Honey Island Swamp, Louisiana, and its monster

3 min read

2 years ago Leo S

Stories about Louisiana have always included reference to the swamps, humid, soggy environments scattered throughout much of the southeastern United States.
Several characters call these places home, including snakes, alligators,every kind of bugs and, according to the lore, also mysterious creatures.
The Honey Island Swamp Monster is one of them and, according to the legend, thie guy is a giant primate-like creature with gray hair and yellow eyes that haunts this area of the bayou.
Local lore tells of a train crash that occurred near the swamp in the early 20th century in which a traveling circus lost chimpanzees who adapted to the environment and mated with the local alligators and, thankfully, its victims have all been non-human, including a wild boar.

Also known as the Cajun Sasquatch and in Cajun French “La Bête Noire”, is commonly described by alleged witnesses as a large, bipedal, humanoid, about 2 m tall, covered with gray hair, having yellow or red eyes and accompanied by a putrid odor.
There are also plaster casts of footprints said to be from the creature.
The first claimed sighting was in 1963 by Harlan Ford, a retired air traffic controller who had taken up wildlife photography. After his death in 1980, a reel of Super 8 film showing the creature was found among his belongings.
In 1974, Harlan and his friend Billy Mills claimed to have found unusual footprints in the area, as well as the body of the wild boar whose throat had been gashed.
Today, it seems the creature is still to inhabit the swamp and the bayous along the Pearl River.

Cryptozoology and stories apart, Honey Island Swamp is considered by many to be one of the most pristine swampland habitats in the United States, and covers an area that is over 20 miles (30 km) long and nearly 7 miles (10 km) across, with 35,619 of its 70,000 acres (280 km2) government sanctioned as permanently protected wildlife area.
The marshy area is surrounded by muddy water, with the light that flickers through the trees while the sound of silence pulses over the water, interrupted only by the soft humming from bugs and the occasional splash of an oar.
It is fed by Pearl River, so named by French explorers after they saw the pearls that dotted the river basin.
Originally inhabited by the Choctaw and Acolapissas Native Americans, the river basin is an ecological treasure trove, and has always served as a rich source of food and resources.
It holds the greatest aquatic species diversity in all of Louisiana, and there are between 120 to 140 species of fish, almost 40 types of freshwater mussels, hardwood forests, cypress and tupelo trees growing in the water, birds, wild boars, alligators, turtles, including the American alligator, alligator snapping turtle, red-eared slider, Western cottonmouth, speckled kingsnake, coypu, red fox, Louisiana black bear, bobcat, Virginia opossum, raccoon, muskrat, American mink, brown pelican, barred owl, bald eagle, red-tailed hawk, egretta, great blue heron, alligator gar, largemouth bass, and the paddlefish among others.