Austin Stevens

[Bernice]

I had the privileged of meeting Austin when he dropped a surprise visit to the 'Snake sit in' record attempt at Chameleon village... he is a completely different personality compared to his TV persona... very quiet and reserved, he hypes it for the camera but very friendly, and nice about talking to complete strangers who ask for a photograph

Brady Barr irritates me... he screams like a girl and is so obviously over the top that I often change channels if one of his docco's are on... and that's saying a lot! I'm a docco addict!

Mark O'Shea is at least gentle with the animals he shows, doesn't fling them around like some other presenters *cough* *Barr* *cough* not as exciting a presenter as Stevens... but still good in my opinion.

[mgiddings]

Dont want to hijack this post at all but there was a very good documentary on the other night called "Into the Dragons Lair". Most people I am sure have become bored with the monotony that has become reptile / wildlife documentaries however this one offered what I though was a relatively new angle.
Worth checking out.

Hi Amphbian. Can you tell me what channel it is on? I searched a bit today but could not find it.

[Lizard-lady]

Nick Baker's program, just rocks! You can tell that he really does care and enjoy the animals that he searches for.
In the one program, Steve Austin, jumped into the bush, after a snake and my five year old son, made a comment, I couldn't stop laughing - Whahahahaha.

[BOOGY]

Nick Baker-awesome
Austen Stevens- dont like what he does on his shows. But I still enjoy the different animals he features.
Mark O'shea- awesome I realy enjoyed his shows. Where has he disapeared to?
Donald shultz- Missed all his shows.
Brady Barr- He makes me laugh. Just hosed myself when he got bitten by a Retic in a cave. He's bigmouth american persona on the show irretates me tghough.
Steve Erwin- the legend, he will always be my favorite.

[Bushviper]

Does anyone else reach for the mute button when Brady goes running shouting "snake snake snake". Really gets my back up.

Don was supposed to have his series "Venom Quest" shown on the local channels and despite the ads it just never happened. I wonder what happened there.

[Fooble]

"Venom quest" as it is called here has been aired in the states and should appear on local TV sooner or later.

[BOOGY]

It was atvertises but I could never find it in the Mag or on the on screen search. Did it air?
What has become of Mark O'shea ?

[BOOGY]

Venom hunters Donald Shultz tomorrow at 8:05pm Animal planet.

[Bushviper]

Well speak of the devil. Thursday at 20h05 it is.

[armata]

I have known Mark O'Shea since he was 15yrs old. He is currently doing field work in PNG. Mark's shows 'Big Adventure' series came to a stop as he has always refused to stage anything. If he does not find the target species then so be it. This happened in the water cobra programme, and the producers were not happy.
He' maybe coming over to see me in January. I think he wants to make the HAA meeting in Cape Town as well.

I have a photo somewher of a whole bunch of us at Goegap 2005.

[BOOGY]

Heard somewhere about him not makeing the producers happy.Now I respect him even more!
When he comes down, please let him know IM A BIG FAN!!!!!

[Westley Price]

Mark O'Shea is pretty much the only guy I really enjoy watching.

Nick Baker is nice too, but his programs are structured wrong (I know this is not his fault, but the editors). He shows the "mystery animal" in the beginning of the show which spoils the build-up...for me at least. The nice thing about his shows is that he includes a bit of scientific information here and there which is nice for us herpers, but he keeps the majority of the content "simple" enough for anyone.

Every time I visit a book store I scour the shelves for O'Shea's book on pythons and boas of the World. I haven't bought it yet, but the pictures are AMAZING! Do yourself a favour and check it out.

I look forward to Venom Hunter tonight.

[deleray]

Oh the drama .. LA style!!

Venom Hunter: Bitten

While handling a small brown tree snake, the inevitable happens. Donald is bitten twice on the hand and it immediately starts to swell. He must seek medical attention as soon as possible!

[toxinologist]

ROFLMAO ... Geez can't they just give him an bandaid and get on with it?

A bit like the Vegas sit-in where many of the snakes were harmless to start with ... but the hype was so overdone, it was painful to watch from more than a minute or two ...

Whatever happened to pure natural history film-making where the animals are the stars, and the presenter is just the dude with a voice in the background pointing out interesting facts ... real-life herpetologists don't dive out of planes and helicopters with parachutes, don't snap amazing pictures with a bog-standard zoom lens one-handed, and don't turn everything into more of a drama than a backstage stoosh at a drag queen festival ...

Mark O'Shea has been busy this year (a) filling in for me in Papua New Guinea while I was in Switzerland with W.H.O., (b) working on several new books on the world's lizards, and (c) doing amazing fieldwork in Timor Leste ... yet another herpetological final frontier ... we hope to have him back in PNG later this year.

Cheers


David

[armata]

Here is Mark and his lady Bina when we were at Cape Point in 2005. Note the normal attire.
Can't find the group photo at Goegap, I think WW may have a copy.