters away. And this big head pops above the surface. It's the giant gator, he mentioned at the start of our trip.

That alligator is every bit, he's over 12 foot, he's probably pushing 13, maybe a little bit bigger, and I've only seen a handful that's been over 13 foot. He's here, that's a sight to see for someone that's wanting to see a big alligator. Well, there he is.

Looking at this big boy and thinking of that poor old lady who got eaten, I remember hearing that the Everglades is a popular place for dumping bodies. I wonder how true that is.

Have you ever come across a body out here?

Not in this section. I've seen them down farther south, I live about two hours south of here, and yeah, I have seen them out there before. We did a lot of canal fishing in the canals and levee systems. You could tell it was a dead person. But I never like to get up on them.

We press on, moving away from the big pool and back into the soil grass, passing some other birds, he knows.

I think that's a bird I call Ernie.

He points out some wisdom from those who were here way back before Gladesmen came along the Native American Seminole tribe.

These trees right here, these are called willow trees. They have the same ingredients as tylenol and aspirin. They just break a stick off and carve it and chew on the stick. It's known to get rid of headaches and back pains.

Suddenly, we emerge from all the swampy soil grass into what looks to me like a big river. But the whole of the Everglades is a big river. I suppose. We're basically on a little freeway compared to the little bits of shallow water that we've been over so far.

This is a canal, it's called the Miami Canal, Miami River. Back in the early 40s, they were trying to farm all the Everglades sugar cane. And they put the highway in Highway 75 and you got Highway 41. Well, they didn't know that the Everglades was actually a moving river.

Back in the day, they were essentially trying to drain this whole thing, right?

Right, that's what it was. Drain the swamp, just like Trump.

Steve says A lot of things have changed over the years, especially over the last decade, as more and more people flood to Florida. The warm weather an attractive option, alligators or not? Slowly, life out here has become less livable for people like him.

Over the years, they basically want us out of the Everglades. You know, where I grew up, they closed it all down. You're not allowed to run airboats or nothing. That wasn't where I came from.

Is that wildlife groups or councils?

Yeah, it comes in pretty much political, so they want to be able to know where everybody's at. In the old days, we had all this swamp, you know, there's, like I said, close to a little over 4 million acres. They don't want someone getting away, they want to be able to control everyone.

Who sort of polices these waters, because obviously on the ocean you've got certain ocean police looking at that sort of stuff. What's over here?

It's the FWC, the Florida Wildlife Commission, they're the ones who protect and control it, they monitor, they ride around, you know, and if you're fishing, don't have a fishing license. They're the ones that write your tickets and all that. They're not really my biggest fans.

Looking around, I notice I haven't seen another human in ages. I really do feel really alone out here, it's just me and Steve. Back in the late 1800s, that aloneness was attractive to bootleggers who would snuggle and hide whiskey out here after it had been made illegal. One outlaw, John Ashley, was nicknamed King of the Everglades, his gang robbing banks and then hiding out here.

I've been stuck out here with my parents and my dad. We had swamp buggies, track buggies, like the Army trucks. I would say it's like a culture. I grew up doing it, so when you broke down and you got stuck, it was just normal. It happens.

What makes the culture out here?

Is it the idea of coming out here and fishing? is it nature? is it family and camaraderie? what is it?

Family and camaraderie, basically, my grandpas and everyone else's if they were in the Everglades growing up, their kids are the same way. We call it gladesmen, the common word we use for someone who's been in the swamp their whole lives.

In my Gladesman book, I found some other fun words for Gladesmen, swamp rats, Glades, hunters and my favourite crackers. I don't bring these nicknames up with Steve.

Where I grew up, we were 28 miles out into the swamp and we were out of the flight patterns. There's no towers, everybody always asked, How do you not get lost? If you look over there, you can see the towers, If you look over here, there's points.

Yeah, no landmarks going on out there.

Not at all, not where I grew up. I slept many nights on the front of the boat, waiting for the sun to come up.

The air is thick and relaxing, out here, it's quiet. Life's worries seem further away than usual. I get the appeal.

That's what I call God's paradise, this is God's country. To me, this is where I get away and get my mind right, to relax, get away from society.

As Steve throttles up again, it's weird having a sort of intimate conversation over a very loud motor, and I find myself yelling.

They took all the land away from us, they cut it off. We can't go there anymore. And I have all my memories of growing up is out there and now that they don't let us in there.

This is going to slowly stop being a thing.

It already has. Yeah, my friends, friends who have kids, they're just seeing the tail end of it. It's like we're the last of the dying breed. Another 20 years from now, I don't think there'll be anybody out here.

Stay tuned for more Flightless bird.

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What a character.

He was great, his beard was so long and white.

I feel like there could be a whole podcast just on him.

He's a man who's lived his entire life on the water, we all live on land and we have a great time. He took the opposite approach, he's just living on the water.

Do you think you could do it out there?

I could see you in a swamp.

How dare you?

You've got little gumboots on today.

I do, but I don't like water, I can't really swim.

Yeah, it would be a problem, that would be problematic.

I don't like animals, especially the deathly ones.

There are so many animals out there.

What did you feel when you saw the alligator?

I felt a bit scared. They're such an intense creature. I asked him if I swam out and around, would I be okay? He says. Chances are it would be scared of me.

No.

He'd swim around in there, but he wouldn't let me go in, probably because he doesn't want to get sued or anything. But then I had signed the waiver. But I also had this other thought when you're alone with someone in the middle of nowhere, you always think, what if someone of you snaps and kills the other or something?

That environment is scary, that's fraught for snapping and murders.

All those things.

And body drops.

But yeah, I like the vibe out there. It was nature everywhere, things chirping and crickets, cricketing and alligators snapping.

I thought about something. When he said like Trump, he said drain the swamp, then he said, like Trump, then I thought, Oh, maybe. Some people in Florida are just confused when they heard drain the swamp. And they thought he was just calling out their culture.

Yeah, maybe I thought it was just a little fun reference.

Shout out. And that's why they like him.

I hadn't made the association with what drain the swamp was referring to. I didn't know until this trip that they had tried to drain the Everglades. Just get rid of it. They just wanted it to be land. And then they're like, Oh shit, this is actually a giant ecosystem that we can't beat.

You had the seizure.

No, that was a lion that I meet later in my trip. Yeah, I meet a seizing lion in Florida. That's in the Exotic Pets episode.

That's an easter egg.

Such a funny lion. It was so fucked up.

I tell people you can get as fucked up as you want, you can yell as loud as you want. You can do whatever you want. And the only thing you're going to hurt is yourself. It's like, you've got freedom out here.

One thing that's become very clear to me out here is that Steve loves the Everglades. I think of Billie, Jean and Ernie, those cute little birds he likes, and the egrets and fish and alligators. He's proudly pointed out to me all day. He cares about the environment out here because it's where he's lived his whole life. I think he enjoys sharing that message with me, but I still don't quite fully understand what it's like out here for Gladesmen.

Is there anything you're keeping an eye out for underwater, like? We're not going to hit anything?

No, well, you see those mud clumps that stick up, you don't want to hit one of those sideways. You could actually flip the boat, but up here, it's mostly mud.

Jesus, they can get that fast.

Yeah, one little fart, it'll kill you, you know? Just a little breath of wind.

I'm not sure if he's doing it on purpose, but as we've been talking about speed, Steve's been speeding up. The sound of the airboat at times is louder than any metal concert I've been to. And he's doing some cheeky turns that are actually pretty fun.

Have you ever flipped one of these things? Racing? Yeah, I have.

I've stood them up on their rudders, where they hit the back rudders, I've crashed, I've been thrown out, I've been run over.

How are you alive?

I don't know I'm feeling it, though my body's starting to feel the older I get. I got run over a couple of different times more than once.

How the fuck do you get run over?

We were chasing this pig and I was trying to catch him and I went to grab him. And I went over the front and my buddy just ran me completely over. Then, when I was young, me and my dad and my brother, we were chasing a deer. We hit some rocks sideways and it flipped over and I had to airlift my dad out. When you put alcohol and airboats together, that's another disaster waiting to happen, but it's one hell of a time, though.

With his cheeky grin, Steve is driving me towards a camp out here in the Everglades. A house on the water where gladesmen used to live still live.

This was over 100 years ago. If you could buy land, there's only three camps out here in this section of Everglades that grandfathered them in.

Unique thing to own?

I wish my folks would have bought our land because it was dirt cheap. Back then, you know, they grandfathered the camp owners in. But you can't resell it. It's got to be handed down. One of those type things, yeah.

I'm going to take you down here and show you what a camp is. He powers the airboat up to full speed and we're completely fanging it. Eventually, out of nowhere, I see three houses out on the water. They're built up on piles that go into the swamp, and the ground is some land that's jutting up out of the water.

I'm looking at a series of small houses on the water.

Yeah, these are what we call hunting camps, you notice the drums on top of the roofs, you know what those are?

I have no idea.

That's how we get our hot water shower, that's the redneck hunting camp right there.

Each of the houses in front of me has a blue barrel on the roof, the water inside hot from the sun. I'm curious if anyone's home, but it looks empty.

There's another one that's out farther back, but they're out on the weekends and the holidays and stuff with their families.

Okay, so you say, hunting? what are you hunting out here?

They do a lot of duck hunting in this section, and they do a lot of frogging. You ever had frog legs?

I actually haven't, no.

We have a pit frog, but they're very, very good eating, it's just getting over the frog part. You know, it's kind of hard for some people, but they're actually really, really good.

How many of these little private dwellings would exist, would you say?

There used to be hundreds and hundreds of them back when I was growing up. But if you didn't own the land, the park service burned them all down. So there's about 100,000 acres in this section right here, and there's only three of them, you know, left.

Back when he was a teenager, when the bootlegging days were over and alcohol was legal, he'd spend a lot of time at places like this.

You know, growing up they had a bunch of these camps, you'd drink a beer at one camp, you'd run your airboat to the next, you know. And it was a big community basically. Out here in the middle of the swamp. This is how I grew up hunting camp. So as a little kid in diapers, I was running through the swamp, playing around. But this is my backyard.

We slowly do a little drive-by of the houses around the back, where the land juts out of the water. There's some old plastic chairs out and a table. A little jetty has seen better days falling out into the water. Repairs are hard.

Everything comes to life at night time. Real noisy. Yeah, you'll hear frogs and alligators bellowing, these alligators especially just right now. Like, I was telling you, they're coming into the mating season. The males will make this loud bellow, and it's almost like a deep, deep growl.

I tell Steve that all this is so wild to me. Particularly because back in New Zealand, we don't really have any of these creatures in the wild that can kill you. Nothing particularly deadly.

That's incredible, no venomous snakes or anything, huh?

You could run naked through the forest for years.

I don't know what to do over there. You damn sure will over here, and you damn sure wouldn't want to be naked. Come next month. These mosquitoes will fly you the fuck out of here. They're so bad you can't even breathe without sucking them in.

Eventually, we get back to the inlet where we'd come in. I've loved it out here in the Everglades, but I'm excited to be back on solid ground again. As I get off the airboat, Steve tells me about another creature that's meant to live out here. It's not an alligator or a croc or a python, it's something else entirely.

Yeah, a sasquatch. I haven't never seen one, but I have elders that swear that they've seen them before.

Locals say a big ape lives out here, a big one that stinks like a skunk.

With that in mind, they call it the skunk ape.

But I've heard stories from old-timers and all, and you know, I know them so well. Why would they lie or did they see something? Were they drinking too much? I don't know, but me personally, I don't look for them.

Hence the skunk.

Skunk Ape? Yes, sir.

I'll keep my eyes out, just in case.

I thank Steve for his time, wondering if he'll be the first and last gladesman I'll meet. But as I drive away, I can't get that skunk ape out of my mind. Technically, the creature is known as a cryptid, an animal not yet known to science officially. But there have been hundreds of sightings of the skunk ape in the Everglades over the last few centuries. Native Americans have their own stories about the creature.

Probably the scenery. I like the Cypress swamp, this here is the mangroves, but I like the Cypress. Have you seen the Cypress?

Taylor, what do you like most? The different types of scenery? The Everglades, especially being there two ecosystems in the Everglades, and the Everglades does not get the appreciation that it deserves.

Feigning total ignorance and trying to sound cool about it, I ask about the skunk ape. I'm worried I'll get laughed out of town, but I shouldn't have been.

You don't know about the skunk ape. we literally have skunk apes here, hairy, monster-looking.

Yeah.

They have been filmed, they have found the actual footprints and everything.

So it's a real thing.

Yes, it is a real thing.

Holy shit.

You don't get called out in the woods alone at night.

It's like Florida's Bigfoot.

Yeah, it is Florida's bigfoot.

Have you ever seen it?

I have not seen it, but I do know people that have and they have actual castings of the footprints, yeah.

That doesn't worry you at all living around something like that.

Of course it does. That's why I don't go out at night alone, but I'm more worried about the Bears than the Panthers.

Debbie, from the Blue Crab Cafe, then drops a bombshell on me. There's a Skunk Ape Research Centre just down the road, like, just down the road, a one-minute drive away. I thank Debbie. Get in my car and speed off towards Skunk Ape Central.

So I've just pulled up at the Skunk Ape Research Centre and there's a giant skunk ape outside, like a replica.

Which is good. Inside everything's skunk, ape, books, t-shirts, mugs, pens, figurines. It feels more roadside attraction than research centre, and I'm drawn to an amazing photo on the wall.

Hello.

Oh, hey, Dave, it's Dave Farrier, speaking from the podcast, How are you?

I'm doing okay.

You don't sound convinced.

I'm in the middle of deep line of washing machine, we're loading it in the back of my vehicle.

That sounds like a lot. Would you like me to call you back in a little bit?

Yeah, call me back in five to ten minutes.

Okay, so there was some more phone tag involved, but eventually we got there.

I'm sorry to miss you when I came into your research center. Bad timing on my part.

That's okay, I retired about two years ago, so I'm trying to slow down. I can't be at the shop all the time because I'm trying to enjoy life, but nevertheless I get these customers that come in. I've worked my whole life to get them to come.

Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? You are the person people want to talk to about this creature, right? And so your success has almost backed you into a corner.

Yeah, yeah.

It's going to be my demise, it's going to be my extinction.

Dave Sheely recalls the first time he ever laid eyes on a skunk ape.

I was born and raised in the Florida, Everglades, at the age of 10. I saw what others had described as being a skunk ape, a bigfoot-type animal, and ever since that day, I've just been fascinated with it. So that particular morning, I was only 10 years old, I was out hunting with my brother Jack, and he actually saw it first.

Age 10, Dave was hooked, and he dedicated his entire life to setting eyes on the skunk ape again, and he did several times. He was 27 when he got a series of photographs after spending six months out on the water. Then, three years after that, Dave hit the goldmine. He got the video.

In 2000, I happened to get a really nice video that people are seeing all over the world. It's featured on Smithsonian's website. If you go there and look, it's pretty interesting and that's what I do. I've just my whole life has been researching these animals because very little is known about them.

He's not bullshitting. The video is on the Smithsonian's website. I pulled it up on my phone. You see a large, seven-foot, hairy creature in plain sight. And while it's easy to write it off as a man in a suit, it's at the end of the video.

The video was taken in 2000 in the same area where I researched. And of course, my hopes are always up that I'm going to see something, but on that particular day, I really didn't expect it. I heard something in the distance splashing in the water, and if you ever see the video, you can't see the water because there's grass, but there's a lot of water.

Was your heart beating quickly when you saw that, or were you just locked on?

I was locked on. I've been in a lot of really dangerous situations in my life, I've been bitten by rattlesnakes, I've been attacked by sharks twice. And so, even though it was a really intense situation, I maintained my calm. And as best I could, held the camera as level as possible and zoomed in and it came out pretty good.

Yeah, that video you captured was incredible. And I feel like you managed to achieve something that a lot of people doing what you do don't, which is get some really compelling footage.

Yeah, and I'd like to say I was lucky, but it's more like, I'm here on the ground every day of my life. And I wake up in the morning. I'm in the middle of the everglades when I go to bed at night. So I just put in the time and things happen. If you do that, if you put the effort in, you'll get results.

Yeah, well, you put about a good solid 40 years into this, right?

Yes, sir, maybe longer. It's been a real adventure. I have over 200 tracks that I have cast and collected in the Everglades Plaster casts, and they're very interesting, the size of them and the different locations where I've cast them. Over the years. I believe we may have as many as seven to nine of these animals here in the Everglades.

It seems crazy, but then I think of my short time in the Everglades and how vast it was, and I was just in a tiny, tiny corner of it. Maybe there is a big ape out there. I mean, there are about a million alligators, and I'd only seen a few. Some think that skunk apes hide down in alligator holes, so they have plenty of those to choose from.

Well, the most challenging part, by far, is the Everglades itself. It's the largest wild interconnected area east of the Mississippi. Here in the United States, it consists of over three million acres of protected wildlands. And it's filled with alligators and crocodiles and poisonous snakes. I'm dealing with sharks, I'm dealing with stingrays, just a variety of hazards.

The fact is, apart from those who grew up around here, the Everglades has always managed to defeat people, to defeat newcomers. It defeated the politicians and land developers who tried to drain the swamp. Back in the 1800s, it defeated the U...S. military. The Florida War was waged in the Everglades for seven years, from 1835 to 1842..

Would you call yourself a gladesman or Gladesman-adjacent?

Yeah, yeah, I'm a Gladesman. I have battled with the National Park Service for over 25 years. The part of the time that I wasn't hunting skunk apes, I was in meetings fighting for just my own existence and my right to live here. So I guess if you were looking at Gladesmen, I would probably be one of the number one Gladesmen in the state right now.

I thank Dave Sheely for his time and hang up the phone for all I know. Maybe he is the number one gladesman, or maybe Steve is Steve, with his wonderful white beard and a pet bird called Billie Jean, or maybe the skunk ape is the number one gladesman.

MonIca I became completely convinced that the skunk ape is a real thing while I was out there.

I don't disagree.

I'm going to show you this footage, so this is on the Smithsonian website. As with any footage of any creature, it's kind of fuzzy. Okay, you sort of see him, you see him in the middle.

Yeah.

And it's when he takes off that it feels like not a person in a suit.

Yeah.

It's so hard to tell, especially.

I mean, the quality's not great.

Yeah, quality's not.

Is he running? yet you see him moving? I do.

That's like, that's swampy, muddy, nightmarish territory.

And he's moving at a real rate.

Yeah, most of the comments are people saying that you can't move like that in the swamp unless you're real big, real strong.

Yeah, it's really compelling and I....

Whoa?

And that it's July in Florida, that it would be really hot, too.

But why? Yeah, so he'd just be stinking hot in there and it's just, I guess what got me is. It's the vastness and it's so big and there's so many places to hide.

Yeah, but we, like, know all the creatures, maybe, well, do we in the rainforest?

We're still discovering stuff like mostly smaller stuff. But like gorillas at one point were this mystery animal that were meant to be this fictitious creature, and then eventually scientists found them and took photos of them.

But science is very evolved. At this point. I'd be very surprised. I'm with you.

See, I thought the same thing, and everyone I talked to, I thought it was a joke, yeah.

Okay, see, but this is my point. If a friend saw the skunk ape, then a scientist has to be able to find it.

I guess, well, that's the thing you'd hope, so, right? I hear what you're saying. Like, surely science would have really found DNA evidence, and they haven't yet?

Huh.

The Gladesman.

The Gladesman.

They all talk about it like it's absolutely definitively real, which I just find just really compelling and fun and mad.

You would think one of them would have caught one, though.

Or a body?

Yeah.

Or a skeleton, right, or something.

Because they're all like men's men.

They are men's men.

The Greyhound.

Steve was so mellow talking to him, but he was hardcore, yeah, like he had fucking lived out there. And his dad's getting airlifted up to crashing. He has been flung off his airboat while chasing pigs. It's crazy.

What a life.

What a life.

Yeah, it makes me feel so useless hanging out with manly men like that.

Boring?

You know, yeah, he's just like he can do everything. I felt safe around him.

Oh, that is so interesting because I feel incredibly unsafe hearing that I would have felt this person attracts danger.

Yeah.

Because that's what he likes.

Yeah, lives for it.

Lives for it.

Yeah, there is that angle on it as well. I felt like he was looking up to me. That's sweet, yeah.

I love that dog.

I love the Sky Cape. I love this idea that there are these like bandits out there just living their own life. Yeah, and they all feel they all spoke, you know, Dave Sheely spoke of this, and Steve spoke of this, of just being sort of slowly run out of town.

Oh my God, you would not.

You don't think I'd. How long do you think I'd survive out there in the glades?

I think you'd be like, Oh, this alligator likes me now, and then jump in and immediately get eaten.

Yeah, that could be problematic.

You're too trusting.

Yeah, I learned that with the squirrel.

Did you learn it?

Still haven't had my medical bills coming from those rabies.

Every day I log in and I check and it still hasn't come through.

It's free.

You'll have to update it.

Maybe that I'm hoping they lost the paperwork and so I don't have to pay for any of those rabies shots.

Unfortunately, no.

Yeah, I think for your birthday present, I might see if I can get you an Airbnb out there in the Everglades at one of those camps. And you can have your redneck shower short shower each day with your sun heated water on the roof.

Oh wait, speaking of when you brought up the cracker, that's a pejorative word for a white person.

Yeah, Cracker is like a whitey.

Well, look, the truth is, white people are the majority in the hegemonic group.

Yeah, so call them whatever you want.

There's nothing that's so bad that you can't say it.

So I'm a cracker.

Um, I technically, I guess.

I mean, I just opened my Glazeman book and it said, very specifically, that's what people.

Don't try to be cutesy and do that, just don't.

Okay, okay.

I don't think there's any Airbnbs in the Everglades.

Hmm, no, they're actually-.

I guess you're going to have to get me something I actually want.

You've got to stay in the keys.

Yeah, and like all those the camps that do exist out there for Glazeman, you can't buy them. They are literally now passed down generation to generation.

Huh, I bet one of those guys would let Monica stay with him, though, um.

You might, you might, I don't know. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

I won't, I'm never going to say never, you know, they could be my people.

It was really beautiful out there. I'm from the south.

I have a connection.

Yeah, I think it's in you.

What's in me?

I think there's an inner Glades woman.

That was really fun. I'm glad you did that.

I'm at least 24 more American, I'll give it to you. That was so American, it was right.

It is good job.

I'd like Dax to go out with him on one of those airboats and have, like, a race that'd be like a man off.

Seems like trouble between the two of them.

That's not a good idea.

Okay, let's not.