Steve Backshall

Backshall's first job after returning from Japan was as an author in the Rough Guides to Indonesia and South East Asia.

In 1997, Backshall attempted to walk solo across the western half of New Guinea, then known as Irian Jaya; he was in the rainforest for three months, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He then had an idea for a series, bought a video camera, and went to the jungles of Colombia, where he made a pilot which he sold to the National Geographic Channel, which employed him in 1998 as its 'Adventurer in Residence' and he spent five years as a producer and presenter.

For National Geographic International, Backshall presented the expedition series Game For It and the environmental series EarthPulse. On A Walk in The Desert he walked across Israel's Negev Desert. For Bootcamp, he completed the Israeli special forces selection course, running 60 miles overnight to gain their red beret. Cracking the Canyon was nominated for Best Adventure Film at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

In 2003, he moved to the BBC's The Really Wild Show.[4][5] In his first series, he travelled up Australia's east coast from Tasmania to Cape Tribulation. In the next series, he travelled around Central America, the Galapagos, and then Southern Africa for the final series in 2006. He competed with fellow naturalist Nick Baker in a series of wildlife challenges, with long-standing host Michaela Strachan. After four years, The Really Wild Show was axed so he joined the BBC Natural History Unit's expedition team.

In Expedition Borneo, BBC 2005, the team went in search of new species. With other cavers he made the first exploration of the passages below the mighty 'Solo' sinkhole in the Mulu mountains of Borneo, and also made the first ascent of the north side of Mount Kuli.[6]

He co-presented Springwatch Trackers (BBC Two) with Kirsten O'Brien which was broadcast live from the Springwatch farm in Devon between 28 May and 15 June 2007. Teams of boys and girls were set a series of tracker challenges.

In 2008, Backshall's Deadly 60 was commissioned, followed by the Live n Deadly offshoot, the aim of which was to inspire children to get outside and interested in wildlife and adventure; his live wildlife question and answer appearances attracted up to 14,000 people per event. In the "Deadly" programmes he searched for predators that were "Not just deadly to me, but deadly in their own world". He dived outside of the cage with great white, bull, great hammerhead, mako and tiger sharks, caught king cobras, black mambas and lanceheads, had a redback spider crawl across his hand and was bitten on the leg by a caiman whilst searching for anaconda in an Argentinian swamp.[7] The programmes were transmitted on Nat Geo Wild, Animal Planet and BBC to 157 countries worldwide. The fourth season of the series, Deadly Pole to Pole was filmed in 2013–2014 from the Arctic circle to Antarctica, journeying south through the Americas. The scenarios included being hunted by a polar bear whilst kayaking in Svalbard, filming feeding sharks and eagles using timeslice technology, exploring flooded caves and the insides of a glacier, and catching dozens of species of snake and crocodile. He was bitten by a shark but was saved by a chain-mail shark suit. The finale was diving underneath Antarctic icebergs alongside predatory leopard seal.[8]

In Lost Land of the Jaguar, BBC One 2008, he led the first expedition to successfully climb Mount Upuigma.[9] On the summit, they discovered an endemic species of frog and mouse, and also footprints of an unidentified mammal. Lead climber John Arran named the route "Spiders in the Mist" and gave it a British grade of E7.

He filmed Ultimate Caving, BBC One 2008, with Kate Humble, Secret Wilderness Japan, BBC Two 2008, and also presented Nature Reports for the BBC's The One Show.[10]

In Lost Land of the Volcano, BBC One 2009, he led the first western expedition into the crater of the extinct volcano, Mount Bosavi, in Papua New Guinea, where they discovered new species of cuscus; frogs; and a giant rat, the biggest on Earth.[11] They also uncovered miles of undiscovered passages in the Mageni cave system in New Britain.

In Lost Land of the Tiger, BBC One 2010, the expedition team travelled to Bhutan and filmed, via remote cameras, the Bengal tigers above the tree-line in the Himalayas, categorically higher than had ever been filmed before. Their presence at these altitudes has been previously reported from reports from India, Nepal and Bhutan.[12][13] They also made the first ever descent of the grade V white-water river the Drangme Chu.

In Supergiants, BBC One 2013, he sought to explain why species grow very large. It included diving with Nile crocodiles in Botswana, sperm whales in the Caribbean, and avoiding 2-ton elephant seals in California.[14]

In 2013, he voiced Nature's Microworlds on BBC Four.

Backshall was a contestant on the twelfth series of Strictly Come Dancing from September 2014 on BBC One. He was partnered with former champion Ola Jordan. The couple left the series in week nine after dancing a jive to "Little Bitty Pretty One" by Frankie Lymon.

In August 2015, along with Matt Baker and Liz Bonnin, Backshall co-presented Big Blue Live, a series of three programmes for BBC1, featuring marine life in Monterey Bay, California.[15] The series won a BAFTA for best live series.

In 2016, the BBC aired a series called Steve Backshall's Extreme Mountain Challenge, in which the explorer attempted another first ascent by climbing one of Venezuela's remote and forbidding tepuis - sheer-sided flat-top mountains. In episode 1 Backshall and his team tackle Amaurai Tepui in south Venezuela's Canaima National Park.[16] The expedition nearly ended in tragedy when a storm hit the mountain, and rockfall nearly hit his climbing partner Aldo Kane.

In 2017, the BBC premiered another two-part documentary following Backshall's expedition to New Guinea called Down the Mighty River with Steve Backshall. The team of whitewater kayakers attempted to make the first ever descent of the 500 mile long Baliem River in West Papua; an expedition Backshall had been planning since 1997. [17] Over the course of six weeks, they battled against some of the hardest whitewater on earth, capsizes, illness and local politics. Eventually they made it from source to sea, although were open that they had not kayaked the entire length of the journey. A two-part series Japan's Northern Wilderness was presented by Backshall and his wife Helen Glover and three-part series Wild Alaska Live, co-presented by Liz Bonnin and Matt Baker, that aired in July 2017.

In January 2018, Backshall participated in And They're Off! in aid of Sport Relief. Later in the year, he appeared in the first five episodes of Springwatch for 2018 and also presented an hour-long documentary Steve Backshall Vs The Monster Mountain on CBBC. In summer 2018, he presented a ten-part series entitled Deadly Dinosaurs, also for CBBC.

In March 2019, Steve Backshall, along with Liz Bonnin and Chris Packham, presented a four-part series Blue Planet Live on BBC One. Backshall was seen diving live with great hammerhead sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks and reef sharks from the shark sanctuary of Bimini.

In 2018-2019, Backshall launched the project Expedition, which was televised by BBC2, UKTV, SBS, PBS and Discovery Asia. This involved ten expeditions to parts of the globe that had never been explored before. The team uncovered many miles of sunken cave passages in the cenotes of the Yucatan. They made the first descents of rivers in Suriname and discovered a waterfall that had no record of ever being seen before. At over 100 m high, it was the second highest in the nation. In Bhutan on the first descent of the Chamkhar Chhu river, Backshall was caught in a rapid for five minutes and nearly drowned. His life was saved by rescue kayaker Sal Montgomery. [18] They also made the first ascent of Jebel Samnhan in Oman, and the first exploration of a desert canyon with a local explorer.

In Venom Hunter, Discovery Channel TV, 2008, he travelled South America aiming to find out as much as possible about venom, including taking part in the bullet ant ritual where he was stung hundreds of times by the world's most painful stinging insect.[19]

In Swimming with Monsters, Discovery TV 2013, he swam with large animals, including anaconda, hippopotamus, Humboldt squid, and great white sharks without the safety of a cage.

In 2006 he filmed Inside the King Cobra for Sky One.

In 2017, Channel 5 aired one-hour documentary called Meet the Hedgehogs presented by Backshall and Brian May.[20]

Backshall began working as a writer for publisher Rough Guides, and is an author on their Indonesia guide.[21] He continues to contribute to British newspapers.

• Venom: Poisonous Creatures in the Natural World, 2007, is a scientific analysis of venoms and poisons with an in-depth look at animals that use natural toxins.[22]
• Deadly 60 is the book of series one, and is a diary style breakdown of each animal and how they were found and filmed.[23]
• Wildlife Adventurer's Guide was published in 2009. It is aimed at young naturalists, and provides a guide to having adventures in the UK.[24]
• Looking for Adventure, 2011, describes his expeditions in New Guinea; his childhood and how he got into television.
• Predators is an illustrated guide to predatory animals.[25]
• Deadly Diaries is a diary-style book of Series 3 of Deadly 60, released in 2012.
• Deadly Detectives is a 'how to' book, teaching the skills of tracking animals by their signs, scat and prints.[26]

Backshall stated "I was a big reader when I was a kid ... Fiction was a massive, massive part of my formative years, far more so than television ever was, and I always hoped that my future would lie with writing. When I was given the opportunity I absolutely leapt at it. It's an idea that I've had in mind for a long time, of these two youngsters on the run who become almost wildlife vigilantes, and it's one that I've had tremendous fun writing." [27]

In May 2012 he published the first of a series of fiction novels entitled The Falcon Chronicles.

• Tiger Wars, 2012, is about the adventures of a young boy and girl on the run from a shadowy gang of assassins, set against the background of the war on tiger poaching. In 2013 it reached the selection longlist for the Branford Boase Award for debut novels for children.[28]
• Ghosts of the Forest, 2013, is set in the forests of Borneo and Indochina, with the same main characters battling illegal loggers.
• The Wilds of the Wolf, 2014,[29] features the same main characters travelling to the Yamal peninsula in Siberia, tracking wolves in the snow, and battling against the big oil and gas companies that are destroying the fragile Arctic environment.[27]
• Shark Seas, 2016

Backshall stated, "First and foremost I hope that the reader will be entertained," but added "I hope that some of the readers – and if it's a very small percentage that's fine – will come away and want to learn more and will want to go out and find out for themselves what they can do."