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He'll tell wild tales at library

Jeff Corwin speaks Saturdayat the Clearwater Main Libraryon ecology and global warming.

By TERRI BRYCE REEVES, Times Correspondent
Published February 1, 2008

Jeff Corwin, host of The Jeff Corwin Experience on Animal Planet, travels and interacts with all manner of critters. Here, he's in Alaska with a moose.
	[Animal Planet]

ADVERTISEMENT [Handout] Corwin, 40, will sign his books after the talk.

He's the television host with boyish good looks, a vast knowledge of wild animals and apparently no fear of teeth, claws or poisonous stingers.

Jeff Corwin has stood just a heartbeat away from some of the most deadly creatures on earth while sharing interesting details about each species.

Best known for his popular show on Animal Planet, The Jeff Corwin Experience, he has recently paired up with CNN's Anderson Cooper to present a series of specials on global warming called Planet in Peril. He also serves as executive producer of the new series Corwin's Quest.

On Saturday, the 2004 Emmy winner will take a break from the cameras and man-eating lions to venture into the Clearwater Main Library, where he'll present a 45-minute talk, "Tales from the Field."

The naturalist will discuss his walks on the wild side and spread his message about conservation, ecology and global warming.

Afterward he'll sign copies of his book, Living on the Edge: Amazing Relationships in the Natural World.

During a phone interview from his Massachusetts home, the 40-year-old television host talked about animals, nature and what really scares him.

During his 12-year TV career, Corwin has been reminded plenty of times of his own mortality.

Last March, he and Cooper were filming a segment at a wildlife rescue center in Cambodia when an elephant chomped down on his left arm and tossed him around like a rag doll.

Corwin screamed in pain as Cooper and others pulled him away.

"I think he was just trying to get my attention," Corwin said, launching into his teaching mode.

"Elephant trunks are articulated by 40,000 muscles. They are so delicate they can pick up a feather and so powerful they can pull a giant tree to the forest floor," he said.

These giants are powerful - and in peril.

Cambodian elephants once numbered in the thousands. Now there are "less than 150 in the wild in that part of the world," he said. Poachers and loss of natural habitat are to blame.

The black market demand for animal parts such as elephant ivory, rhino horns and the bile of bears, which is prized for its alleged medicinal properties, is a $20-billion-a-year industry, he said.

"The population of the black rhino in Africa has dropped by 98 percent," he said.

Add up illegal wildlife trade, loss of natural habitat and climate change and it's "the perfect storm," he said.

"Today the world is experiencing the greatest mass extinction of life, matched only by the loss of the dinosaur," he said. "Every year, 20,000 life forms disappear. A species is lost every 20 minutes."

Thus, the only animal Corwin really fears is the two-legged kind. But it's the one species that has the power to make a difference.

"There is hope," he said. "But we've reached a critical threshold. We can turn things around, but we have to do it before it's too late."

Corwin, the father of a 4-year-old, said he is more committed to his message of good stewardship of the earth than ever.

"I am terrified my daughter won't have the same biologically rich world to discover that I did as a kid," he said. "We can't pass a poisoned world on to our children."

[Last modified January 31, 2008, 22:13:43]