Dropped from the program at Homosassa Springs park, Lucifer munched away in relative anonymity until folks said they missed the old show.
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
Published October 19, 2004
HOMOSASSA SPRINGS - Lucifer is back in the limelight.
The hippo - one of the most popular animals at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park - is once again being featured in the park's special wildlife interpretation programs.
The longtime programs featuring information about the 44-year-old hippopotamus and the park's many alligators were discontinued in March. That's when the park unveiled its newest features, including an expanded boardwalk and a new 1,700-square-foot Wildlife Encounter Pavilion.
At the time, then-park manager Tom Linley said the walkway between Lucifer and the alligator lagoon, where programs had traditionally taken place, was not a good place to hold programs. Children in strollers and disabled visitors could not see well from that vantage point.
Although Lucifer and the gators remained on display at the park, they were dropped as part of the formal presentations at that time. The alligator information was incorporated into a different wildlife program.
But visitors and staff said they missed the old show, which told about alligators in Florida and explained how a state wildlife park ended up with a hippo, according to Art Yerian, who took over as manager after Linley left at the end of April.
Yerian said he realized that an important message that the park was trying to send visitors, that they should never feed alligators, was lost when the only program people saw featured a handler with tiny alligator babies in the new pavilion.
"When you're standing out there by the 8- to 10-foot alligators, it gets your attention more than two little hatchlings," Yerian said.
Last week the park resumed programs between the alligator and hippo enclosures. Years ago that program included alligator feedings. But when the state took over the park 15 years ago, that ended, and the alligators are fed when visitors are not there so the wrong message about feeding the animals is not given.
In addition to telling visitors about the alligators, the program again tells people the history of Lucifer, or "Lu" as he is often called.
Born in 1960 at the San Diego Zoo, he has been a fixture at Homosassa since 1964. The hippo was a movie and television star through the Ivan Tors Animal Actors troupe, which wintered at the park when the park was in private ownership. After a move to remove the hippo from the park because the emphasis was changed to native Florida wildlife, Lucifer was granted special Florida citizenship by Gov. Lawton Chiles in 1991.
Every January the park staff celebrate Lucifer's birthday with a special cake and visits from local schoolchildren.
The alligator and hippo show is now scheduled at 3 p.m. daily, but later this year will move to 12:30 p.m. daily to replace one of the three wildlife encounter programs, which are now at 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., Yerian said.
Manatee programs near the Fishbowl Observatory remain at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Yerian said that he wasn't sure that the hippo ever noticed being off the regular list of programs.
"I don't think he cares one way or the other," he said.
