Published: November 11, 2009 02:11 pm      

LIFESTYLE: Local animal wrangler leads wild life

Love takes on a whole new vibe when it involves fur and feathers. Just ask Jeff Musial, a Niagara County Community College graduate who has an entire collection of exotic animals and reptiles.

While introducing them recently during a photo session at Whirlpool Park in Niagara Falls, he spoke lovingly to each of the several creatures he had brought with him, nuzzling the baby lynx, talking gently to the lemur and kissing the parrot.

“I love them all,” Musial says of the creatures which comprise his company called Nickel City Reptiles and Exotics. When asked if he believes they love him back, he said he was certain they did, at least most of them, because he had either rescued or raised most of them by hand.

“The lemur will hug me, the lynx will head butt — that’s affection in the lynx world,” he said. “And the macaw will give me kisses — with tongue, I might add, which is a little much.”

The assorted reptiles in his collection are the ones that are a bit chilly, or rather, clammy.

“No reptile will give you affection, but they will give you respect,” he said.

And he respects them in return. That day, in fact, he was running late because a python had gotten loose and he had to find the 4-foot reptile before it let any of the other animals out of their cages.

Such is life when you share your world with snakes, kangaroos, alligators and other wild creatures.

But other than the occasional hitch in the giddy-up, life is pretty good for Musial, who is becoming the go-to guy for traveling wildlife shows both locally and nationally.

Musial, who routinely makes stops in North Tonawanda and other areas in Niagara County, has collected creatures since he was a kid, mostly little things he could catch himself like garter snakes, newts and salamanders. It was only after he graduated from NCCC — when the school was one of only a few in the United States offering the animal management program — did he consider more immersive animal work.

He was having trouble finding what he considered his dream job at a zoo, but at the request of friends, he began showing off his creatures at kids’ birthday parties.

Eventually, his dad suggested he do it full time, but his dad’s idea was a bit underdeveloped — something about dressing up as “Bozo the Clown.”

While the clown idea didn’t tickle Musial, the idea of starting his own animal company piqued his imagination. He refined his dad’s suggestion, opting to dress more in the style of Crocodile Dundee, and he began collecting the menagerie that now comprises Nickel City Reptiles and Exotics.

Since then, he has gone from doing local shows and school performances to just recently making several appearances on late-night television.

He got noticed in the hallway of NBC’s New York City headquarters while he was there providing creatures for another more famous animal handler. A stranger encouraged him to send a DVD around to late night shows after catching him joking around backstage. The DVDs were mailed, and his phone soon began to ring.

“I’ve been on ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ three times in the last 2 1/2 months,” said Musial, who most recently appeared on the early morning talk show Sept. 30.

His hope is to increase his reputation as an animal educator while continuing to enlarge his collection.

These days, Musial keeps his animals in a building behind his home in Darien. He likes to joke that “the only animals I have in my house are my dog, my fish and my 6-year-old daughter, Gianna.”

He also enjoys pointing out that his wife of five years, Kelly, was afraid of ants before she married him.

“She says she never thought she would be married to someone who freely handles cobras and wrestles alligators,” he said.

Musial is delighted to have a job that he loves and that doesn’t even feel like work most days, even when he’s up all night caring for incubating snake eggs.

“It’s important,” he said. “So many kids are so involved with video games and television. My whole plan is I want to bring nature back to the kids ... I want them to be able to see live animals right in front of them.

“There’s a saying that people love what they understand,” he said. “Once you love something, you want to conserve it.”

Contact Michele DeLucaat 282-2311, ext. 2263.