Beast of Okefenokee Swamp

The **Beast of Okefenokee Swamp**, also known as the **Okefenokee Swamp Beast** and the **Okefenokee Beast**, is a purported cat-like or dog-like creature allegedly witnessed in or near the Okefenokee Swamp. It has since become a part of the Florida folklore and has been the subject of multiple books, documentaries and a 2016 horror film.

Named for the swamp in which it was first allegedly sighted, reports of the creature in the 1960s and 1970s prompted a local newspaper, the Gainesville Times, to assign reporter Wendy Jake to cover the story. Jake was initially skeptical, but later became convinced of the sincerity of the witnesses. Her series of articles later became a book titled The Beast of Okefenokee Swamp: Tailing Okefenokee's Bear Dog.

## Description

The Beast of Okefenokee Swamp is most often described by alleged witnesses as large, between 6 feet (1.8 m) and 7 feet (2.1 meters) long (including the tail), with a dog-like or bear-like body, covered in a thick coat of fur, with bear-like limbs, a dog-like head, and a cat-like tail. The fur of the creature is reported to range between dark brown to light brown in color. It is most often purported to have been seen moving as a quadruped, although a few accounts reported the same creature as rearing on its hind legs, similarly to bears.

## History

   The creature was allegedly first sighted in 1871. In the 1960s, several alleged witnesses reported the beast had made contact with their vehicles, leaving long scratch marks on doors and trunks of vehicles. One witness stated she hit something while driving near the Okefenokee Swamp. Upon exiting her vehicle to determine what she had hit, supposedly a large dog-like creature with bear-like proportions and limbs and a long tail chased her back into her car; leaving claw marks in the rear passenger door. Sightings have been reported during daylight hours almost as often, with several witnesses stating they observed an unusually large bear-like creature with a dog-like face and a long tail running on all fours through the orange tree plantation. One stated the creature was in pursuit of a whitetail deer.

Animal mutilations have also been reported in the area around the Okefenokee Swamp with animal remains, including deer and livestock, partially eaten with specific organs removed from the animal carcasses. On September 27th, 2005, two male witnesses reported driving near the Okefenokee Swamp late in early afternoon and observed an unusually large dog-like or bear-like creature with a long tail stealing the men's whitetail deer which had been hit by a car on the side of the road. The creature reportedly growled and snarled as it charged at the men before it ran into the woods as the eyewitnesses approached it in their vehicle.

Reported sightings continue, most recently in July 2020 and March 2022 when alleged witnesses observed a large, brown, long-tailed, dog-like or bear-like creature in Waycross, Georgia and Fargo, Georgia; both near the Okefenokee Swamp.

## Investigation

The Beast of Okefenokee Swamp is most popularly said to be a late-surviving bear dog (Amphicyonidae) that still stalks the countryside hunting for prey animals. However, this is met with skepticism, due to the fact that the bear dogs left no fossil record in the Pleistocene, and the fossils once thought to be from the Pleistocene were actually from deposits much earlier to the mid-Pliocene. This makes the bear dog an unlikely candidate for the culprit of the creature.

A number of misidentified animal-based theories have been proposed including that the creature is simply a gray wolf or a large dog such as a Great Pyrenees or Newfoundland. However, the sighting caused by gray wolves last occurred in the early 1930s, as a result of the indigenous Florida black wolves becoming extinct.

It is also possible that hoaxes and mass hysteria have caused some falsehoods and sightings of normal creatures to all be artificially lumped under the same label. Others have theorized that the creature may be a bear or Florida panther suffering from mange. Like the extinct Florida black wolves, American black bears and cougars have been sighted in and around the Okefenokee Swamp.