If TV's Jeff Corwin were a member of a crack squad of intelligence operatives à la Mission: Impossible, his code name would be Cobra Commander. For an episode of Animal Planet's The Jeff Corwin Experience, the flagship of his numerous shows, the 39-year-old traveled to India and, to make much-needed antivenin, nabbed specimens of the iconic hooded viper to "milk" while local serpent wranglers shook their heads and announced that he would shortly be cold and stiff. Didn't happen. His concentrated caution is total. Yours would be too if you'd once taken an evening stroll in the jungles of Belize, in sandals, and (surprise!) gotten nailed, on the toe, by a highly venomous coral snake.

He survived, in case you're wondering. He also apparently survived his most recent adventure. "I feel good," says Corwin. This despite last night's champagne-powered phantasmagoria in the streets and clubs of South Beach, during which we snubbed the Sagamore's famous outré scene for the only slightly less outré environs of the Shore Club. Indeed, the Boston snake charmer looks hale and happy as he pretty much drags me through the labyrinthine Miami Metrozoo, pausing before gerenuks, muntjacs, and siamangs to drop arcane critter knowledge like so much scat. But we're an incongruous pair, evidently: Whenever one of the kids swarming about happens to look up from the business of ogling exotic species long enough to notice the charismatic, cosmopolitan host of several wildly popular wildlife shows—this official gatekeeper of the animal kingdom—he or she still manages, in the midst of stuttering bedazzlement, to cast a curious eye on his sniffling sidekick, the possibly albino tourist type in the Panama hat.

It's his job, kid—the reason I'm here. Mr. Corwin has a very, very cool job. When he's traveling all over the globe for whatever three or four shows he's making, he's on the hunt for the spontaneous in a fresh landscape; he's meeting the indigenous fauna, camera crew in tow, quick wit at the ready; he's working with experts in the field, helping people out, whether it be milking cobras or assessing the impact of nearby human enterprise on wildlife; he's telling great stories, entertaining an audience of millions worldwide while raising awareness of the plights of species and their habitats. See the world, help save the world, crack a few jokes along the way, get paid. That's what I'm talking about.

"That looks like a heart attack," says Corwin, a former overweight teen who now runs and pumps iron religiously, as we pass by a vendor selling some kind of fatty carne kabob. It smells glorious, but we're on our way to sniff a trio of orangutans instead. "This is a great zoo," says Corwin, admiring the shaggy redheads. "Zoos like this have become the final salvation for some endangered species." The zoo was my idea. Corwin, with so many irons in the fire, had only two days to burn on the way from Boston to Brazil to film, with Anderson Cooper, "possibly the most important thing" he's done on TV: segments of the green-minded, globe-traversing "Planet in Peril," which will appear on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° throughout 2007. So if we can't tag along with Jeff as he explores some jungle (forget that you'd probably come out with an anaconda necktie), he should, in all fairness, only get to see, not touch, the animals. He should do just like the rest of us and act natural in this big revolving Homo sapiens exhibit they've set up for the zoo's inhabitants.

Which he does. "My work has allowed me to live my dream," he says. "I can never forget that." But then he talks about good wine, good food, good friends. He talks about his wife, Natasha, and their little girl, Maya Rose. He talks about the small island they live on outside of Boston. He talks about clamming with Maya on their backyard beach ...

You know, the really important stuff.

ADVICE? "Appreciate what you have when you have it—those experiences you have on your way to wherever it is you want to go. Just enjoy those moments."