Slobot About Town XCVIII:
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Slobot goes Hollywild!
It was a beautiful late winter day and Slobot found himself at the Hollywild Animal Park in Wellford, SC. |
Inside the park Slobot discovered both rooster and guineafowl.
Slobot also spotted an Indian Blue Peacock...
who was displaying his bright and spotted plumage for female guineafowl and peahen alike. |
Nearby a big Bronze tom turkey was puffing out his chest and strutting his stuff for the ladies. |
Nearby Slobot found goats, goats that were hungry,
hungry for Slobot's head!
Slobot was feeding a goat some proper food when he spotted...
David Meeks and a wolf!
David Meeks and his father opened the M & M Zoo in Wellford in 1970.
The M & M zoo would spend the next decade and a half exhibiting its menagerie of deer, swans, monkeys, capybaras, tigers, pheasants, lions, ducks, bears and otters to the public. |
David Meeks and his wife, Lucia, would later purchase the elder Meeks’ share of the zoo and begin building what would become Hollywild Animal Park in 1985. |
Hollywild's name is derived from the fact that, to date, Meeks has provided animal talent for more than 65 feature films. |
Those films include Barbra Streisand’s Prince of Tides, Tom Cruise’s Days of Thunder and The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. |
In 1999, Hollywild became a 501 (C) (3) Non-Profit refuge for nearly 500 animals on some 100 acres. |
In the course of the park's four decades it has, of course, experienced its fair share of boners... |
the greatest of which would have to be the events that would unfold on the night of Saturday August 09, 2008. |
On that fateful fall night John Chadwick Montgomery, then 31; Anthony Derrick Elliott, then 28; and Amy Brooke Mayberry, then 20, would take part in what wags have dubbed a "cubnapping." |
Indeed, the felonious three would go on to steal a seven-month-old, 60-pound black bear by the name of Newell. |
Montgomery is believed to have originally targeted a 10-year-old capuchin monkey named Petey. But, it is believed, that Lizzie, Petey's capuchin companion, fought off Montgomery. |
Montgomery, Elliott and Mayberry are then believed to have targeted Newell, tempting him with heavenly honey buns in order to lure him into their vehicle. |
Once Newell was in the vehicle, Montgomery would take Newell to the Flying J Travel Plaza in Blacksburg. There Montgomery would charge passers-by $1 for the opportunity to pet Newell. |
Luckily for Newell, the act of renting bear-pets by the dollar in a Blacksburg parking lot tends to arouse the suspicion of local law enforcement and so Newell would be rescued, and the guilty given time. Slobot loved his day at Hollywild! Slobot would like to thank David Meeks, Hollywild Animal Park and YOU! |