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Outside Magazine November 2003
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Beastmaster (cont.)

BREEDING IN CAPTIVITY

What do you do when you're not shooting?
I go home and relax and stay cool, go fishing with my buddies. The very last thing I do is watch nature shows. My wife, Natasha, and I live in a restored 150-year-old house on a very private little 22-acre island off the coast of Massachusetts. She's a Ph.D. candidate in literature, and we live with two cats.

This past summer you and Natasha had a baby daughter. Congratulations on attracting a mate and pulling off a successful copulation.
Her name is Maya Rose, and she was born on July 6. All I can say is I'm glad I don't have an aversion to shit. 'Cause I'm seeing a lot of it these days.

"Bonobos have a great sex life. They're primates, and these guys can't get enough of it. There's no walk of shame if you're a bonobo."
Did you get life insurance when she was born?
I have a healthy heart. I'm smoke-free. I have a great constitution. But it's almost impossible for me to get coverage. I had this guy come to the house and say, "So, what do you do?" I said, "I'm a biologist." He goes, "Where do you... Hey, wait a minute, you're Jeff Corwin! We dig your show. I love that episode when you... Wait a minute! We can't insure you!"

If you have a competitor, it's Steve Irwin, the host of Animal Planet's The Crocodile Hunter. What do you think of him?
I'm not in a position to criticize him. Frankly, I've maybe watched ten minutes of his show.

Aside from his ridiculous accent, what's the biggest difference between the two of you?
I'm not a pouncer. I never pounce on anything.

But isn't pouncing a time-honored tradition among naturalists? In the old days, people like John Audubon were always shooting birds in the name of science.
In The Voyage of the Beagle, there are accounts of Charles Darwin's crew grabbing a marine iguana by the tail, hurtling it into the ocean, and holding it down in the water. Darwin describes it as this morose, prehistoric, stupid, clunky, ugly-looking thing, and he abuses it to see if it's a marine animal or not. Basically, it's an if-you-drown-then-you're-not-a-witch sort of thing. If I did that today, well, I'd spend two weeks in a Quito prison.

You're on the road for ten months out of the year, usually traveling with the same crew. You all must be pretty tight.
We're relentlessly cruel to each other. There's nothing sacred. Your mother is not sacred. Your mother's reproductive organs are not sacred. We've been in some very tough situations. One time, we were flying over the Andes and the plane started experiencing mechanical difficulties. I remember looking down at these snowcapped mountains. We all had nervous smiles and everyone was making Alive jokes. I started thinking, Which of you guys am I going to eat first? What were you like as a kid?
I was always doing stupid things. When I was four years old, I had this weird habit where I'd shove a branch of pussy willow way up my nose. I mean way, way up there! I didn't just do it once; I did it, like, over and over again. If I was an animal, I'd be out of the gene pool pretty quick.

If you could be any animal on earth, what would you be?
Bonobos have a great sex life. They're primates, and these guys can't get enough of it. There's no walk of shame if you're a bonobo. No guilt, no judging. And lions have it pretty good, too. They can have up to 60 copulations in a day. When they're having sex, their lips are all curled up and they're like, "Owy, owy, owy!" They're in pain. But they're liking it.


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