January 9, 2012

After a couple of days of doing nothing much, we were rested enough to continue goofing off, so we visited the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo today.  It’s a little zoo, home to about 300 animals and just a few blocks from the beach.  It became somewhat famous in 2006 when Animal Planet did a series of TV shows about its struggle to evacuate the animals during hurricane season and and rebuild the zoo afterwards.  It has the reputation of caring for its animals as individuals.  One of the first primates we saw was this little capuchin monkey.  She’s in a big cage with a padded blanket, lots of toys and a small house, but there aren’t any other monkeys with her.  I wondered about that - they are social animals - so I asked one of the keepers about it.  The keeper said that she is a “special needs” monkey.  She may have been dropped as a baby, but whatever the reason, she never really matured.  When there are baby monkeys she can play with them, but she’s not mentally sharp enough or tough enough to play with adult monkeys.  So during the day she’s in her special playhouse, and every night she goes home with one of the keepers and sleeps in their house.   

One enclosure holds Chuckie, a 1,000 pound alligator.  Years ago he lived in the state park until he developed a taste for picnic baskets.  Eventually it was either a zoo or handbags for Chuckie, and the Alabama Zoo agreed to take him.  He’s been a member of the zoo since 1989.  He “escaped” in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan but didn’t actually leave the zoo property; he was probably hanging around and waiting for his servants to come back and start feeding him again - he’s pretty fat.  (Note the tiny little gecko on the fence, mimicking his big, big brother!)

They have several other gators here and they must have just cleaned their water because it was the cleanest gator pond I’ve ever seen.  They have a lot of ducks, geese, swans, and one pelican who can’t fly.  Another pelican has volunteered to join the group, probably because he likes the free food.  The reptile house included some very large Burmese pythons, including a bright yellow albino python, and some big iguanas.  Outside they have long-eared lynx and short-tailed bobcats.  They have a couple of black bears, one of which was the fattest bear I’ve ever seen.  Several tigers are housed here.

One tiger was napping when another one walked on her - she came up with a terrific roar and for a second it looked like a fight, but the walking tiger quickly backed away, and the other one stretched out and went back to sleep.  There is a wolf in a nearby enclosure; I thought there was more than one wolf, so perhaps there were more out of sight. 

Another enclose holds a lioness who was napping on her back, feet splayed out in the sunshine.  You could almost hear her snore.  The card outside her enclosure said that before she was rescued she was critically underweight and almost blind from malnutrition.  She’s a very healthy weight now and her sight has returned, but her bones have a lot of hairline fractures from the malnutrition, so they can’t house her with other big cats; one good fight would kill or cripple her.  She seems to be fairly spoiled now.

They have a pair of panthers, and a pair of lions.  The male lion has a beautiful black mane and the sign identifies them as Barbary lions, but I’m not sure about that . . . There are precious few lions left with a claim to be even part Barbary.  The porcupines were fascinating - they looked like they had mohawk haircuts and their quills rattled when they walked.  Unlike the big cats they were not sunning themselves, but instead were investigating today’s lunch.

The gift shop sells animal pellets and there are a lot of critters ready and willing to eat them - some of them VERY willing.

Goats, sheep, a few I couldn’t identify . . 

 . . . and beautiful deer.  These deer are behind a fence but they seemed even more tame that the deer at Arnold’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Okeechobee. 

plus a few little ones who aren't behind a fence but know a good thing when they find it.

Eventually we left the zoo and went to King Neptune’s for lunch.  This restaurant is not related to King Neptune’s in Port Salermo; this one specializes in inexpensive lunches for the snowbird crowd.  Our lunch was just fine - mac and cheese, etouffee, with sides of fried okra and peas.

Next Clyde drove us out to see Fort Morgan.  Along the way we saw several big oil rigs out in the bay - we were surprised how many were set up there.  Fort Morgan is at the end of a long island at the mouth of Mobil Bay, and there has been a fort of one sort or another at the location since 1814.  The present star-shaped brick fort was created in 1834.  It was used during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, and in later years it was used for military experimentation and training.  Now it’s a National Historic Landmark.  

Most of the star-shaped building is banked into the surrounding mound, and now the brick arches are leaking white minerals from the ground, which creates little stalactites and makes slippery bumps on the floor.  

In the nearby museum there are letters from men stationed at the fort during the civil war, and photos of the fort during it’s various military uses.  There is also a perfectly gorgeous Fresnel Lens, used from 1873 through 1971, which is much taller than a person.

After touring the Fort, Nancy and I scoured the nearby shore for more shells.  Each beach is unique - this one had some bigger shells.  It also had a surprising number of dead jellyfish, which look like bell jellyfish.

Unfortunately they closed the road to the beach at 5pm so we had to leave.  To end the day, one last trip to Lambert’s Cafe, to over-eat and take home enough food for two more meals!