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THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, July 16, 2003 ~J CONTACT US MTY WILU RATHER: ■Giv,J™,I^ww!3 E-mail us at gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com JL JL _L I J XT J_ JLX V and they think they have a new fact.” Newborn cubs headlined _at mvernanks BY BRIAN RAY THE GAMECOCK Foli and Kisa were as energetic and playful as the dozens of chil dren pressed against the glass watching them. Photographers big and small, amateur and profes sional alike*bathed the cubs in blue as they wrestled and tongue - bathed one another like celebrity kittens in their display, a block away from their parents. Riverbanks Zoo could have been Hollywood. The scene was cine matic. And the scene has also been a long time coming. These two cool cats are the first to be born at Riverbanks in 14 years. It takes more than a night at the drive-in to make a pair of tigers fall in love and hop in the sack. The staff at Riverbanks had been crossing their fingers for three years while tigers Globus and Koshka rolled around in the hay once the tiger Species Survival Program, based in Minnesota, had sanctioned their mating. “These cubs represent a new ge netic line,” said Riverbanks Spokeswoman Sharon Bergeron. Tiger studbook keepers—who maintain records on every cap tive tiger in the world — can trace Globus’s lineage directly to the wild, so they know his offspring will strengthen the genetic di versity of captive tigers because he’s bringing fresh genes to the pool. The SSP avoids inbreeding, as it dilutes diversity. Sumatrar tigers, for example, could face tough times because a large num ber of the subspecies in captivity are now related. Globus, cover boy for the February 1997 issue of National Geographic, comes from a three acre enclosure in Gayvoron, a snow-covered village near the Russo-Chinese border. According to the article, he was abandoned by his mother, Niukura, and raised by Victor Yudin, who cud dled and bottle-fed him to maturi ty. Then Globus was shipped to the Minnesota Zoo where he fa thered four cubs, and then to Riverbanks Zoo, where the staff urged him on as he made love to Koshka in a barn be hind the tiger ^ habitat. Head mam mal cu rator Steve Wing joined us at the tiger exhibit to watch Koshka strut up and down a rocky cliff flanked by fo liage. Wing and Bergeron said that the curators had to separate Koshka from her cubs because her glands were unable to produce milk. Once separated, they said, the mother might not toler ate her cubs, having >, been handled by hu - mans. There’s even a slight chance . Koshka would kill her Riverbanks Zoo’s first animal Stan Smith, owner of Constan Car Wash, bought a Bengal tiger named Happy in 1964 from the Lincoln Park zoo in Chicago for $900 and showcased her at his carwash on Gervais Street until Riverbanks opened in 1974. Happy was used as part of Smith's ad campaign "Put a Tiger in Your Tank" with Humble Oil. Information gathered from The State, and Riverbanks Magazine. RESTAURANT REVIEW A healthy alternative AL-AMIR Owned by Mohammed Saadeddin ★★★ out of BY TRISHA SHADWELL THE GAMECOCK Diet experts say the healthy food to eat this summer is Mediterranean. If this is true then we should all be eating at Al Amir. Seated immediately on Al Amir’s outdoor patio, I was giv en a menu. Although the menu gave me a description of what was in the dishes, names such as falfal, shawarma and tabouli overwhelmed this hamburger and-coke college kid. I was un sure of what the food would taste like. The friendly staff understood and was more than happy to sug gest some of their favorites. Mohammed Saadeddin, the own er of the restaurant, made a few suggestions and explained how the food was cooked. A native of Syria, Saaddeddin demonstrated a passion for keep ing the food as authentic as possi ble. He said he uses genuine Syrian spices. He also said the meat is cooked on a spit, not on a ♦ AL-AMIR, SEE PAGE 9 Local band actually makes it PHOTO BY PASCALE SEXTON/THE GAMECOCK Singer Alderman Douglas, above, works on his music with guitarist Nic Thompson. BY COREY GARRIOTT THE GAMECOCK Working a blue-collar job doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not an artist. But busing tables in a restaurant won’t neces sarily make you the next Tom York, either. New York could probably pay for all of its public utili ties with the labor of failed actors and singers. But local jam band Alderman Douglas will make you think twice about the waiters and cof fee jerks who skip college to pursue their dreams. Some of them end up with $20,000 contracts. Lead singer and gui tarist Alderman Douglas, a 20-year-old waiter at TGI Friday’s, was signed by an old friend of his mother’s, who writes songs for pop-country stars. While in Columbia on a break from her record company, she lis tened to his CD, and then he sealed the deal by playing for her live. ♦ BAND, SEE PAGE 8