Kidsday talks with Jack Hanna

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Jack Hanna, or as many know him as Jungle Jack.

Jack is the Director Emeritus at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, and he has his very own AOL television show, “Into the Wild!” On his show, Jungle Jack explores the globe, meeting interesting animals and people. He also tours the U. S. with many of the Columbus Zoo’s animals and a few animals from other zoos also.

Jack did a show at the Tilles Center at C.W. Post, with animals from the Columbus and Philadelphia Zoos. There were more than 20 animals there, like such as a cheetah named Ro, and some Madagascar hissing cockroaches. I’d give the show four paws, and can’t wait to catch Jack’s next show.

To read more about Jungle jack and his animal adventures, you can visit his Web site jackhanna.com. Now, here’s part of my interview I had with him:
 
What first interested you in working with animals?

I was raised on a farm in Tennessee, and we had tons of animals all around. So around the age of 11, our vet came to check them out and I asked him if I could come to his office and clean the cages. That’s how I got started, and then I just pursued that. My dad taught me three words; hard work and enthusiasm. You have to work hard and love what you do, and then you will succeed in life. I was very lucky that the veterinarian I worked with, when I was 17 he took me to a zoo. Zoos back then weren’t as great as they are now, but once I went I said to myself, I’m gonna be a zoo keeper. My wife and I had a pet shop and one day I got offered the chance to go down to Florida and start a zoo down there, called the Central Florida Zoo. I got a job offering for the Columbus Zoo as a director, and I worked for 33 years. I remember watching a show when I was younger, Marlin Perkins, he used to travel the world and I just thought, I want to do that. Now I’ve traveled to all seven continents at least twice. I am 296 days on the road.
 
Have you created any special bonds with any of the animals at the zoo or on tour?

Oh yeah I’ve raised lions, I have special bonds with them, but you have to remember, these are wild animals. They’re like loaded canons; they could go off at any time. The animals I am with, I respect them. They could be dangerous and you need to treat them like that. I’m not like a lot of guys that go into an animal’s home and jump on them or something. We film with respect. If I go out, will I pick up a snake? Yeah but I have a professional with me, who knows what he or she is doing. You might get bitten, but you know what? That’s cause you did something wrong, not that animal.

What is a typical day in your life?

Oh wow, I don’t have a very typical life. No day is typical. I wish I could be a typical person. Just the other day I was riding in a car from a speech in Ohio, and one of the women with me had a kidney stone, she said “Jack I can’t go any further.” We switched up vans and brought her to a gas station and waited for her mother to come pick her up and that was hectic. You know and on the show, sometimes cameras blow up. You can’t help what going to happen you just have to be OK with it. That’s life right? There is no typical for me, sometimes I wake up and I gotta get on a plane or film before sunrise at like four in the morning. A typical day is nontypical” said one of Jack’s close friends.
 
What advice would you give kids to help keep our planet healthy and clean?

Well, what I do is, when I brush my teeth, and this is really simple, I turn off the faucet. Not many people do. I have a home in Rwanda, and women walk seven miles just to get a gourd of water, which holds six gallons. They carry that on their heads and they walk seven whole miles. Imagine how much water could be saved if people just turned off the water, or recycled, or put a bird feeder out. If you have a yard, then make a little habitat for squirrels or something. We can all do something, but the number one problem in the world is overpopulation. The world isn’t that big, I used to think it is but it’s not, and we can’t keep up with the overpopulation. We can’t pull lettuce out of the sky, or clean drinking water.