Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006100229
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DEBORAH EVANS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sure, there were the elephant stampedes and the wrestling contests with pythons out in the bush. But one of the TV naturalist's strangest encounters took place right here in civilization.
Fowler, who succeeded Marlin Perkins as host of "Wild Kingdom" in 1985, had a mountain lion he was going to show to a group of high school students.
The lion became smelly and required a bath just minutes before the lecture appearance. Fowler went to a car wash near the school and asked the attendant if he could use it to clean his cougar, which is another name for a mountain lion.
It wasn't until the attendant saw Fowler walking the animal through the wash that he realized Fowler had not been talking about a car. The attendant ran.
This weekend's Conservation Festival at Mill Mountain Zoo provided a forum for Fowler to stress the importance of preserving wildlife. It was also an educational opportunity for 8-year-old T.R. Feazelle of Roanoke and about 200 other festival-goers.
Fowler, who has been with Wild Kingdom since it premiered in 1963, awed his audience Saturday with stories about encounters with pythons, crocodiles and elephants. And he included lessons about animals common to Virginia, which T.R. said he also enjoyed.
"I learned owls eat snakes," T.R. said. "And they are very handy to have around the house if you have any mice or rats."
Fowler, who let a hoot owl perch on his hand at one point in his lecture, said preservation is important "because what happens to these animals is eventually going to happen to us."
Fowler answered questions about the hoot owl, which was orphaned when Tropical Storm Hugo struck last year, and about a red-tail hawk, a traditional hunting bird.
He also joked about the eating habits of beavers, which, unlike President Bush, like broccoli.
But Fowler's war stories produced the most enthusiastic response from the audience of children and adults. He told of the time he fled from a herd of stampeding elephants with five other men who were all trying to get into the same door of a get-away vehicle.
"You find out who the gentleman is very quickly at a time like that," Fowler joked.
Moving to animals on a smaller scale, Mill Mountain Zoo education keeper Marvin Johnson used the event to clear up a few misconceptions about bats. Bats are not vampires and are not all rabid, he said. And Johnson can prove it. He often keeps a bat he has named Suzi in his shirt pocket to show to youngsters.
"If you can make some progress by changing their attitudes, maybe you can sway a couple, and that is better than none at all," Johnson said.
The Conservation Festival continues through today.
by CNB