"When we tug on a single thing in nature, we find it attached to everything else"-- John Muir
KROSCHEL FILMS
Shooting motion pictures that stop the heart, stir the soul, and delight the eye!
Kroschel Films is your RESOURCE for ALASKAN educational/scientific WILDLIFE TOURS and EXPERIENCES, as well as 35mm motion picture STOCK FOOTAGE of AVALANCHES, WEATHER , GLACIERS and WILDLIFE! Filmography Human Health / Media Activity Links / DVDs / Credits
Steve Kroschel started breathing air in January 1961. His parents and grandparents all lived together on a family mink and fox farm in rural Minnesota. Steve spent his earliest childhood years observing not only the life cycle of mink and foxes, but many other wild animals. He grew up raising river otters, wolverines, muskrats, beavers, bears and much more. Upon reaching adulthood, this self-taught naturalist parlayed his intense interest in Mother Nature into a film career specializing in the incredible, beautiful and miraculous. Steve's unbridled desire was to pour these organic adventures into the empty cups of the thirsty public.
During childhood, many of the "biological jewels", or wild creatures Steve worked with, became instant Show-and-Tell hits starting in Grade School. It became obvious from then on, that there was, and always will be, an insatiable fascination and unquenchable curiosity for a myriad of organisms: from frogs to foxes, beetles to bears, dragonflies to deer. Thus was borne the desire and tradition within the Kroschel Family to maintain a carefully held collection of these "Jewels of Biology" for scientific study, educational public events, television programs, feature films and much more. The most effective regimen for this objective?
* A non-zoo technique in which wild animals are imprinted and desensitized to human beings to achieve a humane, biological, and aesthetically acceptable format of profound learning within general society.
These unorthodox familial traditions of educational wildlife exhibition finally were expressed most recently and vividly near Haines, Alaska.
It is in this story-book setting, that Steve and now his own teenage son, Garrett, along with other experienced professional colleagues, carry on a most unique and carefully protected vision of "Natural Awareness" to the visiting public.
Nothing impacts a human being on a primeval level like firsthand close experiences with raw nature. The written word and verbal accounts cannot. Signs cannot. Motion pictures cannot. Sitting inside a mechanized vehicle peering outward through glass cannot. And an infinite number of other ways, CANNOT!
WITHOUT a close-up individualized five-sense experience with wildlife, the passion and concern about the fabric of nature that effects ALL of us shrivels and evaporates much more readily.
There is a FINE LINE between wildlife education and wildlife exploitation, and the Kroschel Films Family is dedicated to the clear demarcation of these two vastly different territories.
The Kroschel Family endeavors to present to you an entertainingly informative Alaskan-Wildlife-Moment like no other. Through live presentations and filmmaking, we invite you to enter an enchanted domain that will leave you breathless, cheerful and filled with determined zeal to sustain all life.
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In which season do YOU prefer to visit???
It's Complicated...
This orphaned yearling black bear cub was brought to us by informed, passionate citizens. However, the bear was held by yours truly only long enough to place inside a specially designed crate for shipment to authorities – its final fate rested on a decision by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
ONLY after proper authorization from authorities, does Kroschel Films welcome the nurturing of orphaned wildlife. The ultimate decisions about life and death or otherwise rests with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and / or Federal Agents. Kroschel Films urgently suggests to those that “think” a young animal of any species is orphaned, or in need of immediate care, to please contact the Alaska Department of Fish and Game DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY, at 907-465-4190.
*More often than not, young animals appearing as orphaned are not orphaned! But once a human touches or collects the organism; with the best intentions of “saving” it, one may ironically have just issued the creature a death sentence, or sealed its fate to a life of POSSIBLE misery in captivity.
Animals held in captivity are an EXTREME responsibility, and with ramifications that can be markedly positive both scientifically and educationally. However, if creatures that are held in captivity are treated or presented IMPROPERLY, it will only fuel intense debate and emotions about radical elimination of ALL such facilities. With a little internet homework, one can readily see this is already happening, especially for privately held facilities. This scenario, ironically, seals the fate of the more sedentary of the public having any meaningful awareness about wildlife and sustainable habitat AT ALL, which is even worse!
“Out of Sight and out of mind”, and “ignorance is bliss” will only aid those intent on specific agendas of trashing the environment and your health altogether for immediate gains on a corporate or political level typically and primarily.
Almost 90% of the public’s conclusions and enlightenment about wildlife, especially of North American species, which are notoriously elusive, is derived from mainstream media. Mainstream media draws on photographs, documentaries and Hollywood representations of animals that utilize captive wildlife.
Scientifically, many insights about, for example wolverines, would remain unknown, without the use of habituated and imprinted captive specimens. It is complicated, but only through awareness and various means of education, will a system that is incorrectly administered be arrested, and change initiated.
