Richard Conniff

The Lyme Old Lyme Education Foundation (LOLEF) has announced that its first annual lecture, hosted by the Lyme Art Association (LAA), will be an evening with Old Lyme’s own Richard Conniff on Sunday, April 27, at 5:30 p.m.

The title of Conniff’s lecture is “Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time:  My Life Doing Dumb Things with Animals.”  His vast experience with animals includes collecting tarantulas in the Peruvian Amazon, tracking leopards with !Kung San hunters in the Namibian desert, climbing the Mountains of the Moon in western Uganda, and trekking through the Himalayas of Bhutan in pursuit of tigers and the mythical migur.  With humor and insight, he recounts his adventures in the strange and fascinating world of wild animals.

Book cover of “Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Things with Animals.”

Conniff writes about behavior, on two, four, six, and sometimes eight legs.  His latest book is The Species Seekers:  Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth, about the great age of species discovery.  He won a National Magazine Award in 1997 and a 2009 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.  He was a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow.

His articles have appeared in Time, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, and other publications.  He is a frequent commentator on NPR’s Marketplace and in The New York Times, and has written and presented television shows for the National Geographic Channel, TBS, and the BBC, among others.

Conniff is the author of seven books, including Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time:  My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals (Norton, 2009), The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide (Norton, 2002) and Spineless Wonders:  Strange Tales of the Invertebrate World (Holt, 1996).

Wine and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.  Tickets are $12 for non-members of the LAA and $10 for members.  Call the LAA at 860. 434.7802 to reserve your seats.

Proceeds to benefit the LOLEF,  a non-profit organization which supports supplemental excellence in programs and technologies in the Region 18 schools and community.

For more information about LOLEF, visit www.lolef.org.