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| Tiger cub at Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
The Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo, is a pint-size zoo in Gulf Shores, known as the
Little Zoo That Could, from the Animal Planet series of a few years ago. The zoo is a remarkably fun outing for families, especially those who want to get really close to wildlife, like tiger cubs and lemurs that are brought out for encounters with human participants.
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| Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
The zoo's stars are the baby tigers, but the zoo is also home to exotic birds.
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| Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
and humble tortoises...
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| Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
There is a petting zoo with goats...
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| Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
And because this the Gulf Coast, there are gators that may be real...
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| Gator. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
And gators that definitely are real.
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| Gator. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
This monster one is famous. His name is Chucky and back in 2004, he escaped from the zoo during Hurricane Ivan. He was captured after five days of freedom. At 12 feet in length and at least 1,000 pounds, I'd say that took some serious gator-rassling to bring him him in.
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| Chuckie at Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
The zoo has more than 290 animals, including lions, tigers, bears, macaws. There's everything from timber wolves...
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| Timber wolf. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
to swans. I wonder if some of the animals sleep at night. Predator and prey live pretty close to each other here.
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| Swan. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
The stars, of course, are the baby tigers and for a donation to the zoo, you can get up close to the animals. We watched while the others played, and although we didn't get to touch the animals, we were still much closer than we ever expected to be to
Baby Tigers.
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| Tiger encounters. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
The cubs are led out to the encounter area with all the buzz of a Hollywood premiere.
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| Tiger encounter. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
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| Tiger cub. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
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| Tiger cub. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
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| Petting a tiger cub. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
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| Playful tiger cubs. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
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| Snack time. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books. |
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| Tiger eying teddy bear. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
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| Baby tiger with teddy bear. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
Be sure to visit the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo when you're on the Gulf Coast. And check out its website:
www.alabamagulfcoastzoo.org. The zoo will move to a new location in Gulf Shores in 2013. Look for it!
Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.
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