ABOVE: DAY’S EDGE PRODUCTIONS
Despite his mother’s intense fear of the animals, Shane Campbell-Staton was “obsessed” with reptiles from a young age, he says. Growing up in an urban setting in South Carolina, he didn’t have much access to tide pools or forests where wildlife could be readily found, “but what I did have was TV,” Campbell-Staton says, crediting hosts such as Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, and Mark O’Shea with making the natural world accessible to him.
Campbell-Staton and his sister were raised by their single mother, first in Connecticut and then in South Carolina, where he spent his formative years. When he was in high school, the family moved to upstate New York while his mom attended divinity school there. During his senior year, Campbell-Staton worked at a local reptile shop, caring for anoles, corn snakes, a red tail boa, and an iguana. He decided to attend the University ...
