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Julian (Jules) Sylvester has caught and handled more than 10,000 snakes; but experience and skills learned in Kenya, where he was raised, help him to understand the ways of Africa’s big animals, such as lions and lightning-fast reptiles.
As a boy in the bush country in East Africa, Jules was exposed to all manner of wild things. And, he loved it!
His first paying job at age 16 was handling deadly poisonous snakes at the Nairobi National Museum in Kenya. Moving to Scotland for two years, he joined the Edinburgh Zoo as a lion keeper.
In 1971, Jules returned to Africa, and after traveling throughout the African bush, joined the Rhodesian Army as a rifleman, fighting in the Rhodesian guerrilla war.
Upon mustering out of the army, Jules became a herpetologist (snake expert), on the popular television show, “Born Free”, which was filmed on his father’s farm in Kenya.
The show business bug had taken hold, so it was off to Hollywood for Jules. Although Jules has trained many warm-blooded and dangerous animals, such as rhino, wolves and lions, he has made his reputation training animals of the cold-blooded variety.
Having caught and handled deadly snakes in such far-off places as Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, and Thailand to name a few, Jules has never been bitten. He’ll tell you it’s more than luck, it’s a combination of skill, caution and years of handling dangerous reptiles. His encyclopedic knowledge makes him an authority on how animals, amphibians, reptiles and insects inter-relate.
With his British accent and fluent Swahili, Jules is an entertaining speaker and he regularly lectures to special audiences at universities and Colleges.
Besides his Discovery Channel Specials, his voice talent is used in Animal Kingdom at Disney World in Florida.
