It’s in Their Nature

Animal Planet is giving birth to what it describes as a “litter” of new programs. On tap this week are the introductions of two series--The Crocodile Hunter Diaries,” starring Steve and Terri Irwin, and “Wildlife Detectives,” which follows environmental detectives--as well as the second-season premiere of “The Jeff Corwin Experience.”

The reasons to introduce new series, specials and returning series in January are many, notes Michael Cascio, general manager of the cable network, which is available in 76 million homes.

“I think the New Year is a time when people are thinking about new things, so it is a natural time to introduce new things,” he says. “There is a high viewership [of television] at that time of year and, frankly, the broadcast networks do their unveiling pretty much in the fall.”

The one person who has become a superstar in the five years that Animal Planet has been operating is Steve Irwin, the exuberant Australian naturalist who stars with his American wife, Terri, on the network’s “Crocodile Hunter” documentary series and on the “Croc Files” nature series. “As a personality, he is nationally known,” Casio says. “He is interviewed everywhere. There isn’t a week that goes by where there isn’t a major request for an interview.”

Over the phone from a film set in Australia, Irwin peppers his conversation with such “Crocodile Hunter”-isms as “mate,” “whopper” and “by crickey.”

His new series, “The Crocodile Hunter Diaries,” focuses on the Irwins’ real job: operating the Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast. “You see my mom and my dad and me, as a very young fellow, starting a small reptile park in 1970,” he explains. “I took over the helm in ’92. We took it to the next step, to more of a major conservation center--a very large, premier zoological facility. What the concept of the series is about is myself and Terri’s life--when we are not doing documentaries, we are doing the Australia Zoo. It is fly-on-the-wall television filming: what Steve and Terri and their extended family do one day to the next. I tell you, mate, it is just as much adventure and drama as what you get on the documentary.”

Terri Irwin has proven she has just as much moxie as her husband when it comes to tackling crocodiles or handling snakes. “We have so many people working at the Australia Zoo in nontraditional positions,” she says. “I think just over 50% of our team are women. And the women that do the work there really get to test their own boundaries. We are developing a number of role models. We have women who are working with crocodiles and venomous snakes.”

And speaking of venomous snakes, Corwin just managed to escape being severely injured by one while shooting a coming episode of “The Jeff Corwin Experience” in Brazil.

He had captured a fer-de-lance snake to use for the series. Even though it was in a cloth bag, the snake managed to sink a fang into Corwin’s middle finger. But once Corwin got back to camp, he discovered that the fang, amazingly, “went through the skin and out” and didn’t pierce his muscle, so no venom was injected.

While Irwin is outgoing and outrageous, Corwin is funny, constantly making references to popular culture and doing impressions while showing viewers wildlife, usually endangered, from all areas of the globe. One time, he picked up a 4-pound, muscular frog and broke into a take-off of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And unlike “Into the Wild With Jeff Corwin,” his Disney Channel nature show, this series allows Corwin to “be me. The last show, I got lots of letters from 11-year-olds, but now I get letters from adults. TV actors and actresses come up to me. Even a rock band came up to me in the airport. They like the humor and the information.”

“The Jeff Corwin Experience” begins Tuesday at 8 p.m. “The Crocodile Hunter Diaries” premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. “Wildlife Detectives” premieres Friday at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet.