Steve Backshall
Encyclopedia
Steve Backshall is a British
naturalist
, writer
and television presenter, best known for BBC TV's "Deadly 60
'. This series sees Backshall travelling the world in search of predators that are, "Not just deadly to me, but deadly in their own world". He has dived with Great White and tiger sharks, caught king cobras and black mambas, had a redback spider on his hand and was bitten on screen by a crocodile . They are currently filming the third season of the series, which is transmitted on Nat Geo Wild, Animal Planet
and BBC
worldwide. He has also presented The Really Wild Show
, Lost Land of the Volcano
, Lost Land of the Tiger
, Lost Land of the Jaguar, Expedition Alaska, Wilderness St Kilda and Expedition Borneo, and National Geographic Channel
's EarthPulse series. He is also an author with the Rough Guides
.
In 2009, Backshall was nominated for three BAFTAs, Best Children's Television Presenter, Best Children's series, and Best Factual series for Lost Land of the Jaguar, as well as an Emmy for Expedition Borneo.
"Lost Land of the Tiger
" for BBC One
saw the expedition team travel to Bhutan
, and discover a new population of Bengal tiger
, living high up in the Himalayas
.
In "Lost Land of the Volcano
", Backshall led the first expedition ever to enter extinct Mount Bosavi
in Papua New Guinea
, where they discovered new species of cuscus, frogs and giant rat. In 2007, the BBC expedition team headed to Guyana
for "Lost Land of the Jaguar", during which Backshall took part in the first expedition ever to successfully climb Mount Upuigma
,. On the summit they discovered an endemic species of frog and mouse, and also footprints of an unidentified mammal. He also filmed Extreme Caving for BBC One
with Kate Humble
and Secret Wilderness Japan for BBC Two
. During this time he also presented Nature Reports for the BBC's The One Show
. On-air adventures in 2006 included Sky One
’s Inside the King Cobra and the BBC's Expedition Borneo (in search of new species).
For National Geographic International, Backshall presented the expedition series Game For It and the environmental series EarthPulse. For Bootcamp, he completed the Israeli special forces selection course, running 60 miles overnight to gain their red beret. UK television viewers saw him travelling up Australia’s east coast from Tasmania
to Cape Tribulation
for his first series of The Really Wild Show. In the next series he then went on to travel around Central America, the Galapagos
, and then Southern Africa for the last ever series in 2006. He competed with fellow naturalist Nick Baker in a series of wildlife challenges, with long-standing host Michaela Strachan
.
Between 28 May and 15 June 2007, Backshall co-presented Springwatch Trackers alongside Kirsten O'Brien
. Transmitted live on BBC Two from the Springwatch farm in Devon
and repeated later in the day on the CBBC Channel
, teams of boys and girls were set a series of Tracker challenges.
Backshall is a rock climber and mountaineer, does adventure races, fell runs
and endurance sports. He has climbed such peaks as Cho Oyu
8201m, and is an advanced Himalayan Expedition leader. He ran the Marathon des Sables
243 km across the Sahara desert in 2005 to raise money for the Wolftrust and has a black belt in judo.Deadly60 kayaked the Devizes to Westminster canoe race, and has competed in the Tough Guy race over ten times with a best finish of ninth.
Backshall began working as a writer for the Rough Guides, and is an author on their Indonesia guide. He continues to contribute to British newspapers, and his book Venom: Poisonous Creatures in the Natural World was published in 2007. Deadly 60 and Wildlife Adventurer's Guide were published in 2009. In 2011 he is releasing "Looking for Adventure" and "Predators" in Orion Publishing.
In July 2008, Backshall fell 10m onto rocks at the Wye Valley
in the Forest of Dean
after attempting to climb a steep cliff face which was wet from an earlier rainfall. The impact sent his heel bone through the bottom of his foot, dislocated his ankle and fractured two vertebrae in his back.
In January 2011, Steve embarked on a theatre tour of the UK entitled "Wild and Live". The tour was produced by his agent Jo Sarsby Management and the shows sold out as quickly as within 48 hours. The tour will end on the 5th March in Frome. Autumn 2010 Steve went on the road round the UK with their "Live and Deadly" tour, co-presented by Naomi Wilkinson
. The shows were about telling children to get outside and educating them about wildlife and activities. The live shows were attended by 14,000 people. It will be repeated in the autumn of 2011.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and television presenter, best known for BBC TV's "Deadly 60
Deadly 60
Deadly... is a strand of British wildlife documentary programming aimed principally at children and young people, which is broadcast on CBBC on BBC One and Two and on the CBBC Channel. It is presented by Steve Backshall, with Naomi Wilkinson as co-host on Live 'n Deadly...
'. This series sees Backshall travelling the world in search of predators that are, "Not just deadly to me, but deadly in their own world". He has dived with Great White and tiger sharks, caught king cobras and black mambas, had a redback spider on his hand and was bitten on screen by a crocodile . They are currently filming the third season of the series, which is transmitted on Nat Geo Wild, Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
and BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
worldwide. He has also presented The Really Wild Show
The Really Wild Show
The Really Wild Show was a long-running British television show about wildlife, broadcast by the BBC as part of their CBBC service to children. It also runs on Animal Planet in the USA.The show was broadcast continuously since January 21, 1986...
, Lost Land of the Volcano
Lost Land of the Volcano
Lost Land of the Volcano is a three-part nature documentary series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit which follows a scientific expedition to the island of New Guinea...
, Lost Land of the Tiger
Lost Land of the Tiger
Lost Land of the Tiger is a three-part nature documentary series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit which follows a scientific expedition to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The expedition team is made up of specialist zoologists, explorers and the BBC crew...
, Lost Land of the Jaguar, Expedition Alaska, Wilderness St Kilda and Expedition Borneo, and National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
's EarthPulse series. He is also an author with the Rough Guides
Rough Guides
Rough Guides Ltd is a travel guidebook and reference publisher, owned by Pearson PLC. Their travel titles cover more than 200 destinations, and are distributed worldwide through the Penguin Group...
.
In 2009, Backshall was nominated for three BAFTAs, Best Children's Television Presenter, Best Children's series, and Best Factual series for Lost Land of the Jaguar, as well as an Emmy for Expedition Borneo.
"Lost Land of the Tiger
Lost Land of the Tiger
Lost Land of the Tiger is a three-part nature documentary series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit which follows a scientific expedition to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The expedition team is made up of specialist zoologists, explorers and the BBC crew...
" for BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
saw the expedition team travel to Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
, and discover a new population of Bengal tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
, living high up in the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
.
In "Lost Land of the Volcano
Lost Land of the Volcano
Lost Land of the Volcano is a three-part nature documentary series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit which follows a scientific expedition to the island of New Guinea...
", Backshall led the first expedition ever to enter extinct Mount Bosavi
Mount Bosavi
Mount Bosavi is a mountain in the Southern Highlands province, Papua New Guinea. It is the collapsed cone of an extinct volcano on the Great Papuan Plateau, part of the Kikori River basin. The crater is approximately 4 km wide and 1 km deep; it is home to a number of unique species.Part...
in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, where they discovered new species of cuscus, frogs and giant rat. In 2007, the BBC expedition team headed to Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
for "Lost Land of the Jaguar", during which Backshall took part in the first expedition ever to successfully climb Mount Upuigma
Mount Upuigma
right|thumb|302px|Steve Backshall climbing Mount Upuigma.Mount Upuigma is a tepui in Gran Sabana, Canaima National Park, Venezuela....
,. On the summit they discovered an endemic species of frog and mouse, and also footprints of an unidentified mammal. He also filmed Extreme Caving for BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
with Kate Humble
Kate Humble
Katherine 'Kate' Humble is an English television presenter, mainly for the BBC, specialising in wildlife and science programmes...
and Secret Wilderness Japan for BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
. During this time he also presented Nature Reports for the BBC's The One Show
The One Show
The One Show is a topical magazine-style daily television programme broadcast live on BBC One and BBC One HD, hosted by Alex Jones and Matt Baker. Chris Evans joins Jones to present the programme on Friday...
. On-air adventures in 2006 included Sky One
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
’s Inside the King Cobra and the BBC's Expedition Borneo (in search of new species).
For National Geographic International, Backshall presented the expedition series Game For It and the environmental series EarthPulse. For Bootcamp, he completed the Israeli special forces selection course, running 60 miles overnight to gain their red beret. UK television viewers saw him travelling up Australia’s east coast from Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
to Cape Tribulation
Cape Tribulation
Cape Tribulation is a headland and locality in northern Queensland, Australia north of Cairns. It is located within the Daintree National Park and the Wet Tropics World Heritage area. At the 2006 census, Cape Tribulation had a population of 101....
for his first series of The Really Wild Show. In the next series he then went on to travel around Central America, the Galapagos
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
, and then Southern Africa for the last ever series in 2006. He competed with fellow naturalist Nick Baker in a series of wildlife challenges, with long-standing host Michaela Strachan
Michaela Strachan
Michaela Evelyn Ann Strachan is an English television presenter.-Personal life:Strachan attended Claremont Fan Court School, Esher, a Christian Science school. Later, while at college, she briefly held jobs as an Avon lady and as a kissogram...
.
Between 28 May and 15 June 2007, Backshall co-presented Springwatch Trackers alongside Kirsten O'Brien
Kirsten O'Brien
Kirsten O'Brien is an English television presenter and stand-up comic.She is known for presenting SMart, and presented Smile and Totally Doctor Who alongside Barney Harwood on CBBC....
. Transmitted live on BBC Two from the Springwatch farm in Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
and repeated later in the day on the CBBC Channel
CBBC Channel
CBBC is a BBC television channel aimed at 6 to 12 year olds. It complements the CBBC programming that continues to air on BBC One and BBC Two. Launched on 11 February 2002, it broadcasts from 7am to 7pm on Freeview, cable, IPTV and digital satellite, occupying the same bandwidth as, but a different...
, teams of boys and girls were set a series of Tracker challenges.
Backshall is a rock climber and mountaineer, does adventure races, fell runs
Fell running
Fell running, also known as mountain running and hill running, is the sport of running and racing, off road, over upland country where the gradient climbed is a significant component of the difficulty...
and endurance sports. He has climbed such peaks as Cho Oyu
Cho Oyu
Cho Oyu is the sixth highest mountain in the world at above sea level. Cho Oyu lies in the Himalayas and is 20 km west of Mount Everest, at the border between China and Nepal...
8201m, and is an advanced Himalayan Expedition leader. He ran the Marathon des Sables
Marathon des Sables
The Marathon des Sables is a six-day, ultramarathon, which is the equivalent of six regular marathons. The longest single stage is long....
243 km across the Sahara desert in 2005 to raise money for the Wolftrust and has a black belt in judo.Deadly60 kayaked the Devizes to Westminster canoe race, and has competed in the Tough Guy race over ten times with a best finish of ninth.
Backshall began working as a writer for the Rough Guides, and is an author on their Indonesia guide. He continues to contribute to British newspapers, and his book Venom: Poisonous Creatures in the Natural World was published in 2007. Deadly 60 and Wildlife Adventurer's Guide were published in 2009. In 2011 he is releasing "Looking for Adventure" and "Predators" in Orion Publishing.
In July 2008, Backshall fell 10m onto rocks at the Wye Valley
Wye Valley
The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an internationally important protected landscape straddling the border between England and Wales. It is one of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain....
in the Forest of Dean
Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. The forest is a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.The...
after attempting to climb a steep cliff face which was wet from an earlier rainfall. The impact sent his heel bone through the bottom of his foot, dislocated his ankle and fractured two vertebrae in his back.
In January 2011, Steve embarked on a theatre tour of the UK entitled "Wild and Live". The tour was produced by his agent Jo Sarsby Management and the shows sold out as quickly as within 48 hours. The tour will end on the 5th March in Frome. Autumn 2010 Steve went on the road round the UK with their "Live and Deadly" tour, co-presented by Naomi Wilkinson
Naomi Wilkinson
Naomi Valerie Wilkinson is an English television presenter, actress and producer.Wilkinson, a trained dancer, was the senior continuity presenter of Milkshake!, the early-morning programming block for young children on Channel 5...
. The shows were about telling children to get outside and educating them about wildlife and activities. The live shows were attended by 14,000 people. It will be repeated in the autumn of 2011.