by Jeff Corwin
But Jeff couldn’t get enough of animals! He also volunteered at the South Shore Natural Science Center, a museum located right in Norwell. It is a nonprofit organization that educates people about the natural environments of the south shore of Massachusetts. The center has several acres of conservation and recreation land, with meadows, woodlands, and a pond. Jeff spent many afternoons and weekends working there. He helped catalog their collection of animals and maintain their live critters. Jeff also taught classes about nature to other kids. But Jeff never forgot his love of snakes. And according to naturalist Barbara Devine, Jeff always had a snake around his neck when he walked through the door.
Between the ages of ten and thirteen, Jeff also spent time visiting a traveling snake show in his area. The snake show was held at malls and county fairs, among other places. A local biologist named Fred Dodd was in charge of the snake show. Fred brought different types of snakes to display. Every time the snake show was in town, Jeff attended. Eventually, Jeff befriended Fred and was allowed to interact with some of Fred’s snakes. Jeff also helped Fred by doing chores, such as cleaning cages. Fred even let Jeff take a snake home with him sometimes!
At that time, Fred was doing graduate study work in Belize. Belize is a country in Central America that is home to an ecosystem called the rain forest. Fred was in charge of an organization that took teams of researchers into the jungles of Belize to learn about the wildlife there. Jeff was very interested in hearing about these trips. And by the time he was thirteen, he was itching to go along. He wanted to see more snakes!
So Jeff asked his parents for permission to go on one of the weeklong trips to Belize. But Marcy and Valerie Corwin felt that Jeff was too young to go on such a long trip without them. So they said no. But Jeff asked time and time again for their permission. Eventually, his parents agreed that when he was old enough, Jeff could go. But there was a catch: Jeff would have to pay his own way. Marcy Corwin told his son to come back and ask again in a few years when he had earned the money. Jeff took his father’s words very seriously.
For the next three years, Jeff worked hard doing any job that would help him earn money to go to the rain forest. He bused tables at restaurants and even worked after hours cleaning and waxing the floor of a pub. After every hard day of work, Jeff thought, I’m a few dollars closer to getting there.
Finally, when Jeff was sixteen years old, he asked his parents about the rain forest again. But this time, the high school junior was holding a brown paper bag. It contained about fourteen hundred dollars! Jeff had saved every cent he earned.
Jeff had a simple request: he wanted a passport and his parents’ permission to go to Belize with Fred Dodd. Marcy and Valerie Corwin were shocked, and very proud of their son’s determination. They knew it was Jeff’s dream. He had worked hard and earned the privilege of being allowed to go. So that summer, Jeff took a trip to Belize. And it was a trip that changed him forever.
During his time in Belize, Jeff stayed with a research team studying the amphibians, reptiles, and other wildlife of the rain forest. He saw and experienced many animals for the first time. He spent a night in a Mayan village in a thatch house with an earth floor, went exploring at night for snakes and frogs, and swam down a river with toucans and iguanas in the trees hanging over the water. He began to understand just how complicated the rain-forest ecosystem is. Jeff learned what it was like for the indigenous, or local, people living there to interact with nature so closely.
While on that trip, Jeff also had his first experience getting lost in the wilderness. Late one afternoon, Jeff went out exploring by himself. He headed deep into the rain forest, watching the trail in front of him the whole time. After a while, Jeff turned around to trace the path behind him. That was when he realized he was in big trouble!
When Jeff turned to study the path he would use to get back to camp, there appeared to be many different possible paths that he could have just taken. Darkness came quickly, and Jeff was completely lost! Thankfully, he had a headlamp on, so he was not completely in the dark. When Jeff did not return to camp, a whole team of people went out searching for him. But it was about four hours before he was rescued! Jeff learned a valuable lesson, however: when exploring in the woods, always trace the path in front of you and the one behind you in order to get back to where you started.
In the rain forest, Jeff felt more like himself than ever before. There was just so much to discover and learn! He knew he needed to go back there as often as possible. For the next ten years of his life, Jeff worked hard to keep paying for plane tickets to return to Belize. But by the time he was in college, he was getting paid to be there! Jeff was leading his own research expeditions to the rain forest.
Jeff’s time in Belize made him feel so strongly about conserving the rain forest that he would later spend more than two years combined living and studying there. And because of all his experience and research, Jeff is now an expert in rain-forest animals. And today, he is still in touch with biologist Fred Dodd.
While Jeff had some unusual experiences during high school—not many teenagers travel to the jungle—he also had more typical experiences. Like most teenage boys, Jeff argued with his little sisters and got into some trouble with his parents.
When Jeff was seventeen years old, his parents had to go to a funeral. They gave Jeff permission to borrow their car while they were gone. He was to take his little sister Amy out for some ice cream. As Jeff was backing the car out of the driveway, he and Amy began to argue and tease each other. Amy pulled at Jeff’s hair, and a full-out wrestling match started! But the quarreling siblings forgot one very important thing: the car was already moving.
When Jeff and Amy realized the car was rolling, Jeff panicked. He slammed his foot down on the pedal he thought was the brake. He intended to stop the car. But he accidentally hit the gas pedal, instead. This made the car go flying at a high rate of speed, crashing through a fence. Jeff was finally able to hit the brakes, but by that time, the car was hanging over the edge of the Corwins’ swimming pool!
Amy teased Jeff, “You’re in so much trouble! Mom and Dad are going to kill you!” But Jeff managed to drive the car out and park it in the driveway again. When Jeff’s parents came home, they saw the damage to the car and the fence. Jeff was definitely in big trouble! (Even as an adult, Jeff has found himself in trouble driving—this time for getting too many speeding tickets. Some things never change!)
Jeff also had some trouble in school. Like many other kids, Jeff felt like he did not always fit in. Jeff was a little overweight, and sometimes he acted out as the class clown, joking around and entertaining his peers by doing voices and impersonations.
And his clowning around didn’t help his grades. Jeff had a tough time in high school, partly because he was not a very good student. He actually failed high school biology! It’s hard to believe that a famous biologist failed biology as a teenager, but it is true. Jeff did not succeed in a traditional school setting and thought maybe he just was not all that smart.
Luckily, Jeff discovered the drama department at Norwell High School. He performed in musical theater productions and really enjoyed it. His favorite character was the evil Wazir of Baghdad from a musical called Kismet. Singing and acting gave Jeff a creative outlet for all the energy he used to spend entertaining the class!
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 ve
ry 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!
