Photo credit: Janet Donovan
Season 3 of NatGeo’s Monster Croc Wangler is up and running. Amb. Hockey recently hosted a screening and a reception. The below commentary from April 2016 says it all:
It’s a good thing that Matthew Wright has Urban Cowboy good looks, swagger and an Aussie accent – otherwise we’d probably skip an invite to a backyard barbecue at his place in Australia – you never know what you’ll run into. According to Wright, who was the guest of honor at the Residence of Australian Ambassador and Mrs. Joe Hockey, that would most likely include wildlife, reptiles, snakes, and anything that crawls and slithers.
Matthew Wright
“Growing up,” he told Hollywood on the Potomac, “I was into fishing and just loved getting out there and catching a lot of deadly snakes when I was about six……..brown snakes. That sort of drove mum a little bit mad; but she taught me right from wrong when working with wildlife. We had our own farm animals, but she didn’t like me dealing with the deadly ones that were always present as a young kid. We lived in Papua, New Guinea for about nine months and I was off with the locals there catching sea snakes. These are some of the deadliest snakes in the world but you don’t have fear when you’re a kid. She understood that and tried to keep me safe and keep me away from it all so we did a few deals together. I could have my own pet snakes that weren’t deadly if I would stop catching. So it’s pretty much from that drive I had when I was a kid just growing up that it developed into bigger and better things. Now I collect crocodile eggs and fly choppers for four months of the year. That’s just finished now. I think I did my last few days last week. Other times of the year, I’m catching and I’m moving large crocs throughout the northern territory.”
The occasion for the celebration at the Ambassador’s residence was Season Two of Nat Geo WILD’s Outback Wrangler……that would be Wright. “It‘s our own production,” he told us. “We did the first season with Nat Geo of Outback Wrangler and the second season as well. But now we run the production; so myself and Nick and Ash, who are business partners. are in the middle of filming the third season. Nat Geo has partnered with us to do that production as well.”
Matthew Wright and Ambassador Joe Hockey
Wright is also into conservation to save the crocodiles. “We actually put a conservation model together years ago when the crocodiles nearly got shot out to extinction. There were about 4,000 crocodiles left, so they put a commercial value on collecting crocodile eggs, and they monitor it, and this also gives the parks and wildlife a lot of research on how many crocodiles there are in the wild. It’s a commercial incentive where indigenous land owners work their land and same with the cattle stations, like cattle farms – instead of going out there and shooting crocs because they’re eating a few livestock, horses, dogs, and cattle, they now respect the crocs, because every year they get a royalty for their eggs. It’s now $25 per egg, and these are for the farms. From that 4,000 crocs in the wild back in the early 80s, we’re up to about 140,000 crocodiles in the wild. It’s the best conservation model in the world that’s worked. A lot of people say to me, ‘Oh, but you’re going out and you’re pinching their eggs,’ Yeah, what we collect is the majority of the eggs that drown, go under water, and it’s all this massive industry now that protects the crocodile in the wild. To do that, we need to farm the crocodiles and create an industry, just like the cattle station, just like sheep, and like any other farm that you’ll have. That’s where that’s come from, but I still go out now to look after and protect the wild population of crocodiles, like these big, 16, 17 foot ones that are hundreds of year old, might be 80 to 100 year old, you get a lot of respect through them because they’ve lived through some pretty tough times and survived.”
Photo credit: Nat Geo
“The education side of things is what we try and push through the show – the conservation, looking after the habitat that these animals live in. If people fear them and don’t understand them, then they want to kill them. As soon as a white shark attacks someone, all right, there’s a big man hunt to go and kill every white shark there is. That’s their ocean, that’s where they live. It’s the same for the crocodile. A crocodile goes and kill someone, they go and shoot five to ten crocodiles to find that one. It’s madness. This happens,” he explained. Has he ever been attacked was the obvious follow up question. “I’ve had some close calls, yeah. I had one girl run over top, and I ended up underneath her, and I had a stick in her mouth, she pushed me into the water, we had a bit of a fight in the water, and I got away from her, which was good. You don’t get a second chance when a crocodile grabs hold of you, so you have to be ver very careful in the way you deal with any wild animal, whether it is a deadly snake, an elephant, a tiger, or a crocodile. Any sort of animal. It happens time and time again. It’s the humans that encroach into their land, and the animal, unfortunately, gets the raw end of the deal. Bears, tigers, you can go on a list of every animal that gets shot because it’s attacked a person. Now, this is where the show comes in, we’re trying to educate people that you either stay out of their environment, or you learn to live with them.” Wright has a daughter who has taken after him loving the snakes, the wild life – and he’s not worried. “The kids are going to do what they’re going to do. The best you can do is educate them on how to do it. She respects it. She knows that some are deadly, and she knows to stay away from some or to handle others.”
Geoff Daniels is the GM of Nat Geo Wild, responsible for commissioning all of the great wildlife programming on the network. “I’ve always had an incredible passion for wildlife and the natural world; even from when I was a little kid, because my father was an avid birder and fisherman. I think I got infected with the wildlife bug and the respect and the joy of being outdoors from him. Then I think that as I came on in the professional world, I ended up working at Time Life Video and Television, a million years ago. We were the ones that launched Sir David Attenborough’s Trials of Life in the United States. I was part of the team that really sort of broke wildlife programming out to a mass market here in the US. In many ways, I’ve kind of come full circle by now being able to run a channel that is devoted to wildlife, really standing on the shoulders of what Sir David Attenborough did, and what National Geographic has done for many, many years in natural history,” Daniels told Hollywood on the Potomac.
Matt with Nat Geo’s Molly Mulrain
“My name’s Joe Hockey by the way. Welcome to my home which is aimed at all the Australian people. I’ve only been here two months, so I’m new to the Washington scene. We came in an hour before the snow storm, so it was a very warm welcome. I’m particularly pleased that we have the Outback [folks]. I feel as though I know more about him than might be obvious. I’m wearing a suit, he’s not. He’s wearing his work suit. Why? Because I used to, in a previous life, be the Tourism Minister for Australia, so I know a bit about what he’s been up to and the sort of activities that he participates in. It’s not really tourism activity. It’s real activity. Australia is an enormous country that’s incredibly diverse. It’s about the same size as the continental United States. I met a Texan the other day who was telling me how big his property was. Firstly, I really put him off by asking him where Texas was. It really riled him. I said, ‘How big is your property?’ And he said, ‘Aw, it’s about 56,000 acres.’ I said, ‘Acres?’ He said, ‘yeah.’ I said, all right. I said I got a mate that has a property that’s a million acres, and that’s just his backyard. It’s true, isn’t it? You get properties that are half a million, or a million acres.”
Amb. Hockey with Geoff Daniels
“There’s a lot of Australian guys that look like Matt. Sort of handsome. I used to look like Matt,” Hockey joked. “Then I went into politics and comedy. He’s had a great story. He has lived, in my case and in many others, the dream. He is a helicopter pilot. He masters cattle flying around. He deals with lots of crocodiles, which probably means he’s well suited to politics in Washington. He’s also someone that embodies the very values of Australia; that is a great sense of humor about life – not to take yourself too seriously, but also understand that from time to time you’ve got to deal with very serious challenges, particularly in a country that is so remote, so challenging. He does it with great aplomb. The fact that he’s teamed up with every little girl and boy’s ideal business partner, National Geographic, is something exceptional. When I grew up the magazine was something special. It sill is. In fact, I went to the doctor the other day and there was a National Geographic magazine there. It had this fantastic photo of a dog out in the water. I just thought, my god, the quality. My dream job would be being a photographic editor at National Geographic because you get to see the very best of the world. You see all the things that so many people never get to see, and you can share it with everyone. The fact is now, through television you can do it. Through the internet, through all the different mediums, you can share the graphics and the experiences that so many people around the world never have the chance to see. To be able to take part of Australia, and it really is part of Australia, to the world through National Geographic is something really special. Geoff, thank you so much for doing that. On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you. Also, to Nick Fordham who is a pioneer in many ways, very well respected in Australia and great mate of mine. I’m very proud to be associated with Nick and all of his team as well.”
Matt and Ambassador Hockey
“Obviously, a tip of the hat to the man of the hour, the one and only Outback Wrangler, Matt Wright,” said Nick Fordham, Matt’s production partner. “Awesome to see you and to be back in business with you. My wranglers asked me to keep this short and sweet, and also to not spark an international incident. I’m going to read a couple of prepared remarks. You know, growing up in the Outback with Matt … Mum used to say that it’s a crying shame that I got all the looks. I’m glad everyone agrees. We’ve never really worried about young Matty, as we’ve always called him, because his heart was big, his mind was strong. The drive to help people and animals in crisis, we knew that that would see you through. And see you through it obviously has. I know that no one is actually buying the fact that we’re related. I mean I do have his winning smile. We are actually connected, and that’s in the mission that we share to really encourage people to have respect for this amazing planet, and to protect all the animals in it. And frankly, not just the cute and cuddly ones……yhe kittens and the koalas up a tree, but also the ones that will kill you dead. In fact, those are the ones that are often the most misunderstood and need protecting and a champion like Matt. I think that we’re incredibly lucky because we know that Australia has ample quantities of not just the cute and cuddly ones, but also the ones that will kill you dead. It not only makes ripping great television, but it gives Matt a real purpose. I think that what few people really know about Matt is that he was one of the original Wild Ambassadors when we launched here in the US. He won fans over with just his true grit, his courage, his skills in really protecting the animals.”
Kevin Chaffee and Nick Fordham
On the dinner front, we’re still not comfortable with the slithering things, but would happily return to the residence of Amb. and Mrs. Hockey or his place in Australia. Well, probably just the Embassy. “I have a cattle property in far north Queensland.. It’s up in the mountains. You don’t have crocs, but we have a lot platypus and tree kangaroos, which are extraordinary. Very few people know about tree kangaroos. They go up to 50 or 60 feet. They’re about 3 or 4 feet long with tails. They swing, literally like monkeys at the top of the trees. We’ve got a lot of snakes up there. Eight of the top 10 deadliest snakes in the world are up there. I had a boot on when a ground snake went over the top of my boot. Yeah, brown snakes are probably the most deadly. They move so quickly. The platypus is a mammal with a bill. It goes under the water and on top of the water. It’s very cute, the platypus. We’ve got great zoos here. Lot’s of friends that have properties, half a million acres, a million acres, and the only way you can muster cattle is in the dry season because that’s when the cattle goes towards the water house. In the wet season, when there is water everywhere, they’re so dispersed you can never get them together. You get them in the dry season and of course half a million and a million acres … it’s so large, you’ve got no fence really, so the only way to muster the cattle is by helicopter or on horses. I’ve done a bit of that on horses.”
“I was in politics for 20 years. I lived in Sydney. I grew up in Sydney. I was a minister in Dublin for most of my career,” Amb. of Australia added. “Until October last year, I was Treasurer of Australia which is the equivalent of the Secretary of the Treasury here. I was in the parliament too. Here in Washington, I hope to deepen the relationship with the United States although Australia already has a remarkable relationship with the Unites States. We’re the only nation in the world that has fought with the United States in every war since 1917. There’s a lot of dead American boys buried in the city and there’s a lot of Australians buried all around the world, even in Iraq now and Syria, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam, we were there in every battle. It’s a relationship based on mutual respect and trust. It’s a very close alliance and much taken and many people appreciate.” Count us in for the next RSVP! To the Embassy that is.
The Trailer:
