You Belong in a Zoo!: Tales from a Lifetime Spent with Cobras, Crocs, and Other Creatures

You Belong In A Zoo!: Tales From A Lifetime Spent With Cobras, Crocs And Other Creatures is the one-of-a-kind memoir of Peter Brazaitis, a man who dedicated his life to working with exotic reptiles and other animals, ranging from alligators in the reservoirs of Florida, to cobras on the loose, to capturing giant frogs in West Africa. A wry dash of humor flavors an inspired and informative discourse. You Belong In A Zoo! is a life story highly recommended to the attention of anyone with an interested in reptilian wildlife as a hobby or as a potential career.

It isn't true that Peter Brazaitis loves crocodiles. He had to make this plain when he was under attack while on the stand in a trial against a crocodile skin importer. The defense attorney insisted, "Isn't it true that you love crocodiles so much that you would say anything, do anything, to protect them?" Brazaitis feigned naïveté, and asked, "Would you like me to put my feelings into perspective?" and the attorney took the bait. Brazaitis said simply, "I love my wife. I like crocodiles." The judge and jury laughed, the defense attorney, turned scarlet, and the defendant lost the case. This is just one of the funny stories of a working herpetologist and zoo curator from Brazaitis's book, _You Belong in a Zoo!: Tales from a Lifetime Spent with Cobras, Crocs, and Other Creatures_ (Villard). This is a breezy, delightful memoir that may be short on introspection but is long on enthusiasm and amusement. It has plenty of interesting information about the peculiarities of animals involved, especially the human variety.The title comes from Brazaitis's upbringing. His stepmother eventually became frustrated with his aimless adolescent living and exclaimed, "You are an animal, and you belong in a zoo!" Brazaitis says that out of spite more than anything else, he took her words literally, and immediately wrote the Curator of Reptiles at the Bronx Zoo to apply for a job. After all, Brazaitis liked animals, especially the kind that "... had scales and everyone else was afraid of." To his surprise (and that of his stepmother) he got the job. It was at the very lowest rung of the ladder, "as a broom-pushing, turtle-feeding, glass- cleaning, often terrified reptile keeper at one of the most prestigious zoos in the world." He worked his way up, and he makes clear that it was work, and often dangerous. He has been bitten by a snake exactly one time, while he, as a young keeper, was feeding an Okinawan habu snake. It turned out that it was a dry bite, or only a puncture from the un-envenomed secondary teeth. He is embarrassed about the incident, and ashamed of the many morons (a favorite word of his) who brag about being bitten by a poisonous snake without eventual harm. He is proudest of his professional achievement of instructing zoologists how to tell the sex of crocodiles. The wealth of stories here do not have just to do with captive animals. One New Year's Eve he was called out by the police to help with an apartment full of spiders and snakes which they had to enter as a crime scene. His job was to make the place safe for the police to enter, to investigate the two dead humans also in the apartment. There are funny stories here, like the letter of complaint he had to handle when he was curator at the Central Park Zoo, from a concerned member of the public who thought that a keeper should be stationed at the monkey cage and use a cattle prod whenever the monkeys engaged in sexual behavior. There are scary stories, too. One of the chap

As a former zoo keeper, I enjoyed this book especially, but this is not only a book for the zoo community.Everybody, who likes reptiles, will have fun reading it, a book full of experience, anecdotes ,facts and respect to the animals Pete Brazaitis kept at the Bronx Zoo and Central Park Wildlife Center, NYC.Highly recommended!Ralf SommerladVice-ChairDGHT's Crocodilian Working Group

Brazaitis brings you on a journey that makes you feel as if you are along for the ride! If you are into comedic actions and edge of your seat laughter, Brazaitis tells his tales with a twist of humor that only a man of his travels can! After all, you have to have a great sense of humor, and skill, to tangle in the bush with the most dangerous reptiles in the world and brush it aside as just a day in "Central Park"! I highly recommended this book not only for its educational value but also for its inspirational tale from a boy who just liked reptiles to the man who evolved into an "original croc hunter"!

When I read this book, I didn't think it would be hilarious--but it is. I laughed so hard I cried. What can you say about a man bested by Mack the macaw? The bird tore all the buttons off the author's shirt and pretended to be the head reptile keeper and terrorized the workers by mimicking the boss's yells for assistance. And the unfortunate fellow who had a chipmunk down his pants! Or even the author's graduation, when he was wearing the wrong colored hat! There are serious parts, too, and they give a lot of information about the zoo animals. I think this is a great book for young people--or anyone else--who's ever loved a trip to the zoo.