(Continuation of 1998 Jackson Hole Article)

                             Schwartzman said he loves to show children things they'll remember forever.  "This is something that can't be taken away," he said.  "A lifetime positive experience with the natural world is pretty rare even in big metropolitan areas.  Kids can get a close-up look and handle things they wouldn't be able to have seen anywhere but a book."
          Schwartzman has developed 16 different presentations tailored to fit different classes.  His collection of educational tools is more varied than that of many museums. His dozens of skulls include a Kodiak bear, a wolverine, dolphin, manatee, alligators and crocodiles, even a cast of an allosaurus cranium.  He has tusks, teeth, eggs  and freeze-dried animals.

          He keeps 86 live specimens, including a gila monster, leopard tortoises, a monitor lizard, chameleons, crocodiles, alligator snapping turtles, exotic spiders and snakes.  Five of the species are endangered.  The collection is a high-maintenance one, Schwartzman admitted.  His cricket bill is $87 per month for around 1,000 crickets, and the creatures ingest about 200 rodents per month.
        In the past he has worked as an elephant trainer, keeper on an alligator farm, and a venom lab technician at Johns Hopkins University.
          Schwartzman will hold a public benefit lecture at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Colter Elementary School gym.  The donations will help the fifth-grade students fund an overnight trip to the Idaho Halls zoo.


Photo by
John Brecher

Reprinted from The Douglas Budget Newspaper - Douglas, Wyoming - June 14, 2000

Slippery, Slimy, Slinky
Snakes


        Howard Schwartzman displays a massive horned snake, one of the deadliest in Africa, during his presentation.  Schwartzman, of Jackson, travels to various groups to inform about snakes and their lovable, yet often misunderstood, nature.  Several of the children found the pets fascinating, especially when they were allowed to handle them.
        Schwartzman brought boxes of snakes to the courthouse last week for a demonstration about the slithering snakes.  The presentation was part of the library's summer reading program for children.

Photo by Rena Delbridge

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