I was trained. I was a trainer and I also was lecturing. That’s where I started taking animals and being on local television and things like that. But I also started realizing that communication. I had an indication in those days, that communication was probably the name of the game. Read More
But I started at Birds of Prey. I would… The Today Show came down, Dave Galloway. There used to be a program called Wide Wide World. And I did that very early on. I was flying falcons and doing all kinds of things there. But it introduced me to try… Read More
Probably, dealing with the public is much more dangerous than anything I ever did on Wild Kingdom because. (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. So you’re there, you’re getting an exposure to television. Right. Read More
And he was a very interesting man. He had this knowledge of how to train an animal and how to handle it. He could do that with just about any…. And he was very good with people as well, if I might add. So there I was reintroduced to him… Read More
But I also pride myself on having been around the world and done some pretty interesting things before I ever had to pay income taxes. I never made enough money to really, (chuckles) till I was about 35 years old. I think that’s pretty interesting. But I had a nice… Read More
Now, at the Bird of Prey Center, what they have you do?… Read More
Anyway, I was too tall for the draft when I got out of the college. They wouldn’t take you if you were around six foot six. Now, let me just tell you a little bit on the side. If somebody was shooting at me, I could dig a foxhole just… Read More
I mean, remet him because it had been four or five years since I went out to college. I had no contact with him. And the biology class from Earlham College wanted me to guide them through Florida. And I was down in Albany, Georgia on the plantation. So the… Read More
And he had been, by the way, he was the person that the US Fish and Wildlife Service sent over to Asia to bring back all the monkeys that were the Salk vaccine research monkeys. There was an island off South Carolina where all those monkeys were kept, but he’s… Read More
And sure enough, when I walked up to the door, he remembered me, how you doing Jim?… Read More
I guess, where you were getting paid at the Ocala Florida Raptor Sanctuary?… Read More
Was that your first?… Read More
Birds of Prey. It was called Birds of Prey. John Hamlet’s. (indistinct) John Hamlet Birds of Prey. Well, John Hamlet had been my mentor when I lived in Maryland, when I was like 14 or 15. And he also was very well connected with a Protection Research Center, which was… Read More
Do you wanna start that again?… Read More
No. (indistinct) Okay. Read More
You had mentioned your first job, and was your first job working with animals?… Read More
Very much. In fact, I don’t know. That’s a good question. Was I involved in sports because I was actually suited up. I was going into professional baseball, the Yankees and the Phillies, both who had offered me a big bonuses when I got out of high school. I was… Read More
So I didn’t wanna go into professional sports right out of high school, ’cause I wanted to have the fun of playing in college sports, collegiate sports. But by then, when I messed my leg up playing football, I had a hard time. I did go back and did a… Read More
But I had that cheetah. I used to raise that cheetah down in Albany, Georgia on my plantation. Read More
For some reason this just lingered in my perception of the natural world. But that’s where I learned that rhinos eject their urine backwards. You don’t wanna be standing behind a rhino because at the National Zoo I saw somebody who was walking by, and the rhino really blasted them… Read More