Jeff Corwin (3 page)

Jeff says that his time spent performing onstage made high school much easier for him to deal with. His drama teacher, Mrs. Beal, saw that Jeff was a gifted actor and performer. And she encouraged him to keep at it. Jeff had found his calling, and, as they say, the rest is history! Jeff does television programs today because of his involvement in theater during high school.

Jeff graduated from Norwell High School in 1985. Even though he loved nature and theater, he was feeling lost and wasn’t sure what to do with his life. That’s when Jeff decided to join the Army National Guard. During the summer of 1985, Jeff spent about eight weeks at army boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri. Boot camp was very physically challenging. And with all the exercise, Jeff began to lose weight.

After boot camp, Jeff realized that if he was ever going to become a biologist, he would have to go to college. His poor grades from high school made it hard for him to be accepted. But he knew he had to do something with biology in his life. He loved the subject too much to give up. Jeff was admitted to a small private college, but after a semester, he realized he wasn’t ready to focus on his studies. He decided to leave and go into the army again.

Jeff knew the army could also help him pay for college, so in March 1986, Jeff went to Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas, where he did his professional training in the army.

Jeff studied to be a medic, which is an onsite medical expert. He found the army challenging, but in a good way. He spent ten to twelve hours per day in the classroom or in the field, practicing his skills firsthand. Jeff felt that he was learning to be disciplined, which was something he needed.

While at Fort Sam, Jeff’s days off were precious. On those days, the trainees were allowed to leave the base. But unlike the other trainees, Jeff did not want to go see the sites in downtown San Antonio. Rather, he wanted to explore the Texas countryside to find its native creatures, especially its snakes!

At first, the other trainees thought Jeff was a little weird for wanting to do this. But after each trip out exploring, Jeff would report back with all the amazing things he had seen. So it wasn’t long before the other trainees were clamoring to join Jeff on his journeys.

On one of his expeditions, Jeff and some friends came across a diamondback rattlesnake. It was the first rattlesnake Jeff had ever seen, and he was enthralled by its rattling noises. The other trainees were fearful of the rattlesnake and wanted to kill it. But the naturalist in Jeff prevented them from harming the serpent, and instead took that moment to give them a lesson on not destroying nature’s creatures.

One day, while Jeff was still studying to be an army medic, he and some friends traveled to Corpus Christi on a day off. There they attended a rattlesnake roundup. A rattlesnake roundup is sort of like a carnival of snakes. People come from far and wide with thousands of snakes. Then they perform shows and exhibitions with the snakes. Jeff watched in horror as he witnessed people skinning rattlesnakes, frying up rattlesnakes for dinner, and cutting off a rattlesnake head to make a paperweight.

But that wasn’t even the worst of it! Jeff also learned how so many people were able to find and capture so many snakes, and he wasn’t happy about it. Snakes naturally live in the ground or in other deep, dark places, like rock walls. To get the rattlesnakes to come out of hiding, some people would spray gasoline into areas where they knew snakes might live. To escape the poisonous gasoline, rattlesnakes would emerge from their dens, only to be caught. But many of the rattlesnakes didn’t make it that far. The gasoline often killed the rattlesnakes, as well as any other living creatures around them.

Jeff couldn’t believe his ears, and he knew he had to do something—anything—to help the poor rattlesnakes. So he and his friends pooled their money and bought as many rattlesnakes as they could afford from vendors at the snake roundup. Then they released the rattlers back in to the Texas wilderness, where they belonged. Thankfully, snake roundups are illegal in most states today because of their cruel practices.

In May 1986, Jeff left Fort Sam as a certified advanced field medical specialist! He now had a set of skills he would find use for often. For example, Jeff was recently on an airplane when another passenger suffered a heart attack. Jeff was able to use his medic training to help the passenger!

Shortly after finishing his army training, Jeff applied to and was accepted to Bridgewater State College. But his acceptance had a condition: Jeff had to improve his academic skills significantly in order to stay. And with his newfound determination, he did just that. He took difficult courses, like anatomy, ecology, and anthropology, and got A’s! Top students surrounded him: those preparing to be doctors, engineers, and biophysics experts. But among the best students, Jeff rose to the head of the class in the animal, anthropological, and ecological sciences.

Jeff recalls being in a very competitive anatomy class at Bridgewater State. One day, Jeff’s professor challenged the class to identify a part of an animal they had not yet studied. The class was stumped—except for Jeff! He used his knowledge of animals and their biology to make an educated guess: he identified the part as the ossicle (a bony structure found inside the ear) of a whale. Jeff’s professor was shocked—Jeff was correct! He told Jeff that in the twenty years he’d been asking students the same question, not a single student had been able to provide the correct answer.

While at Bridgewater State College, Jeff focused his studies in not one, but two different areas—biology and anthropology.
But what about the snakes?
you must be wondering. Well, Jeff is a biologist who studies many animals, but he specializes in an area of biology called herpetology. Herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians, including snakes!

It took Jeff about seven years to complete his studies at Bridgewater State College. And they were a very busy seven years for him. He had to work in order to pay his tuition, so he got a job at Plimoth Plantation. Plimoth Plantation is a living historical museum located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The people who work there dress in clothing appropriate for the time period. They also take on the role of a person living there in 1627. Jeff was living in Plymouth at the time, and the job was a great fit for his interests. He was fascinated by American history, and he got to be an actor again. His role: to play a seventeenth-century sailor aboard the
Mayflower
!

But science was never far from Jeff’s heart. He also sought to protect the threatened rain forests of Central and South America. After spending so much time in Belize, it was a cause that had become very important to him. He wanted to do his part to help preserve this amazing ecosystem. Jeff says, “We need to look at how we reproduce, how we use our resources, and how we function as a global community. We are not far from the day when the only rain forests left are rain forests that are locked up in exclusive, restricted, private, and public sanctuaries.” So with the help and funding of Bridgewater State College and a professor there named Dr. Jahoda, Jeff established the Emerald Canopy Rainforest Foundation. At this time, Jeff was only in his second year of college, but he was already starting his own nonprofit organization!

The Emerald Canopy Rainforest Foundation was an organization that helped to protect rain forests. The foundation taught people about the importance of protecting this fragile ecosystem. Humans are destroying rain forests, tearing them down and killing their plants and animals. And now there are many species of plants and animals there that are nearly extinct. And soon, there might be none left.

The highlight of Jeff’s work with Emerald Canopy was when he served as a member of a youth action committee for the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). The UNEP looks at the global environment and brings problems to the attention of governments and the international community. Jeff became involved with the UNEP during his third year at Bridgewater State. In 1993, just after his graduation, Jeff addressed an environmental conference at the General Assembly of the United Nations, which is a group of world leaders, conservationists, and other students. Jeff, as well as other students from around the word, spoke about environmental issues. Jeff’s focus was on saving the rain forests.

But Jeff’s work did not stop there. In his efforts to save the rain forests, Jeff took dozens of trips to Central and South America during college. While he was doing research and studying the environment, Jeff managed to have some crazy experiences, just as he does on his television shows today.

On one trip, he traveled to Belize to do his usual exploring of and learning about the rain-forest ecosystem. Late one night, he went for a hike by himself. That’s when he spotted a pair of pygmy anteaters. Anteaters are animals found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. The pygmy anteater is the smallest species of anteater. They are covered with silky, golden-brown fur and have jaws that curve to form a short tube. Like their name tells us, pygmy anteaters eat ants and other insects.

Jeff had never seen a pygmy anteater before! The adorable animals weighed only about a half pound each and were tucked beneath a palm frond. Jeff decided he wanted to photograph the cuddly creatures. So he wrapped them in cloth and snuggled them to him. That’s when one of them stuck its paw up Jeff’s nose! It dug its claw into the skin of his sinus cavity. Jeff howled in pain. He tried to remove the anteater’s claw, but that only seemed to make things worse. So Jeff had to wait until the anteater removed its claw on its own.

Jeff returned to his camp with a bloody nose. It looked as though he’d been in a fight. But his attacker was a tiny, gentle, fuzzy animal! Nonetheless, Jeff had two pygmy anteaters to show for it. He placed his precious, though feisty, friends safely in a box for the night. He intended to photograph the pygmy anteaters in the morning and then return them to their home.

That night, a local Mayan man explained to Jeff that there are stories of how pygmy anteaters have a strange ability to disappear. They escape from enclosed places, and nobody knows how they do it. The next morning, Jeff went to retrieve the anteaters from their box. But they were gone. Yet the lid of the box was still tightly closed! Just as the Mayan man explained to Jeff, the anteaters had somehow escaped from their box. It was as though they had never been there at all! And Jeff still doesn’t know how they escaped!

On another trip shortly after that, when Jeff was twenty years old, he was traveling down the Aguarico River in the country of Ecuador in South America. A Cofán family was leading him. The Cofán people are native to certain parts of Ecuador and Colombia. The group was traveling in a dugout canoe. They were on their way to a faraway lake in the heart of the rain forest.

While drifting down the river one day, Jeff saw a thick vine draped over a tree limb. It was hanging down just a few feet above the water’s surface. As the boat got closer, Jeff realized that it was no vine he was seeing. It was an anaconda!

Anacondas are large aquatic snakes that live in swamps and rivers in the rain forests of South America. Anacondas are members of the boa constrictor family. Like other types of boas, anacondas are not poisonous. They kill their prey by coiling their large, powerful bodies around their victims. Then they squeeze really hard. The anaconda’s prey either suffocates or is crushed to death. The anaconda then unhinges its jaw and swallows the victim whole. Anacondas have been known to dine on caimans, which are relatives of the alligator, other snakes, deer, and jaguars.

Even though the snake was enormous, Jeff’s first thought was that they should paddle the boat over to it so he could capture it! The native Cofán family thought Jeff was crazy, of course. But they agreed to let him try to get the anaconda on one condition: if anything went wrong, he was on his own!

Jeff positioned the canoe under the hanging snake. He was ready to try to pull it into the boat. But at the same moment, the snake began sliding off the tree branch and into the water. Its giant body was quickly disappearing beneath the surface! Jeff couldn’t let the snake disappear. Just as he had done with the garter snake as a child in Massachusetts, Jeff reached out and grabbed the anaconda!

The snake didn’t care for Jeff’s movement toward it. It began to thrash wildly under the water. But Jeff held on tight. He began pulling the snake into the boat foot by foot. At one point, its head swung around toward the front of the canoe. The passengers there screamed and quickly moved toward the back.

The snake dipped its head back into the river. Jeff continued pulling at it. He had most of the snake inside the boat. But Jeff needed to secure the creature’s head in order to control it, and that was the only part still beneath the water.

Jeff nervously put his hand under the water and reached for the snake’s neck. He knew that if he reached incorrectly, his hand would end up inside the giant mouth of the snake. Thankfully, Jeff made a lucky grab. He was able to hold the snake tightly near the top of its head. He heaved once more, and finally, the entire snake was in the canoe. Jeff quickly observed the snake and snapped a few photos. Then he slid the snake back into the water, where it belonged. Everyone else was very relieved when the anaconda was off the boat!

The summer that Jeff turned twenty-one, he visited the country of Greece on vacation. Jeff was out touring the city of Athens one day when he came upon a man with a snake. The man was telling pass ersby all about the creature in his arms. Of course, Jeff saw the snake, and he immediately stopped to get a closer look!

Jeff talked with the man, whose name was Hercules Karalis. Jeff and Hercules shared a love of snakes and hit it off immediately. Before Jeff continued on his way, Hercules asked Jeff if he would be interested in returning to Greece the following summer. He wanted Jeff to come back and work with him at his serpentarium, or snake museum. Jeff enthusiastically agreed!