For better or worse, park visitors are allowed (and apparently even encouraged?) to feed the resident deer and raccoons! They throw out bread and corn, and the critters come running!
The deer and raccoons happily cohabitate during these times!
And of course these are opportunities to get very close to one another!
And to photograph the antics...
While it is all very cute, sometimes close can become too close. After all, these feedings are altering wildlife behaviors and creating an abnormal comfort level with being close to humans. This little boy's parents called him off in order to avoid a conflict. I enjoyed these cute scenes, but I doubt they're the wisest events... And for those of you who are wondering, no, they don't encourage feeding the alligators (which I never saw any of at this park - or in Louisiana at all!). Unfortunately, I did hear about gators getting fed, getting too accustomed to proximity to humans, and then being "relocated" (usually = killed) because of the safety question. Doesn't sound fair, does it? That's because it's not!! People feed wild animals because it's fun, cute, exciting, etc. But if they only truly realized they are often signing the animal's death sentence, maybe they wouldn't be so quick to hand out those scraps...?!!!
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