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It's CBS's "Late Night with David Letterman" and Letterman is grilling his guest Jack Hanna, director of the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, about a bird Jack has brought on the show.

"And how far can it fly?" Letterman asks.

"Oh, they fly real far, Dave," Jack replies, not sure of the answer.

I'm in trouble now, he quickly realizes as Letterman wryly sits back and stares several long moments at the zookeeper. The audience laughs expectantly, waiting for Letterman to move in for the kill.

"You're not a zoo director, are you, Jack?" he pans. "There is no zoo in Columbus, is there?"

No zoo in Columbus—it was almost the truth back in 1978 when Hanna moved with his wife, Suzi, and their three young girls, Kathaleen, Suzanne, and Julie, to Ohio, where Jack had been hired to run the city's financially beleaguered zoo. At the time, the facility was so neglected that on Jack's preliminary visit to the city a cab driver insisted there was no zoo in Columbus.

Today, eighteen years later, the Columbus Zoo is not only on the map; it is internationally recognized for its success in breeding endangered species and for displaying animals in natural habitats instead of traditional cages.

The zoo may be best known, however, for "Jungle Jack" himself, who has become something of a celebrity to the children who follow his nationally syndicated television show "Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures" on ABC (aired on Saturday mornings in most markets) and to the adults who enjoy his good-natured late-night sparring with Letterman or his early morning appearances on ABC's "Good Morning America"—with squirming penguins, baby apes, or red-tailed foxes in tow. (One fox managed to bite GMA host Charlie Gibson. "I was sweating bullets," Jack said later, "because sometimes foxes have rabies. But Charlie never died, so I guess it was okay. Boy, he never lets me forget that.")

Because of Hanna's success in turning around the Columbus Zoo, other zoos and wildlife conservation groups soon began seeking his counsel and his promotional skills for their programs. By 1993, he was on the road twenty-five days a month-from Africa to Antarctica-consulting and hosting his television show.

I caught up with Jack first at a small six-acre zoo in Peoria, Illinois, where he was helping kick off a major fundraising campaign to expand its facilities, and later in Columbus, where I met Suzi and their youngest daughter, Julie, now twenty-one.

In Peoria we were given an out-of-the-way tent to chat while Jack ate his lunch. Before his first bite, however, a mother with three young children spied Jack through the tent flaps and called out, "I know this is horrible to ask while you're eating, but would you mind if I'd take … "

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