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'Naked and Afraid': Cocoa Beach native works with reality show as survivalist instructor

Rick Neale
Florida Today

Working off-camera, longtime Florida naturalist Roger Hammer follows nude, struggling survivalists during the opening week of "Naked and Afraid" episodes — to prevent them from poisoning themselves.

Hammer, a Cocoa Beach native, is a survivalist instructor for the popular Discovery Channel reality series. The wildflower author has waded though countless South Florida swamps throughout his career, photographing 96 of the Sunshine State's 110 native orchids along the way.

"In the Lake County episode, there's two native plants that look very, very much alike. They both have these flat bundles of flowers. One of them is elderberry, that has edible fruits. And the other one is spotted water hemlock — just 1/4 of an inch of stem of that plant would kill you dead," Hammer recalled.

"And those two plants were growing side by side, all along those spring runs," he said.

"I basically told them, 'Don't eat any of them,' rather than trying to explain how you tell them apart botanically. That would be an error that you didn't want to be responsible for," he said.

"My job is to make sure they're not going to eat something poisonous," he said.

Unfamiliar with "Naked and Afraid?" Discovery Channel describes the show: "For 21 days, one man and one woman — meeting for the first time in the nude — are paired and tasked to survive in some of the world's most extreme environments ... with no food, water or clothes."

Cocoa Beach native Roger Hammer photographing ghost orchids at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park.

Hammer has provided field expertise during two Florida-based "Naked and Afraid" episodes:

"Alligator Alley"

Aired: April 2015

Setting: A 7,000-acre ranch south of Immokalee in Collier County

Discovery Channel description: "One Army mom and one Marine are shipped out to the sweltering swamps of the Florida Everglades where they will put their military survival training to the test, facing 8-foot alligators, venomous water moccasins and blood thirsty mosquitoes."

"The Danger Within"

Aired: May 2016

Setting: A 6,000-acre ranch northeast of Sorrento in Lake County 

Discovery Channel description: "A resilient mom from Washington is paired with a quirky spider-lover and dropped into the remote Seminole Forest of Florida. Terrorized by huge gators and 550-pound black bears, they are driven to their physical and emotional breaking points."

Alligators and bears aside, "Naked and Afraid" contestants have much to fear from Florida's far-smaller fauna.

"That same (Lake County) episode, there were some toads out there and they were going to toss them on the fire and eat them. I went, 'No, that's not a good idea,'" Hammer said.

"And then there's also apple snails — which have all kinds of parasites. So it could be a serious problem if you didn't cook them thoroughly," he said.

Hammer grew up in a beachfront home in Cocoa Beach, and he graduated from Cocoa High in 1962. He surfed with Space Coast pioneers like Gary Propper (one of his good friends), Jack "Murph the Surf" Murphy and Claude Codgen at Canaveral Pier.

He enlisted in the Army from 1965-68, serving as a tank gunner in Germany as a tank gunner and ship winch operator in Okinawa. He also worked as an Army recruiter in Cocoa.

After a post-Army stint at a shrimp research farm in Miami-Dade County, Hammer kicked off his keystone career in 1977 by becoming park manager of the Castellow Hammock Preserve and Nature Center, north of Homestead.

Hammer went on to write books about wildflowers, the Everglades and South Florida's natural wonders before retiring in 2010.

"In April 2012, I received an honorary doctor of science degree from Florida International University — and told the graduating class that I used to dream about going to college when I fell asleep in Cocoa High School. That got a good laugh," Hammer said.

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In July 2014, Indialantic resident Adam Young lost 25 pounds while successfully completing a "Naked and Afraid" ordeal in the mountainous jungle of Nicaragua. He also killed and ate a fer-de-lance, one of Central America's most poisonous snakes.

Then 29, Young — a 2003 Palm Bay High graduate — was a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission employee. He also coached at Maverick CrossFit in Melbourne.

An avid long-distance canoeist, Hammer has paddled the 99-mile Everglades Wilderness Waterway solo three times. He is working on another book, titled "Paddling Everglades and Biscayne National Parks."

Hammer remains on call for "Naked and Afraid" producers, who prefer to film Florida episodes during July and August. He cited swarming mosquitoes and stifling humidity among the chief challenges the survivalists face.

"They want maximum discomfort levels. So they want lots of bugs, heat, lightning. That makes good TV," Hammer said.

"They don't want them out there with their feet propped up under a palm frond umbrella, singing 'Kumbaya' around the campfire."

Neale is the South Brevard watchdog reporter at FLORIDA TODAY.

Contact Neale at 321-242-3638

or rneale@floridatoday.com.

Twitter: @RickNeale1

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Indialantic resident Adam Young and his teammate, Jaclyn McCaffrey, eat mandarins in Nicaragua during a July 2014 episode of Discovery Channel’s “Naked and Afraid.”