Braving the Wild

Coyote Peterson, the “King of Stings,” brings ingenuity to the next generation of animal enthusiasts.

“I’m Coyote Peterson, and I’m about to take on the bullet ant challenge,” says an anxious and lightheaded Coyote Peterson to his YouTube audience, as he holds an insect that is infamous for having the most painful sting in the entire animal kingdom, the bullet ant (Paraponera clavata), its legs dangling between a pair of tweezers, perhaps preparing for retaliation.

“Are you ready?” he asks his co-host and filmmaker Mark Vins, who replies with an enthusiastic, “let’s do it.” ter sting, Peterson had been climbing his way up the infamous “Schmidt Sting Pain Index,” which lists, in order, the stings of dangerous insects from the least painful (that being the red ant) to the most painful. The only three insects that have earned a four-point rating on Schmidt’s 4-point scale are the tarantula hawk, the warrior wasp, and the bullet ant. Naturally, everyone watching this Indiana Jones-esque man writhing in agony on the ground for a large Internet audience poses the question: “Why would anyone willingly do this?”

Peterson, whose nerves appear shaken, slowly brings forth the famous bullet ant’s incredibly dangerous mandibles closer to his forearm. He prepares for what is thought to be the worst insect sting in the world. But for Peterson, this proves an ordinary day of work, a chosen career path. No doubt, he has taken more venom than your average Joe.

Peterson’s career path has long been in the making with his childhood foreshadowing his career.

“I grew up in the country, so most of my childhood was spent playing in the woods behind my house with my neighborhood friends catching frogs, turtles, and snakes,” he says.

Peterson later attended Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin High School, a college prep school, and upon graduation, he further pursued his interests.

“When I got to college, I got a degree in screenwriting, producing, and directing,” he says. “So once I was out of school, I sort of saw this opportunity to combine my love for filmmaking with the world of animals.”

Peterson has purposely absorbed various stings and bites, including an executioner wasp, a velvet ant, a Gila monster, an alligator, and many more. His Youtube channel posts often go viral. On December 20, 2016, he uploaded his bullet ant sting, which has amassed over 59 million views. Sting af-

Peterson was inspired by childhood icons–Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, Austin Stevens, Marty Staufferwhich. “If there was somebody making animal adventure content, and it was either on TV or on a VHS tape, I was all over that stuff,” he says. “So as a kid, I was constantly embarking upon my own ad- ventures. In my mind, I was a wildlife adventure show host, so it didn’t all come together until I was out of college. It was just [the] right place, [the] right time for me to be able to combine all of my passions together. The want to share animals with the world is the true underlying purpose for everything that we do.”

His show Brave Wilderness holds the tagline “Be Brave, Stay Wild,” which appeals heavily to a younger audience. Peterson says that being the world’s largest video and entertainment encyclopedia for the natural world is his main mission.

“It’s very much about telling the story of an animal,” says Peterson. “If you can actually go as far as saying that you’re getting somebody to love an animal, you have a lot more passion and the need to be compassionate or care or donate or want to share the story if it’s something that you hold near and dear to your heart.”

Peterson believes the most important aspect of his brand comes in the form of education.

“The ultimate message that we want people to take away from Brave Wilderness is our planet is an incredible place,” he says. “And if you’ve only got a few minutes to learn about one single subject matter within that animal kingdom, well great.” how many production companies or networks basically told us, ‘Yeah guys, that’s cute. You can catch animals and teach people about ‘em. That was kind of the old thing.’”

Peterson decided to take the YouTube route. Since then, Peterson’s YouTube channel Brave Wilderness has amassed a total of 20.7 million subscribers and a grand total of 4.8 billion views. And that does not account for his other wildly popular social media channels. He has also hosted his own Animal Planet series titled “Coyote Peterson: Brave the Wild,” which premiered in February of 2020.

With a bevy of behind-the-scenes struggles, Brave Wilderness deals with another modern-day issue that big content creators have: staying relevant. “So there used to be this phrase, 15 minutes of fame, which was more of a television, movie, and music industry type compartmentalization. But in the internet world, it’s 15 seconds, if that, of fame,” says Peterson.

When it comes to goals, Peterson revels in his many accomplishments, but he’s more interested in the potential long-lasting impacts that Brave Wilderness can have for the environment. “We won some awards, but at the end of the day, I’d say that the thing that we’re most proud about is the stories that we get to do about specific animals.”

Peterson began his journey on YouTube in September 2014 after several years of envisioning it with his business partner, Mark Vins. Originally, Peterson believed that Brave Wilderness would make a great television series. He says, “it was kind of Steve Irwin mixed with Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild in a new generation.”

Coyote shares his struggles with the envisioned brand of Brave Wilderness before it became what we know today. “I can’t tell you

No matter what, Peterson will stand by his brand’s purpose: education and entertainment. With the majority of Brave Wilderness’ audience being children and teens, he hopes to inspire future generations of wildlife explorers. “Be bold, be brave, get out there, be wild,” he says. “Just like our tagline, Be brave. Stay wild. You have to be brave enough to start. Everybody has an idea. There are very few people who actually execute on those. Take a pen, put it to paper… Create an outline for yourself, set goals, and go out and start knocking them down.”