Denton County Living Well Magazine Winter 2013 | Page 9

Jungle

Jack Hanna
The acclaimed adventurer takes a walk on the wild side.
by sondra barr

Y

eah, I’m old.”
At 66, he may feel that way at times, but Jack Hanna (aka Jungle Jack),
beloved wildlife advocate, adventurer, and reluctant TV star, keeps pace like
a cheetah on the chase. “I talk fast, too,” he says. We caught up with him––no
easy feat––in what was his seventh interview of the morning.
This internationally acclaimed conservationist, author, animal TV pioneer and personality,
adventurer, philanthropist, director of emeritus at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and devoted
husband, father, and grandfather navigates rough terrain and a dizzying schedule. To reach
the globe’s remote corners to take a walk on the wild side, Jungle Jack and his wife of 40-plus
years, Suzi, travel the globe some 280 days a year to film their escapades for the show Into the
Wild. Unscripted, they deliver footage of the earth’s most exotic, endangered, and interesting
species to the comfort and safety of our living rooms. Not too shabby for a guy who launched
his career cleaning cages for a family veterinarian.
Today his life takes place under the glamour (and demands) of the spotlight. Still, in a way,
Jungle Jack’s doing exactly what he did as a kid growing up––falling in love with and caring
for animals. “Between the time when I was 11 to 16 years old, I was just cleaning cages…it’s
amazing what I’ve done since then, and what zoos have become,” he says. We forget, he explains, there was a time when visitors threw peanuts at the animals, when zoos and animals
weren’t given much attention or prestige.
That was before a guy named Jack helped change all that.
From Humble Zookeeper to Rock Star Status:
The Columbus Zoo and Beyond
Though his beginnings were humble, Hanna’s life, it seems, was always a bit of a zoo. At
the dawn of the ’70s, Hanna linked arms for life with his college sweetheart, Suzi, and managed a small zoo in Florida. Then, after the two coped with their daughter’s life-threatening
illness, they moved their young family to Ohio to accept Hanna’s dream job as director of
the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Merging his vision with the partnership of other community leaders, Hanna spent the next 14 some years propelling the zoo to new heights. His
priority was increasing attendance by offering what would now be dubbed, “edutainment”
opportunities. Today, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium still bears the legacy of his ambitious
fingerprint, with additions such as the Zoomezi Bay Waterpark and Jungle Jack’s Landing,
and the Polar Frontier.

Denton County Living Well Magazine • Winter 2013

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