How fun! I got into herps recently as well (My interest was sparked at a really cool ecology camp, where one of the courses I took was on herpetolgy). Welcome to the forum!
Awesome! I’ve been herping for a few years now, but I am trying to get back into it now that football is over!
Always been interested as far back as I can remember but the show that really cemented it was Harry Butler In the Wild. he was the Steve Irwin that Steve Irwin grew up watching.
There’s always been an interest as far as I can remember. My earliest influences that I remember when growing up were a bunch of Zoobooks I had printed out and compiled in a huge binder and watching Big Cat Diary before school in the mornings. We also went to the Toledo Zoo frequently which has consistently had around 10,000-15,000 individuals among 700+/- species of animals since my childhood… and thats not including what can be found in the botanical garden, tropical greenhouse and the explorations in the museum of science there.
I love nfkherping but will Robertson’s wildlife is also a great channel
NKF Herping is great, love his channel.
As an aside: what really got me interested in wildlife was catching things when out on hikes as a kid. There’s nothing like having a wild-caught snake or frog in your hand to cultivate an interest in herpetology. Nowadays, I see a shift in philosophy about whether anyone should even touch a wild animal. I realize that we know more now about disease transmission in wild animals and that many species are being threatened by such. But I do find it discouraging that many kids today who might be encouraged to go into zoology can only appreciate many animals from afar.
I was strongly discouraged from picking up snakes and reptiles by my parents, school and media but, you know, as a kid, how can you not…?
My dad and mom. They took us for long walks in the woods and fields, showed us how to pick wild blueberries, took us swimming in streams, and fishing in ponds. My dad loved trees, and my mom loved flowers. My mom bought me my first book on butterflies because I just loved them. My dad used to tell us about the American chestnut and the passenger pigeons and lament their losses. He was also the kind of person who had an amazing sense of direction. We never went on a trail–he just walked us unerringly through the woods in places he hadn’t been before. The man never got lost–not walking, not driving. I’ve never met anyone like that since, but I thought it was absolutely normal back then. I, unfortunately, get lost in parking lots–can’t even navigate them.
I remember Jacques Cousteau’s TV series and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins–I think a lot of kids loved them at the time.
I get told this a lot, and considering people keep getting disoriented a lot from my perspective, I think there’s a point in that. I’ve noticed, that at least for me a lot of it is tied to many of my senses. The most difficult (bar pitch black night) time for me is when the wind is calm, clouds are heavy and featureless and there’s fresh snow that muffles sound so you can feel the silence in your ears and for one reason or another you can’t see distinct features at a distance. I know I don’t do those things consciously, I just “know” where to go, but I have pinpointed the previous from times when I get unsure about directions more often.
In man-made environs it’s way easier. So many cues to orient yourself by.
improvise, adapt and overcome 
well played!
My piece of biology trivia for you is that a sense of direction is actually a biological sense like smell or touch. Some people can genuinely feel the right direction like some animals can.
When I was a little kid I was crazy in to reptiles and desperately wanted one as a pet, so I would spend hours researching dozens of different species and pitching them to my parents. After years of begging my mom gave in and I bought a ball python (my dream pet). Doing all that research definitely kick started my interest in wildlife and now my family can’t go a dinner without some nature fact.
Part wonderment, part safety, part having an interest in animal behavior. All of this launched in my childhood, adolescence, and sustained into mid- and later life. The wonder of wildlife as something sublime (later understood by me as biodiversity); safety because growing up in Florida and southern Louisiana you must know things like - identification of snakes (as a kid - nothing like jumping into a rice ‘pond’ with it full of snakes in the summer), spiders, {etc.}, what can bite and sting you in the wild, waterfowl species, and you have not lived until you have seen an Alligator Gar swim by your boat (pirogue) in a bayou. All of this as great memories in my life - leading to an undergrad degree in Wildlife Science (way back…)
I also grew up watching Steve Irwin. But it was my dad who kickstarted it all really. I’d visit at the weekend and I’d watch the garden birds flitting about on the feeders and in the bushes and trees from the bedroom window, with a pair of binoculars and a little identification book (that I still have). We’d go on lots of walks in country parks and along canals, he was always keen on getting me out of the house and into nature.