Garon became an avid hiker and sportsman, but craved closer access to wildlife and its mysteries.  One such moment was in his youth on his uncle's farm. He recalled a Huck-Finnish experience regarding a found goose decoy: Fyffe's uncle, a goose hunter, lent Fyffe a goose-decoy, assuming that the boy would use it for hunting.  Fyffe had other plans; he cut a hole in the bottom of the decoy and placed it on his head, like a hat.  Then, Fyffe waded into a pond, disguised by the decoy, he approached a group of foraging deer and observed their behavior undetected.  Wild Turkeys approached and Fyffe observed them as well.  He describes this event as one of the most exhilarating and formative experiences of his early life.

Fyffe's cousin, Eddie Jones, of Shelbyville County, Illinois, continues to be an influential figure in his life, and at age 75, Jones actively tends his farm, hunts for food, and catches enormous catfish with his bare hands.  Jones nurtured Fyffe's love of the outdoors and was a capable teacher when he accompanied young Fyffe into nature's classroom—the forest.  "Cousin Eddie learned the art of Hogging (catching catfish with one's bare hands) from my grandfather, Gentry Earnest "Growler" Jones ," Fyffe recalls.  On one particular Hogging trip, Fyffe and Jones made the unfortunate mistake of allowing their bare arms and legs to brush against Stinging Nettles, a plant growing in low, moist areas that is covered by acid-filled, glass hairs, which cause irritation by lodging into the skin.  Itching and burning, the young men scoured the area in search of Jewelweed, a natural remedy for Stinging Nettles.  Once they found the plant, Jones made a poltis from the Jewelweed and applied the salve to the inflamed wounds and welts.  Fyffe was amazed that Jones could find wild medicine in the forest and from this experience, he began to study plants and natural remedies. This led to further study of Indian Medicine.

When Fyffe's great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from Fyffe County, Scotland, he married a full-blooded Native American woman and settled in Oklahoma.  Fyffe attributes much of his knowledge to his Native American roots, as his interest in medicinal plants and ethnobotany encouraged him to delve into his family's Indian traditions.  Fyffe recollects: "My aunts would make different kinds of teas from plants and bark. It is a tradition in my family to venture into the woods and dig Sassafras and Ginseng Root.  As a boy, I helped pulverize herbs to make medicine."

Fyffe's study of natural medicine is intrinsically connected to his belief in conservation and his conviction to preserve and protect the natural world.  "My greatest accomplishment is that I have lectured to nearly 1,000,000 people, mostly schoolchildren, and have succeeded in sharing my passion for environmental stewardship," Fyffe explains.  He keeps an archive of hundreds of letters from lecture participants.  A characteristic theme runs from letter to letter: The writers express enhanced commitment to environmentalism and gratitude to Garon for enlivening them with his knowledge and love of nature.   One child wrote, "Dear Mr. Fyffe, Thank you for teaching my class that medicine comes from the forest: I always thought that it came from Walgreens.  I want to help you protect the earth."

Fyffe began advocating for environmental causes early on, and while studying plant succession, grassland developing into forest over thousands of years, in the Indiana Dunes area, he helped organize the protection of the local dunes ecosystem.  As an environmental studies major at Northeastern Illinois University, Fyffe resolved to study habitats and ecosystems around the world as an explorer, much like his role model, Charles Darwin.  Fyffe said of Darwin, "I'm fascinated by his work in the Galapagos and grateful to his foresight in setting aside this natural gem as an ecological treasure for future generations to study and enjoy." 

Fyffe's own studies have taken him abroad to many exotic and ecologically important locales.  Fyffe examined Jewel-Winged Hummingbirds in Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloud Forest and aided in the discovery of a new species of poison dart frog nicknamed "the Bluejeans Frog" because of its light blue hind legs.  Fyffe aided in Green Sea Turtle rescue near the Osa Peninsula and protected nesting turtles from poachers in the Tortugero region.  Fyffe's passion for conservation took him to the island of Cuba, where he studied the Cuban trade in precious black coral, which threatens the reef system.  Fyffe explains, "Coral reefs are the "cradle" of all life on our planet, as they serve as a spawning ground for many species essential to the survival of the ocean.  And as we are inseparably connected to the oceans, we too are dependent upon the health of our reefs."

Upon graduating from Northeastern Illinois University, Fyffe began pursuing postgraduate work at the University of Oregon; a school he selected because of Oregon's heavily forested landscape.  However much to Fyffe's dismay, Oregon's old-growth forest was being clear-cut and demolished at an alarming rate, and much of the local economy was dependent upon deforestation for its survival.

Upon returning to Illinois, Garon accepted a position as a naturalist and curator at the RiverTrail Nature Center in Northbrook.  He flourished in his role and helped the nature center to expand its educational programs.  Fyffe dressed as a "mountain man" for the center's annual maple festival, when he would drive spiles into the trunks of Maple trees and catch the flow of sap in buckets.  He taught onlookers that American Indians celebrated the "maple moon" or "sugar moon" time in the Spring by hacking the Sugar Maple trees with their tomahawks and catching the sweet nectar in troughs, pottery vessels, or canteens made of dried animal bladders.

Fyffe became a skilled beekeeper while making honey and tending the center's collection of hives.  He studied with some of the world's most renowned beekeepers and enjoyed their prize honeys.  Many beekeepers wear protective gloves while working, but Fyffe insists on tending his hives with bare hands, because he feels that the vulnerability makes him more responsible to work the bees gently and with greater precision.  Fyffe also finds the occasional sting therapeutic for an arthritic knuckle.

Each morning Fyffe would begin his day by milking the center's four goats.  Two quarts a day of fresh goat milk were one of Fyffe's favorite fringe benefits.  While drinking his fresh milk, he would joke that the frothy layer of aerated milk at the top of the pail was his "fancy cappuccino." Garon became known as the resident phenomonologist while working at the nature center.  After milking, Fyffe would walk the Allison Woods Trail and document flower growth, bird migration, climate changes, and animal population growth and changes. 

Each day, hundreds of visitors consulted Fyffe about a variety of environmental topics.  One such subject, which emerged regularly, was how homeowners could get unwanted wild animals out of their attics and garages. Prior to speaking with Fyffe, people were generally told a number of "old wives tales" to address their problems.  They were told to throw mothballs at the creatures, to use ammonia, to play radios, and a number of other ineffective and unsafe methods.  Fyffe realized that these concerns were going unaddressed.  He proceeded to address them on his own time and at his own expense.

Fyffe received dozens of calls each day from people who had followed "so-called expert's" advice to no avail.  He shares a caller's story that he found particularly chilling, "she called the police to report that an owl with a broken wing lying listless in her backyard and they advised her to throw mothballs at it."  The woman could not see why mothballs should be thrown at the injured bird, so she contacted Fyffe who told her to put the animal in a box and deliver it to a rehabilitator.  The woman saved the owl and told her local police department that all further calls should be referred to Fyffe.  Other towns and museums followed, and soon, RiverTrail Nature Center was being inundated with calls for "Garon Fyffe, the urban nuisance wildlife control specialist."

Fyffe began serving callers' nuisance wildlife control needs in person, as well as over the telephone.  Wildlife control was demanding so much of his time that he decided to make animal work his full-time venture.  In the Spring of 1976, A B C Humane Wildlife Control & Prevention was born and has grown steadily since.

As the largest and longest-standing animal control organization in Illinois, A B C Humane Wildlife Control & Prevention receives hundreds of calls each week from businesses and homeowners with animal problems.  Most of the callers need trapping service, but many are simply seeking referrals to veterinarians, nature centers, museums, and ecological preserves in their areas.   As a courtesy to these callers, A B C Humane Wildlife Control & Prevention started the Animal Helpers Referral Network, a free database staffed by experts to help carryout Garon Fyffe's mission of mediating human/animal conflicts and fostering environmental stewardship.

In a lecture delivered January, 2002

"All medicine comes from nature originally, but now we've gotten into a synthetic era; a scientific, laboratory era. So we synthesize a lot of things that are related in some way to something herbal that is no longer gathered in nature ". He continues to discuss how doctors are presently studying natural medicines in the Brazilian rain forests: "It's so important they do that. Here you can get into some of my philosophy now. I believe that all diseases' cures are found in nature. There are cures in the rain forest, not only the diseases that exist today but for diseases that will develop 100,000 years from now: The cures already exist. Cures for diseases that we get from traveling in space already exist. Things to regenerate new limbs. Things to put us in suspended animation for centuries for space travel. All that exists in the rain forest right now. And not just in plants but in insects and fungi, I mean there's so many unexplored things, it's like the wisdom of the ages is locked in the rain forest."

When asked if Alexander Flemming would have discovered penicillin without enough natural areas and molds to support him, Garon's scientific humor emerges: "Well, he could have found it in an orange. The point is that there are so many things that are unexplored, billions and billions of compounds that have been evolved over billions of years. It's a constant laboratory of synthesizing compounds going on every second and it's a huge, huge laboratory going on for billions of years, going on every second and the massive use of sun energy and all the diversity they have. This is the most amazing thing. We don't even have any concept of what all the possibilities are and yet we're destroying it without ever learning about it and its really scary. We're like four-year-olds with a gun, and that gun is pointed at the center of the heart of our mother-EARTH."—Garon Fyffe, Naturalist