Something new with the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo

November 2, 1:30 AMGulf Shores Beach ExaminerDavid Hancox

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New Zoo Coming Soon

The Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo has been a great attraction for families and schools in the Gulf Shores area since 1989 when it first opened as Zooland Animal Park.  It was made even more famous by a series that aired on the tv channel Animal Planet.  A series that was rightfully named Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo.  Coming soon, the Gulf Shores Zoo will be moving to a new location. 

The land for the new location was donated by Clyde Weir and his daughter Andrea Weir Franklin.  The New zoo will be located on County Road 6 east of County Road 59 that the current zoo is located on.  The Weir Family donated 25 acres so the zoo could be located in an area less likly to flood.

The new Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo is set to open sometime in 2011.  Travelers passing the new billboard on 59 are sure to be made aware of this. Zoo officials unveiled the billboard on 59 announcing the opening and introducing a pair of rare Bengal cubs that will make the zoo the only one in the country to display a tiger in each of the species' four color variations. They also showed off a hurricane-resistant building intended to prevent any reruns of the events that thrust the nonprofit park into the spotlight.

At its present location -- a low-lying tract less than a mile north of the Gulf of Mexico -- the zoo was swamped by storm surge and floodwaters by both 2004's Hurricane Ivan and 2005's Hurricane Katrina. All 270 of its animals had to be evacuated -- to zoo director Patti Hall's Elberta home -- before both storms. The efforts, the only known full-scale evacuations of an American zoo, prompted the primetime Animal Planet series that generated record attendance and donations to the nonprofit park.

There's an aviary, a reptile house, a building specifically for human-animal encounters, a pavilion for animal shows and weddings, an educational building and an area that will house all of the zoo's North American animals, including bears and wolves.

For more info: Visit www.alabamagulfcoastzoo.org/index.html