Nat Geo Wild Broadcast

[Hemachatus]

Lets look past the presenters and talk about the program.

If Mike wasnt in that 2 hour slot, it would have been like watching paint dry. None of the clips from previous Nat Geo programs were new. The new stuff filmed the previous 24 hours could have been interesting, but the fact that they broadcasted it virtually un-edited was awfull.

With the luxury of Disk Recorders, Laptop editors and Digital Microwave links there can be no excuse for broadcasting "dirty" footage like that.

[Slayer69]

I totally agree.

[Bushviper]

If you have been using tongs on a daily basis for more than 35 years you can pick up a birds egg without cracking it. When you close the tongs to form a triangle you can pick up a snake without putting any pressure on the snake itself. You cannot learn this by working with tongs once a week for a few years but if you use tongs every single day for a few decades then this becomes second nature. Look at how the snake reacts when it gets picked up to know whether is is stressed or hurt.

I used to only use pillstrom tongs and could catch snakes as delicate as Psammophis sands snakes and Spotted Bush snakes with it without hurting them at all. I have switched to using hooks more often now so I have lost the "touch" but can still pick up chicken eggs and transport them without cracking them. If the snakes are in positions that I cannot hook them out (inside washing machines and tall thorny bushes) then I still use the tongs.

[Serpy]

I prefer using my hooks, but I can still pick up chicken eggs and so on without damaging them with my tongs..

[swazi]

I really, really enjoyed the show – very much. Totally different – very real and refreshing. No antics just good info and excellent handling in spite of the tongs. One can understand why he decided to use them instead of a hook with the show being live and all. It's not always easy to predict how a snake will react, running around with a hook just because it's the right thing to do, isn't really practical in front of a camera especially if it is being broadcasted live.

Watching Mike work with mamba’s is like poetry in motion, only seen him break out in a sweat twice. The first time was when we were relocating 15 from the holding cage (yes, they were all in one enclosure that was 2.5m x 2.5m) to the reptile park. He walked into the enclosure and bagged them all within a few minutes. Smooooth as silk. The second time was during a reptile safari, the mamba was in some bamboo like stuff next to a very fast flowing canal – he had to move fast because Don was threatening to swim across to catch it himself! Good laugh!

He should do it more often, obviously born to be in front of a camera.

[Matt Robinson]

I really enjoyed it too. Dont often see that stuff on TV. I must give credit to the "Idiot". I thought he was going to jump when the Puff Adder crawled right up to his foot, but he stayed pretty calm.

[yoson10]

Is that the donald schultz guy from animal planet? He seems like a real cool guy on tv and is good with snakes. As for brady barr, yeah he is annoying as hell and way overdramatic, but his shows are fairly entertaining and informative. Barr is way to much of an annoying sissy for that type of show. Irwin was so much tougher and better than barr. I dont ever remember irwin ever complaining about anything, where as barr constantly complains and whines during his shows.