Gatorland's addition

The Sun Sentinel reports that a new attraction is coming this year to Gatorland:

"One of these bad boys lived in the basement of a New York middle school. Another one terrorized golfers near a South Florida airport. Another was a big-time wrestler — with bite. These are tales of three inhabitants of the Mile of Monsters, a new showcase of reptiles at Gatorland. The self-guided walking tour, which began last week, currently features 10 of the park's most notorious alligators and crocodiles.

[...] Each stop represents where a creature lives or tends to hang (or lurk). Signs there tell a story about its capture or behavior. There's bound to be a bunch of stories to chew on. Gatorland has been open on South Orange Blossom Trail since 1949. The plan is to include 24 animals — all of which are in-house already — in the attraction by spring-break time. Each sign highlights a letter of the alphabet. Guests collect each letter and arrange them to form a secret password and receive a raffle ticket for various discounts in the famed Gatorland gift shop. The tour — which is about a mile-long walk — is included in regular Gatorland admission. Some of the gators — such as Chester, who once had a penchant for dogs in a Hillsborough County neighborhood — remain in their usual Gatorland home. Others have been moved from the breeding marsh to new locations, including Pops, a longtime resident that has appeared in movies and TV shows. (He once was visited by a pet psychic, who reported that Pops wanted his handler to know that he "wanted more chicken than red meat.") Another "monster" named Big Mac had to be retired from the gator wrestling arena after he injured four handlers in 10 months. "He was killing our workers' comp rates," says Mark McHugh, Gatorland president and CEO. But Gatorland is thinking even bigger, and it's willing to pay for it. McHugh says they're putting out a $50,000 bounty for a gator trapper to bring in Florida's longest alligator alive. The biggest one on record is 14 feet, 5/8 inches. (Chester, for example, is just short of 14 feet.) "There's got to be a big monster out there somewhere," McHugh says."

We'll keep you informed!