Death challenge
The past few months have been business as usual for Brady Barr.
A three-metre long Komodo dragon almost bit his feet off, a boa constrictor attached its fangs to his face, his plane crashed in the Brazilian Pantanal, a vast area of piranha-filled wetlands on the border of Bolivia and Paraguay, and he was hospitalised with serious spinal injuries when a temperamental alligator whacked him with its tail.
But that's the life you expect as one of television's foremost experts on reptiles and amphibians.
'I love my job,' says Dr Barr, presenter of Crocodile Chronicles on the National Geographic Channel (NGC) and countless other TV specials.
'I'm like a schoolboy. I get just as excited about the crocodile I catch today as any of the 3,000 I've caught in the past.'
Doc Croc, as he's known, was in Hong Kong recently, having just wrapped up shooting the third series of Crocodile Chronicles.
In the latest series, due to air worldwide in January 2004, fans can expect more of the same infamously dangerous, and some might say foolhardy, exploits.
He wrestles with alligators, captures giant anacondas and pythons, and, in one eye-popping scene, races Komodo dragons to see how fast they can run. As it turns out, they're pretty speedy.
'They wouldn't stop chasing me. I'm running fast as I can, and they're right on my heels,' he says.
The dragons, which clock 31km/h over 300m, have 50 strains of bacteria in their saliva so if they catch and bite you, you're in trouble, Dr Barr says.
As a boy growing up in Indiana, reptiles captured his imagination. 'They're amazing creatures. They're big and dangerous and look like dinosaurs,' he says.
His hobby became a profession and he taught biology and zoology for five years at Indianapolis' North Central High School.
'Talk about interactive teaching. My classroom was like a zoo. We had a huge python there and all kinds of other animals,' he says.
Bringing science to life is Dr Barr's passion.
'It's one thing to open a book and see a picture of an animal, but to touch, see and feel one is completely different,' he explains.
Eager to learn more, Dr Barr moved to Florida in the early 1990s to take a PhD on the dietary habits of alligators in the Everglades.
In 1997, his field research caught the attention of NGC producers and they offered him his own programme. More than 100 shows later, Dr Barr is gearing up for his greatest challenge - to be the first person ever to catch all 23 species of crocodiles in the wild.
He's got three more to go - the Chinese Alligator which lives in Anhui Province, the Philippine Crocodile, and the False Gharial in Malaysia.
All three are critically endangered because their habitats are under threat from the expansion of towns and roads.
Dr Barr wants more people to appreciate these animals and fight for their survival.
'Crocodiles haven't changed much in 200 million years and now we're pushing them to the brink of extinction,' he says.
A fourth series of Crocodile Chronicles is possible, but Dr Barr admits the work is getting tougher. 'I'm getting old before my time. I'm about ready to start a family and I don't think I'd do the things I do if I had children. These crocodiles sure knock you around,' he says.
