Myakka River State Park is a Florida State Park and is named after the Myakka River , east of I-75 in Sarasota in Sarasota County and that includes portions of southeastern Manatee County. A small portion (1,920 acres) of the park was the gift of the family of Bertha Palmer to the state. Legends claim it is home to the *skunk ape * more than a dozen skunk ape sightings between the 1960s and 1980s, prompting a state legislator to sponsor a bill to protect the animal.Even the esteemed magazine Smithsonian had been drawn in: Last spring it sent a reporter to Florida to investigate the legend. info wiki & Shelby Webb , Herald-Tribune