Marc Morrone - A Man for All Species: The Remarkable Adventures of an Animal Lover and Expert Pet Keeper

To my mentor and friend
Martha Stewart, without whom this
book would not have been possible

PART I:

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

PART II:

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

PART III:

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

PART IV:

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

PART V:

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

I met Marc Morrone one night, late, on Channel One, a Long Island cable station. I was flipping through the offerings when I saw a bespectacled youngish man standing behind a table coveredand I mean really coveredwith every kind of domesticated animal and bird, and rodent and amphibian. The quantity of animals was astonishing, but even more unbelievable to me was the fact that all the animals were walking or crawling around unfazed, or fluttering or swooping on branches or perches above the table, oblivious of cameras and lights and hubbub. There were no squabbles that first half hour while I stood, transfixed on the screen, watching this nerdy, charming guy talk a mile a minute about all his friends in front of him.

The next morning I called him from my television studio and begged him to bring his menagerie to my show. He was an instant hit, and his knowledge and commonsense suggestions to pet owners and pet lovers everywhere has proved to me that he is the real thing.

After scores of appearances on my show, Marc has increased his following nationally as well as internationally, and his suggestions to the myriad questions he is asked weekly have proven to be practical, useful, and just plain good.

His story, told here in charming narrative, encourages us all to be better pet keepers. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

M arc Morrone and I are either blessed or cursed with a special kind of genetic programming that enables us to not only work with animals of all kinds, but also to educate people about the animal world. We are driven to raise awareness about all specieslarge and small, wild and domestic, commonplace and unusual. No living creature is deemed insignificant or disposable, and we believe that the survival of humans is linked with the survival of animals. That is our shared mission, to help save not only animals but all of the natural world.

When I was in fourth grade, I became fascinated with birds of prey and the art of falconry, the sport of kings during the Middle Ages in Europe. Even my name, Fowler, refers to someone who trains falcons and other predatory, hunting birds. Our family crest was and still is a hooded hawk on a raised glove, along with a lure. Even as a ten-year-old boy, my destiny was clear. For Marc, it was Gerald Durrells determination to collect and study as many animals as he could. For me, at first, it was the wings in the air and those captured on our family crest.

As an adult, I became a professional lecturer about and trainer of those birds of prey. There were not only birds in my house, but a zoo of opossums, bobcats, snakes, weasels, and a host of other species, along with the customary dog. When I went on tour, I traveled with eagles, falcons, a cheetah named Arthur, and two giant anteaters named Lawrence and Florence. To get even wilder, I traveled to Africa, where I trapped lions for a small budget film and later lived off the land with Kalahari bushmen. Sputnik for them was like marsupial to most Americans at that time.

After that I conducted the first studies of the giant Harpy eagle in the Amazon, a leviathan that ate thirty-pound monkeys as an appetizer. My studies completed, I brought two of them back to the United States, where I showed them to thousands of Americans on television. From there, I spent nearly thirty years with Marlin Perkins on Wild Kingdom. On leave from the show in the late 1960s, I also conducted the first studies of the giant Andean condor in Peru.

What I have done in my travels and in the media, Marc does in his business and as an educator and media personality. Occasionally, I appeared with him on The Martha Stewart Show, and such a pair we were.

Today, if you listen to any of Marcs lectures or radio programs, what you hear is his affection for all creatures great and small, weird or commonplace. In his live or television appearances, he is pictured with a menagerie of animals and his scarlet macaw, Harry, perched on his shoulder. Frequently, the animals he features become living ambassadors for the natural world, with Marc helping to deliver their message of hope for sustenance and survival. Whatever the environmenttelevision, radio, his pet store, or educational lecturesthis is a man of unflagging enthusiasm for the world of animals. The hamster is no less engaging than the noble parrot. The ferret is seen as a charming companion, and the simple goldfish is not so simple after all. After watching Marc talk about rabbits in one of his appearances, I told him afterwards that only he could make a rabbit interesting.

Marc is a man on a mission. We humans are responsible for the care and maintenance of our planet, and Marc is a tireless educator to that end.

I hope you read A Man for All Species with relish and delight. It is also a treasure chest of information on how we can best live with animals of all kindswild, captive, and domesticated. He is indeed a man for all species. Welcome to his world, and yours.

Jim Fowler

Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom

Former Wildlife Correspondent, NBC Today show

Honorary Member and Former Honorary President, Explorers Club

Author of Jim Fowlers Wildest Places on Earth

AUTHORS NOTE

S ome of the people included in my book prefer to maintain their privacy, so I have either made reference to them without using their names at all or changed their names and other identifying characteristics to ensure that they will not be recognized.